Is California beyond repair? A sizable number of Golden State citizens have concluded that it is. Incessant budget crises plus a government paralyzed by partisan gridlock have led to demands for reform, even a constitutional convention. But what, exactly, is wrong and how can we fix it? In
California Crackup, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul provide clear and informed answers. Their fast-paced and often humorous narrative deftly exposes the constitutional origins of our current political and economic problems and furnishes a uniquely California fix: innovative solutions that allow Californians to debate their choices, settle on the best ones, hold elected officials accountable for results, and choose anew if something doesn’t work.
Cuprins
List of Figures
Prologue. Out of Luck
Part I
Building and Breaking California
1. Crisis without Exit
2. History and the Constitution
3. Empowering and Shackling Sacramento
4. From Teachers to Janitors:
Direct Democracy Demotes the Legislature
Part II
The California Fix
5. Budgeting without Shackles
6. The Architecture of Political Frustration
7. Remaking Elections and the Legislature
8. Government from the Bottom Up
9. A More Direct Democracy
Epilogue. Good Rules to Match Its Mountains
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
Despre autor
Joe Mathews is Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation as well as a fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion, Arizona State University. He is the author of The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy, a columnist for The Daily Beast, a freelance journalist, and associate editor of Zócalo Public Square Mark Paul is senior scholar and deputy director of the California program at the New America Foundation. He was formerly deputy treasurer of California and deputy editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee. Mathews and Paul are authors of the article ‘How to Fix a Broken State’ in the March 2011 issue of Boom: A Journal of California.
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