Column: California voters don’t like where the state’s headed. But they still want Newsom in office.
California has just voted for a brand new governor.
But California isn’t as California anymore. It is now a place where the state’s power brokers and big donors are pushing for a radically different agenda from the state’s voters.
It’s time to stop pretending that California has a future as a functioning democracy.
It is not just that the state no longer has a future as a functioning democracy. In many ways, California is becoming a dysfunctional society.
For decades, California voters have been content to let the state’s power brokers and big donors shape their own future. If voters wanted more services or more jobs, they weren’t going to let politicians and big donors make decisions for them.
But today, the voters of California are being forced to become active and assert their political will. As a consequence, politicians, big donors, and corporate interests are increasingly trying to rewrite, or re-imagine, the state’s governing institutions, all at the ballot box.
One of those institutions is the state Assembly.
After the 2014 election, the California Assembly became a laboratory for the “California Dream Act” (Proposition 77), a huge state government spending initiative that would overhaul the state’s electoral system.
The proponents of the California Dream Act — including then-Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins and then-Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg — promised that Prop. 77 would not have a big effect on the Assembly’s membership, but their promise was illusory.
Just months into the legislative session, the Assembly rejected the budget proposals of both Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon.
After the Assembly adjourned, the Assembly’s leaders began trying to change the rules to make it more difficult to reject the budget proposals of their own members.
California has a dysfunctional government