California, once a dream state, strives to get back its groove

As it has slid, the state's citizens have begun to focus on its core dysfunctions.

By Daniel B. Wood | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the February 23, 2009 edition

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Los Angeles - Perhaps more than any state in America, California represents the end of the rainbow. Generations of fortune-seekers have seen it as a place of almost magical light and color where they could obtain, if not a big pot of gold, at least a good living in a climate where oleander bushes and innovation thrive equally as well.

That storied vision, fading for some time, is now in danger of disappearing altogether.

From drought to high taxes, from overcrowded classrooms to overflowing prisons, California confronts a perfect storm of troubles – one that elected officials here seem unable to navigate with any surety, as last week's herculean effort to simply produce an annual budget demonstrated to all of the nation.

But even as California's woes multiply, compounded by the broader recession, there are stirrings of reform in the land. Longtime observers of political and business trends here see a somnolent giant awakening and realizing that it is wrapped in something of a political straitjacket.

For one thing, state voters, who flocked to the polls in the last election, have begun to tackle election reforms, which many say are crucial if government is to function more effectively.

"Californians are finally sick of all this. There's never been such conversational currency with the intricacies of government by the average citizen," says Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at California State University, Sacramento. Noting that California voters in November approved redistricting reform to help end political gridlock, Ms. O'Connor says, "The era of the disengaged voter is over."

Activism is bubbling up in two formal moves to recast government, echoing the move by state Sen. Abel Maldonado (R), who finally cast the vote that broke the long budget deadlock after winning assurances of support for an election reform he says is needed to bring more moderates into office.

One is a bid to amend California's constitution.

"This state has a crisis everywhere you look.... California has slipped from first or best in country to the worst," says John Grubb, spokesman for the Bay Area Council, which spent the past year building a coalition to push for a constitutional convention that would craft a new California constitution. Political, economic, and citizens groups are slated to meet in a first-time summit Tuesday in Sacramento.

"The thing that drives this coalition is the great fear of the status quo – that we could be stuck like this forever," says Mr. Grubb. "People desperately want change, and we feel that a constitutional convention is probably the most foolproof way to get the reforms we need in the quickest amount of time."

Another group, California Forward, has been holding focus groups across the state for nearly a year to find bipartisan, citizen-driven solutions to end the structural problems that plague the state.

"The reality is we can't exist this way anymore. We can't just keep plugging a hole until the next year," says Jim Mayer, executive director of California Forward, which includes leaders from business and labor, on the left and right, from around the state. The group was co-chaired by Leon Panetta, before President Obama tapped him to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

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