Governing California: Politics, Government, and Public Policy in the Golden State

Who are the people of California, and what do they believe politically? How do Californians choose their leaders, and how do those leaders govern once they are in power? How has California confronted some of its greatest public policy challenges?

These are the questions that underlie this in-depth and careful examination of America's mega-state. This book uses the latest research and scholarship to explore California's civil society -- how an extraordinarily complex state of 37 million people governs itself through politics and policy.

The results paint a complex picture, one not nearly so simple as the handy California stereotypes. Are Californians really worse off than they used to be? Are they all Hollywood liberals far to the left ideologically? Are the recent reforms in their political systems making much of a difference? Who really governs the state -- its world-famous governors or its highly professional legislature? How can a state often derided as a hopeless failure be leading the way on one of the most important public policy issues of our time? All these questions are examined in this new edition of Governing California, updated to reflect the results and changes of the 2012 election.

Table of Contents:

Part I
California and Californians

1. Well-being in the Golden State: The Five Californias of the Human Development Index
Sarah Burd-Sharps and Kristen Lewis, Social Science Research Council

2. State of Change: Immigration Politics and the New Demography of California
Jack Citrin, University of California, Berkeley; Morris Levy, University of California, Berkeley; and Andrea Campbell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

3. California s Political Geography: Coast vs. Inland and Increasingly Blue
Frederick Douzet, French Institute of Geopolitics of Paris, and Kenneth P. Miller, Claremont McKenna College

4. Medium Blue: Partisan Politics and Ideological Polarization in California
Corey Cook and David Latterman, University of San Francisco

Part II
Politics in the Golden State

5. Direct Democracy: The Initiative, Referendum, and Recall
Kenneth P. Miller, Claremont McKenna College

6. Redistricting: Did Radical Reform Produce Different Results?
Vladimir Kogan, Ohio State University, and Eric McGhee, Public Policy Institute of California

7. Polarization Interrupted? California s Experiment with the Top-Two Primary
Seth Masket, University of Denver

Part III
Governing the Golden State

8. Goodbye to All That: Mending California's Budget
John Decker, University of California, Berkeley

9. Governors and the Executive Branch
Ethan Rarick, University of California, Berkeley

10. The Legislature: Life under Term Limits
Bruce Cain, Stanford University; Thad Kousser, University of California, San Diego; and Karl Kurtz, National Council of State Legislatures

11. Partisan Polarization and Policy Gridlock: Does One Lead to the Other?
Thad Kousser, University of California, San Diego

12. The California Judiciary
David A. Carrillo, University of California, Berkeley

13. Local Government: Designing and Financing the Cities and Counties of California
Max Neiman, University of California, Berkeley

Part IV
Policy Challenges

14. Education: Back from the Brink
David N. Plank and Susanna Loeb, Stanford University

15. Water: A Case Study in Federalism
Megan Mullin, Temple University

16. Climate Change Policy: A Race to the Top
Daniel A. Mazmanian, University of Southern California; Hal Nelson, Claremont Graduate University; and John Jurewitz, Pomona College