California's Sunset

California is in trouble, politically and economically. This is not a recent development, but the problem has gotten worse since Gray Davis was recalled as governor.

Joel Kotkin takes a look at what caused the "Sundown For California." In it, he writes:

Davis’s apparent inability to gain control of the looming budget crisis opened the door to his 2003 recall and the election of a Republican, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The former bodybuilder and action hero promised to clean up “the mess” in California. He took aim at what he derided as the “girlie men” in the legislature, promising to get the state’s affairs in order. It was not to be. After a bruising defeat by liberal interest groups over a series of propositions, the onetime tough guy embraced what he called “bipartisanship.” The media, particularly on the national level, cooed, but in reality the governor simply ceded initiative to the very “girlie men”—the left-leaning state legislators—that he formerly promised to rein in.

Under Schwarzenegger, notes former GOP Assemblyman Keith Richman, the state budget actually grew even faster—10 percent annually as opposed to 7 percent—than under his spendthrift Democratic predecessor, Gray Davis.

Dan Walters, the dean of California political reporters, argues that Schwarzenegger never bothered to learn the basics of state governance. As a result, state spending, particularly on state employees and their pensions, continued with no notion that another budget crisis was looming.

During Brown’s watch, and even despite his occasional opposition, the Democratic Party came increasingly under the sway of public employees, trial lawyers, and narrow interest activist groups. Their ability to raise money and impose their political will often outweighed that of even the most powerful business interests.

The full bill for this transformation would eventually be paid not by Brown, but by his former chief of staff, Gray Davis. Becoming governor in 1998, Davis became the prisoner of the special interest groups with whom his predecessors, Deukmejian and Wilson, had struggled.

By then, California’s shift to the Democrats had become inexorable and, with the fading of a GOP counterweight, influence within the party flowed to its more radical factions further to the political left. As a result, the state moved decisively away from the economic growth focus of Pat Brown. It seemed determined to wage war against its own economy. As pet social programs, entitlements, and state employee pensions soared, infrastructure spending—the hallmark of the Pat Brown regime and once 20 percent of the state budget—shrank to less than 3 percent.

The educational system, closely aligned with the Democrats in the legislature, accelerated its secular decline. Once full of highly skilled workers, California has become increasingly less so. For example, California ranks second in the percentage of its 65-year-olds holding an associate degree or higher and fifth in those with a bachelor’s degree. But when you look at the 25-to-34 age group, those rankings fade to 30th and 24th.

Instead of reversing these trends, the state legislature decided to spend its money on public employees and impose ever more regulatory burdens on business. Davis, a clever and experienced public servant, understood this but could not fight the zealots in his own party. When the state’s revenues shrank after the high-tech bust in 2000, he appeared to be their complete captive. Perhaps the most telling example of the misplaced priorities of the state’s majority party took place amid the state budget crisis when legislators, facing an imminent fiscal disaster, took time to debate legislation about providing more protections for transgender Californians.

On the political side, things are looking up as Proposition 11 was passed by the voters this month that will remove the broken system of gerrymandered legislative districts. That is, unless some liberal court decides to undermine the will of the people again (which is not unusual, as the events that led to Prop. 8 showed). If allowed to stand as written, legislative (state assembly and state senate) districts could be competitive enough for Republicans to mount real challenges to the entrenched Democrats. Maybe we're seeing the beginning of the end of one-party rule in the state.

If you are a citizen of California, or are interested in what's going on in the Golden State, you should read the full article.