News and Commentary on the California Crackup
News and commentary on the world of California politics, policy, and governance, the California Crackup.
With California fast approaching the hundredth anniversary of the 1911 election that brought us our system of direct democracy—the initiative, referendum, and recall—it seemed a good moment to review the history we tell in California Crackup of how California built and broke its political system. Below is a handy timeline version of the story.
You can see a full-page view here.
In California Crackup, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul provide clear and informed answers.
Their fast-paced and often humorous narrative deftly exposes the origins of our current political and fiscal problems—from the ugly 1879 constitutional convention to Hiram Johnson’s Progressive reforms to the Prop 13 tax revolt and its legacy of supermajority requirements and voter initiatives.
Mathews and Paul then furnish an 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.
Concise, lively, and provocative, California Crackup offers something new: a genuinely democratic operating system for the state.
