California

Here's a link to a new report from USC researchers on the demographics of California. The headline is that California's population is becoming more settled and homegrown. Today, more than 70 percent of Californians ages 15 to 24 were born and raised here. In 1990, barely half of that group -- 53 percent -- were born and raised here.

The report's authors, including Dowell Myers, write that such figures suggest a new narrative for the stat -- the "surprising transformation" of California from a "migration magnet" to a "more self-contained society that depends on its present members." This new narrative suggests a different approach in policy -- the new generation of homegrown Californians wants greater public services and is willing pay more in taxes.

We need more of a debate about this transformation. As a Californian, I'm not sure a more stable, homegrown state population is a welcome development. What makes California special is that it's always been a destination for people from around the world and around the country -- America's America. Do we want to adapt this transformation that the USC study outlines, or should we attempt to reverse it?

I think this story from the Kansas City Star officially confirms it: we're in the midst of a national reassessment of the initiative and referendum. (Hat tip: Bruno Kaufmann).

That city -- and the state of Missouri -- are examining whether it's too easy to qualify measures for the ballot. They're just the latest places looking at initiative reform. Oklahoma, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and Mississippi are also considering major changes to the process. (California, where there has been talk of reform but little legislative action, is an outlier here).

Intriguingly, Bruce Cain, the well-known political scientist at UC Berkeley, is quoted in this story. Kansas City, he says, is “falling into the California trap of constant electioneering. And that will lead to ballot fatigue and cynicism. This is a real problem.”

Nonsense, on many levels. There may or may not be ballot fatigue in California. Polling differs on the subject. And, yes, when you vote more often, turnout drops. But there's no evidence that ballot fatigue is, by any measure, a problem. If it is, the Swiss, who vote four times a year (at least) with relatively low turnout, have managed to survive a centuries-old case of ballot fatigue. And they have an efficient, well-managed, peaceful country. California should be so lucky.

And these days, you can never be too cynical.

Since California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger insists he will not raise taxes to balance the state's gaping budget hole, programs such as Healthy Families, the state's S-CHIP program, are still on the chopping block putting health insurance for a million children and their families at risk. We blogged about the California crisis a few weeks ago. It's only getting worse. So I made a video. A health video about a type of thinking that I called "Budget Syndrome."  A major symptom of this condition is "an obsessive focus on taxes and spending."  Side effects include "blindness to the true impact of cutting healthcare spending on our pocketbooks, on our economy, and on our lives."

Compare the economic and budgetary conditions of California and Texas, and you could make a pretty good argument against adding the initiative to the Texas constitution.

But Mike Ford, a former Californian with a long history in the term limits movement (he worked on Prop 140 in California back in 1990), disagrees. He's launched a non-partisan organization, Initiative for Texas, dedicated to giving Texans the right to initiate laws.

Let's hope that if he gets traction, Texas doesn't get an initiative process that is anything like California's. The crucial mistake of California that Texas should not repeat? Making it impossible to change a law established by initiative without another vote of the people. A proper initiative process should be more flexible, permitting the legislature to change an initiative statute after a certain period of time. Other suggestions--that initiatives mandating new spending be required to include a source of new revenue to pay for that spending, and that the legislature be permitted to put a counter-proposal on the ballot next to each initiative that qualifies.

For the past two years, researchers at the RAND Corporation have been mapping the quality and availability of preschools in California, home to the nation's largest population of preschoolers. Their first three reports, released in 2007 and 2008, revealed an uneven patchwork of preschool services across the state: many 3- and 4- year olds are enrolled in preschools of all types, but the overall quality of these programs is very low, especially in domains related to child development and academic achievement. More distressingly, the children who are mostly likely to benefit from preschools - Hispanic and low-income children - are the least likely to be enrolled.

On Thursday, RAND released its fourth and final report. Its recommendations argue for a more intense focus on quality coupled with structural changes to ensure that scarce resources are used effectively. In light of California's crippling $20 billion budget deficit, the report starts with several low-cost recommendations:

Writing at the very progressive Calitics blog, Robert Cruickshank calls the Obama administration "clueless" when it comes to California and makes the case for federal loan guarantees for the state. Expect to hear more anger from the left if Obama leaves California to twist in the wind.

I believe that the state should get those guarantees. They come at very low risk (and no cost) to the Treasury. In fact, the state is likely to pay a substantial fee for the guarantees. But as I argue in today's New York Times, the Obama folks should -- for political and policy reasons -- attach serious strings to the guarantees, which would help the state with cash flow problems this summer and fall. Essentially, the administration (and Congress for that matter) should only help California with its cash flow if the state puts forward a real plan to fix its long-term structural budget problems. Such a deal would be good for the state and for the country.

Calbuzz surveys the 2010 gubernatorial contenders in California and gets a lot of support for the idea of a constitutional convention.

Those of you in the Bay Area may want to check out a lunchtime event this Thursday at the San Francisco State downtown campus. My New America colleague Mark Paul and Noel Perry, founder of Next 10, will offer a detailed budget briefing of the state's options. The event is free, but be sure to reserve a seat (and find out more details) here.

The five budget measures on the special election ballot tomorrow are almost certainly headed to defeat. And California, whether the measures pass or not, is in deep fiscal trouble.

I'm ready for the election to be over. Now we'll see the fight over what we do now. Catastrophic cuts? Economy-damaging taxes? Or some sort of federal bailout?

In the direct democracy world, you can expect to see lots of action in the state. All kinds of groups, from various points on the political spectrum, are readying ballot initiatives that seek to capitalize on the crisis by imposing major changes. Could we see the end of the two-thirds supermajority requirement for the budget and/or taxes? Could we send harsh new restrictions on immigrants? Could we have a constitutional convention?

Anyone interested in the politics of Los Angeles and California -- which are increasingly the politics of labor -- should read Harold Meyerson's piece in today's Los Angeles Times. He lays out one of the internal struggles within labor, involving both SEIU and Unite Here. Meyerson has limited space here, and doesn't draw detailed connections to the state's politics. But he makes the point that the fights (and I blame SEIU for much of the internal strife, which is essentially a policy of self-sabotage) could be very bad for reform in the city and in the state.

In this one passage, he draws a link to how the fighting could spoil an opportunity for crucial budget reform in the state: