Politics of California
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The recent and current politics of the U.S. state of California are complex and involve a number of entrenched interests. (For historical politics, see Politics of California to 1899).
Contents |
[edit] Political issues
There have been several events, many dubbed "constitutional crises" by their opponents, over the last twenty years including:
- the passage of term limits for the California legislature and elected constitutional officers, which was hotly argued state-wide, and debated in the Supreme Court of California;
- a test of the ratification process for the Supreme Court, in which a liberal chief justice, Rose Bird, and two liberal associate Justices, Joseph Grodin and Cruz Reynoso, were ousted;
- a full-fledged tax revolt, "Proposition 13," which resulted in the freezing of real estate tax rates at 1% of the property's last sale price (plus a modest 2% maximum annual inflator); and
- a test of the state recall provision, in which Governor Gray Davis was recalled in a 2003 special election.
Northern California's inland areas, the Central Valley (outside of Sacramento) and Southern California (outside of Los Angeles) tend to be conservative, mostly Republican areas. Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area tend to be liberal, mostly Democratic areas. As most of the population is in Los Angeles and the northern coast, California as a whole tends to be liberal.
California was a Republican Party (GOP) stronghold in Presidential elections the 1950s to 1992: the Republicans won California in every election except the election of 1964. (Jimmy Carter came close to winning the state in 1976.) In these years, the GOP regularly nominated Californians as presidential candidates: Richard Nixon in 1960, 1968, and 1972, and Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984. The immigration of Chicanos, who tend to vote Democratic, and the flight of middle-class and upper class suburban Republicans away to Rocky Mountain states like Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado in the 1980s and 1990s shifted the balance in favor of the Democratic Party.
Among the state's divisive issues are water and water rights, resulting in the California Water Wars. Lacking reliable dry season rainfall, water is limited and available surface sources are extensively developed through dams, canals, and pipelines. The principle water sources are mountain runoff from wet season rains and higher altitude snowpack (70%), wells (limited by salt-water incursion and overuse), and some Colorado River water supplying southern California (strictly limited by treaties with the other western states and Mexico). Waste water reclamation in California is already routine (for irrigation and industrial use). Most water is in the north of the State, while most people are in the south.
Land use is also divisive. High land prices mean that ordinary people keep a large proportion of their net worth in land. This leads them to agitate strongly about issues that can affect the prices of their home or investments. The most vicious local political battles concern local school boards (good local schools substantially raise local housing prices) and local land-use policies. In built-up areas it is extremely difficult to site new airports, dumps, or jails. Many cities routinely employ eminent domain to make land available for development. A multi-city political battle was fought for several years in Orange County concerning the decommissioning of the huge El Toro Marine airbase. Orange County needs a new airport (pilot unions voted the existing airport, John Wayne, the least safe in the U.S.), but the noise could reduce land prices throughout the southern part of the county, including wealthy, politically-powerful Irvine.
Gun control is another divisive issue. In the cities, California has one of the U.S.'s most serious gang problems, and in some farming regions, some of the highest murder rates. The state also contains many individuals who desire to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families and property. The legislature has passed restrictive gun-control laws. Private purchase of "assault" weapons (generally, semi-automatic rifles that look like military rifles) is a felony. The law does not prohibit sales of semi-automatic hunting-style civilian weapons, which might be intended to be a distinction without a real difference. Pistols may be purchased and kept in one's home or place of business, but it is illegal to carry weapons or ammunition outside these areas without a concealed weapons permit, except in a locked area (car trunk) to licensed practice ranges or other legitimate uses (hunting, repair, collection, etc.) Open carry of an unloaded firearm in some areas is legal but very uncommon due to the confusing laws such as the federal law regarding the school gun free zone. Except in a handful of rural counties, most people find it impossible to get concealed weapons permits since they are issued at the arbitrary discretion of the local law enforcement officials. California is not a "shall issue" state for concealed weapons permits. (ref. section 12000 of the California Penal Code)
A reference is California, Its Government and Politics by Michael J. Ross.
[edit] Bi-partisan gerrymandering
After the 2000 year census, the legislature was obliged to set new district boundaries, both for the state Assembly and Senate and for Federal Congressional Districts (CDs). The Republican and Democratic parties came to an agreement to gerrymander the boundaries and greatly reduce the power of voters of the state. It was mutually decided that the status quo in terms of balance of power would be preserved. With this goal, districts were assigned to voters in such a way that they were dominated by one or the other party, with few districts that could be considered competitive.
In only a few cases did this require extremely convoluted boundaries, but resulted in preservation of existing strongholds: in the results of the 2004 election, a win by less than 55 percent of the vote was quite rare -- only five of eighty Assembly districts, and two of 39 Senate district seats.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed placing the redistricting process in the hands of retired judges, which was on the November ballot as an initiative in a special election (called by the Governor on June 14, 2005), Proposition 77. The special election was held on November 8, 2005. However, the initiative was overwhelmingly defeated, with 59.5% No votes. All initiatives, including those proposed by the Governor's allies and several independent initiatives, failed.
The United States House of Representatives districts are less competitive than the state districts with only three out of 53 congressional districts being won with less than 60 percent majority.
Considering the 10th CD in the San Francisco Bay Area, in earlier elections the almost evenly divided district was a focus of national attention, owing to its balanced electorate with a slight Republican edge in registration and a Republican advantage in electoral participation. The district had been held since its creation in 1990 by a Republican, Congressman Bill Baker, a former State Assembly member, for whom the district was designed. After several weak challenges to the seat by Democrats, the election was hotly contested in 1996 by a newcomer to politics, Ellen Tauscher, a candidate with sufficient funds of her own to be competitive against the incumbent. Receiving a great amount of grass roots support from local Democratic clubs and votes from moderate Republican women, her defeat of Congressman Baker was considered a great victory for what many consider a 'middle of the road' Democrat. Her redrawn district is now 'safe' (she won reelection with 65.8 percent of the vote in 2004) and the recent congressional election drew no national attention to California.
As desired by the two major parties, in the 2004 elections there was no change of political party in any of the district-elected offices at either the State or Federal level - no member of the State Assembly, State Senator, or U. S. Representative was not of the same party as their predecessor.
Despite the supposed uncertainty for Republican prospects of dominance in the U.S. Congress in the November 2006 elections, no California seats in the House of Representatives were considered to be "in play" by national analysts within several months of the election, although a few Republican-held seats offered at least improved prospects for Democrats during this cycle. Republican Representatives Richard Pombo (11th CA) and John Doolittle (4th CA) each hosted President Bush in October 2006 for fundraisers, a rare event in California (and also rare for Bush in this election cycle) that may have been indicative of perceived insecurities in these seats (these Representatives have strongly supported the present Administration).
In an unexpected turn of the 2006 elections in California, Democrat Jerry McNerney, although never having held an elective office, defeated incumbent Republican Richard Pombo, 53% to 47%. In 2004 the same paring resulted in 62.5% for Pombo. There has been some demographic change in the district in the Pleasanton area, but not sufficient in itself to account for the difference, and the victory is considered by many (given the gerrymander of the district) to be an overwhelming repudiation both of President Bush and of many of the stands taken by Pombo, particularly concerning environmental matters. This district was the sole exception, as none of the remaining 99 federal and state district legislative elections involved a change of party.
- Official California preliminary 2006 election returns are available at http://vote.ss.ca.gov/
A California constitutional amendment [1] to be presented to the electorate and designed to encourage competitive districts (but with significant loopholes included) was passed by the California Senate for transmittal to the Assembly on the last possible day for the 2006 election cycle, with Assembly Democratic legislative functionaries claiming that it was not received in time. (Index to news articles, many at no cost but requiring registration.) Although this could have been corrected with little effort by additional legislation, the issue was killed for the 2006 electoral cycle, with some asserting that the death of the bill was not accidental [2].
[edit] Congressional representation
Many leading members of Congress are from California. Among the Democrats are:
1. Rep. Nancy Pelosi from the 8th District (Speaker of the House)
2. Rep. George Miller from the 7th district (Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor)
3. Rep. Henry Waxman from the 30th district (Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Gov't Reform)
4. Rep. Bob Filner from the 51st district (Chairman of the Committee on Veterans Affairs)
5. Rep. Howard Berman from the 28th district (Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs)
6. Senator Barbara Boxer (Chairwoman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works)
7. Senator Dianne Feinstein (Chairwoman of the Committee on Rules and Administration)
Among the Republicans are:
1. Rep. Buck McKeon from the 25th district (Ranking Member of the Committee on Education and Labor)
2. Rep. David Drier from the 26th district (Ranking Member of the Committee on Rules)
3. Rep. Jerry Lewis from the 41st district (Ranking Member of the Committee on Appropriations)
4. Rep. Duncan Hunter from the 52nd district (Ranking Member of the Committee on Armed Services)
[edit] Political parties
The two major political parties in California that currently have representation in the State Legislature and U.S. Congress are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. There are four other parties that qualify for official ballot status: American Independent Party, Green Party, Libertarian Party, and Peace & Freedom Party. [3]
Of the 15,712,753 California voters registered for the February 5, 2008 primary election,
- 43.0% were Democrats,
- 33.3% were Republicans,
- 4.3% were affiliated with other political parties, and
- 19.4% were non-partisan ("Decline to State") voters.[1]
[edit] Electoral system
Only the Democratic Party and Republican Party currently have representation in the State Legislature. However, for a brief period around the turn of the 21st century, the Green Party elected a member of the State Assembly from the eastern San Francisco Bay Area.
California currently uses the Plurality voting system ("First-past-the-post") in its elections, but some municipalities such as San Francisco and Berkeley have opted to use a system of preferential voting, currently used in Australia and Ireland, more popularly known in the United States as instant runoff voting or ranked choice voting.
Local elections in California at the county and city level are officially non-partisan and political party affiliations are not included on local election ballots.
[edit] References
- ^ 15 Day Report of Registration. Retrieved on 2008-02-07.
[edit] See also
- Government of California
- Elections in California
- U.S. presidential election, 2004, in California
- California special election, 2005
- Politics of California to 1899
- Electoral reform in California
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