Power and Politics in California - Essay Example

Reflection paper During the twenty first century, the political structure of the of California was completely shaken by a number of different events which took place at that time. According to DeBow and Syer (p.3), the occurrence of events like economic recession, the recall of a governor who was in sitting and energy crisis among others influence the entire normal politics in California State resulting in nothing but political turmoil. This was therefore, a situation that brought several institutional and constitutional changes to the state of California at that time because, other political figures emerged with different leadership style and many things Apart from these link of the economic condition in California with the leadership, another important thing to understand is how the changes that occurred in the structure of the legislature all through to the tenure of Schwarzenegger as the governor. The legislature was initially among the most professional during the period which California experience energetic expansion of the public sector and innovation of policy. The state led in the policies of civil rights as well as environmental rights. The legislature was then two-housed with 80 members in the lower house and 40 members in the upper house with the function to enact laws, deliberate on the many bills being introduced and reviewing other responsibilities assigned to individual legislators (DeBow and Syer, p.33). The constitution of the state of California therefore outlined the methods in which the constitution could be modified. One of these methods was through amendment which was based on majority proposals in the two legislature houses and upheld by the voters. The other ways was through revision which was taken in at a convention which was constitutional. According to Grodin (p.1), a contradiction however came in the power of proposing revisions. This was then taken up to court where the Supreme Court declared that it was within the power of the legislature to propose revisions. Regarding this then, the progressives came up with initiative that was defined to give electors the power to make proposals on statutes as well as constitution amendments. This was a good idea because it allowed the voters to participate in the amending of constitution The process of initiative then changed later to allow proposal be determined by two-thirds of votes in both the upper and lower house (Grodin, p. 2). The problem with this initiative process though, there is bias against the republican group which are the minority in the two house of the legislature. The wishes of both parties may not be fully attended by the amended constitution and the proposals will based on the majority group. The rights of the minority or individuals may not concur well with the provisions of the constitution because of the different number of republicans and the democrats. DeBow and Syer (p.5), then explain that around 1990, democrats controlled all of California’s coastal districts and two seats in the county of San Diego. The republicans had control of about 19 congressional districts of which 13 of them are inland now and the fastest growing region in California. The racial composition has also been changing with the Asian-American race being the most growing population by about 31.5% rate. By the end of the year 2010, the whites were about 40% of the total population, the Asians 13%, blacks 6% and Hispanic race was 38% of the population. This therefore, means that the population of California is composed of the whites and Hispanic people. Considering these statistics then, it is clear that California does not have a majority racial or ethnic group. While the population of the blacks and whites is declining in growth, the Latinos and Asian population is growing. It is then likely that the Hispanic will become the popular group in the future. On the contrary the whites and blacks will become the lowest composition of the population. The contradicting part is that as much the non-Hispanic whites are not the majority, the group forms the majority in the public voting group in California. This then explains the fact that growth in population is not directly tied to the number of voters from a particular group (Debow and Syer, p. 177). The State of California however, had weak party structure with the segments of party which was in the government, the organization of the party and the party which was in the electorate (DeBow and Syer, p.159). The ranks of the party were then affected by the instability in the ties between the major party and the number of voters which is growing. In regards to this then, there have been changes and variations in the electoral fortunes for the democrat’s and republican parties. In the year 1994, the republicans almost became the dominating party in the state of California but this was resolved when Bill Clinton carried it and regained control for the democrats. Even after Schwarzenegger was voted in as the governor, the strength of the republicans has not increased nor decreased (DeBow and Syer, p.164). This could due to the fact that the attachment of voters to parties in California is not very stabilized. In that case then, party affiliation cannot be used as an assurance in determining the political success. Strengthening of parties has since then deemed better because many argue that politics based on parties are more democratic than those based on interest groups. The objective of political parties is to increase support among citizens but this is not the case for interest groups. The system based on party politics will make voters feel the worth of their votes and this will encourage other potential voters to participate in the voting process in future. There will be a clear direction on policies also for the voters to make clear choices instead of differing policies based on personality contests. Having made a decision to strengthen political parties it would be better to take a certain particular approach that is bound to be successful. It would be wise to consider straight party method of voting rather than the spilt-ticket (DeBow and Syer, p. 27). Some of the local government offices which have been selected may also consider reverting to partisan offices from the common nonpartisan. It also e effective if the civil services positions are reduced and more appointments are given to the party activists. This approach may face the challenge if the people of California are used to the tradition of voting for the candidate instead of the party because they want an approach of problem solving to public issues rather the partisan way. The approach may also suffer from the impact of non-voters who are eligible to vote but are not registered to vote. The population of potential voters may be very high but the people who are likely to vote are very low. For example, statistics from public policy institute show that the number of voters who are likely to voting for wanting government services is 49% while those who want the same services but are not registered to vote is 72% (DeBow and Syer, p.164). Again this affirms the fact that the political success of any party cannot be determined through the party’s political affiliations. In the period between the end of the 2000 and early 2001 when Gray Davis was the governor of California, the state faced some national recession across all the segments in the economy. Furthermore, this occurred simultaneously with the collapsing of dot-com industry. Therefore, the total amount revenue through taxes on capital gains decreased immensely and the state eventually fell into a budget deficit. The governor’s responses on the issue of budget deficit thus created a negative image of him among the voters in California. This is because Davis used fiscal policies which inappropriate in attempt to curb the fiscal crisis in the state. At that time, there was a balancing of budget through several accounting tricks and borrowing to come up with figures that reduced (DeBow and Syer, p.220). There was a cut on certain programs and some fees like license fee and university fee were increased. This was a very poor response to economic crisis because it was not in any way improving the social welfare of the citizens. As much as fiscal policies may be required to increase the tax revenue, the welfare of the people should also be considered. However, this was not the case because, the policies increased university fees and cut down on programs that were helpful to the general society. With the issue of energy crisis that Davis put blames on his predecessor; his good name was completely tarnished. His responses were very indecisive and untimely to arrest the situation that was facing California then. It was until a massive deficit was experienced when a decision was made to recall the governor under the condition that no political officeholder was to replace the governor. As explained by (DeBow and Syer (p.189), it was then that Arnold Schwarzenegger presented himself as a candidate and was accepted by the voters. As governor then Schwarzenegger kept his personal stock very high and this was what reinforced his message of the transformation of Sacramento. He was then able to embrace the issues that were facing the state according to wishes of the voters and attained prominence even beyond the state of California. He was then not only a national political figure but international as well. One can then say that this was a good start for Schwarzenegger because he did not seem like the other popular politicians would just give promises and the moment they are in office they forget to fulfill them. During the leadership of Schwarzenegger as a governor, some political reforms were enacted after they were approved through initiative and voting in a referendum. These reforms were then meant to put an end to the tailoring of congressional districts to needs of majority party or incumbents and instead, independent commissions draw the lines so as to bring out a reflection of actual borers of the communities in California. Another section of the reform allows all primaries to be multipartisan and the competing candidates battle it out in the general elections without any consideration of their political affiliation (Klein, 2014). This was a very good idea because it enables centrists get some favor on it instead of giving it all to politicians that work on to the base of their own parties. As Klein (2014) explains, Dan Schnur being one of the people who worked on passing the reforms later came to benefit on running for the state’s secretary independently aiming to win in the Primary Jungle which was ahead of them. Others who were able to run for the elections included Moore who was a republican and Tom McClintock who has served a three term as an incumbent known for his common constitutionalist orneriness. It was for this Jungle Primary that all of them were trying to express their agenda for the state hoping to make it through to the general election. On clear thing is that most of them like McClintok see this as a way of building their political image but most of them lean on the manifestos of funding local projects, pursuing social justice and the rights of citizens among other issues in the state. References list DeBow, K. and Syer, J. C. 2009. Power and Politics in California, Ninth Edition. Sacramento: Longman Publishing Group. Grodin, J. R. (2009). “On Amending and Revising the Constitution: The Issues behind the Challenge to Proposition 8.” The California Journal of Politics and Policy. California: The Berkeley Electronic Press. Klein, J. (2014). California’s New Jungle Primary System. May 15, 2014, Time Magazine. Accessed on November 17, 2014 from http://time.com/100556/the-jungle-primary/. Read More