California Crisis Analysis

I believe that the United States political system being in crisis applies to politics in California as well, but with some differences. The major critic of California’s political system is that it is too dependent on “voter-approved rules a regulations” (Anagnoson et al. 8). California may be a republican government—where officials are elected to make decisions for their constituents—but it is also clearly majoritarian as noted by the massive amount of laws and regulations in existence due to Californians aggressively campaigning for them to be passed through the initiative (Anagnoson et al. 3-11). As an example, term limits were viewed as necessary to prevent corruption in California’s government—such corruption that the Progressives fought …show more content…
12). Another crisis for California is the lack of consensus caused by interest groups. Legislators are overcome by campaigning of interest groups and find themselves unable to come together on matters of policy and principle. A reform idea to lower the power of growing interest groups that tend to overtake politics is to restrict the initiative process—allowing for more citizen involvement and a cut to professional signature collectors that would directly influence high-spending interest groups (Anagnoson et al. 11-13). Perhaps the most notable difference—that is also causing issues—between the state of California’s government and the Federal branches is direct democracy. This is largely due to the aftereffects of the Progressive movement against the Southern Pacific Railroad monopoly. California has a majoritarian government that is large in both its economy and in its cultural …show more content…
337-54). It would be unlikely that these programs in place would be strengthened by some of the reforms proposed in California. California already has the headache of trying to pass its budget due to the power of its minority powers from the dominating of powers of interest groups in a majoritarian style of government, and this problem would be compounded on the national level. Strict national term limits would lead to amateur hour at the White House, and moving towards a direct democracy—with powers such as the referendum, initiative, and recall—at the national level would further increase the power of wealthy interest groups that already dominate much of Californian politics (Anagnoson et al. 32). The U.S. government already has multiple failsafe’s to keep itself strong and functional, such as the division of power in the state and Federal level. The separation of powers is in place to balance powers equally between the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches. Where in this separation of powers, checks and balances exist between every branch so that cooperation is required

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