Devin Shephard
Political Science
Prof. Fong
March 1, 2017
California Politics and Government California is the wealthiest and most diverse state in the country. Just like the National government, California is comprised of three branches; Legislative, Executive and Judicial. The legislative branch is the largest, and is made up of the state Senate and Assembly. The Assembly consists of eighty representatives, one from each county, to serve for up to three two year terms. The California Senate holds forty Senators, who are allowed a maximum of two four year terms. The Executive branch consists of the state Governor and a group of elected constitutional officers. The final branch, the Judicial branch, is made up of California’s supreme court,
…show more content…
Proposition 13 is a prominent initiative seen as having drastic effect on California, for it placed a cap on property tax, which decrease the source of the state’s revenue. A more lasting consequence of Proposition 140 is it created a two-thirds majority rule in the legislature to create new revenues. Having such stipulation hindered the legislature to efficiently do their jobs. A similar proposition that created fiscal constraints was Proposition 58, which created an “$8 Billion rainy day reserve fund, and prohibited future barrowing to cover deficits.” As we see in fiscally related propositions, they make the job of the legislators harder by mandating certain things or creating …show more content…
We see that the passage of these initiatives affected the ability of the legislature to create important policies. Proposition 140 is a reform initiative that drastically changed the fundamentals of the legislative system. This proposition halted the cycle of institutional knowledge for legislators who become experts in certain policies. They are barred from running for office once the term limit is fulfilled. In the bigger picture, legislative committee leaders are sometimes new legislators who do not have expertise in the policy. This is problematic because lack of expertise hinders the creation of innovative and effective policy. Proposition 140 created a better over turn thus, giving minorities and women the chance to represent their constituents; the point of the term limit was to repopulate the legislature. By creating this constant repopulation, it allows expertise to be achieved by legislators but it bars them to contribute into policy making once their term limit is achieved. Proposition 118 on the other hand intends to change the composition of the legislature but makes it harder for redistricting to occur. By passing Proposition 118, the legislature will not be able to represent the people of California accurately; thus, creating policy problems since enacted policies will not
The first proposal, of changing the electoral system for the House of Representatives, would mean that each state is represented in proportion to its population. This entails that states with higher populations will receive more votes because they have more seats in the House. Less populous states may argue against this reform because they will have a disadvantage when it comes to voting on legislation. However, the reform also includes having each state serve as electoral districts. In this case, multi-member districts will be needed—proportional representation will require a larger district magnitude. Having these territorial subdivisions will help create an efficient legislative system because there would be less possibility of manipulating the votes—not as relevant to election results when seats are proportional. Having the votes distributed in this manner may help avoid a deadlock and therefore, allow for a faster process when passing legislation. In addition, minorities will have chance to be represented by possibly gaining a seat in a particular district—a highly populous
California is the most expensive and the beautiful cities of the world. It is the one of the populous states of the USA. California is very beautiful and attractive for the tourist. Because the state of California contains almost all types of weather conditions in different parts of the State. As far as the California is beautiful but is also one of the expensive States of the USA. Because the California is situated near the Pacific Cost due to which the tourist and the peoples all arounds the worlds come to see the Natural scenes and different types of Tourist sites in the State. If someone wants to his vacations memorable then he visits the city of dream California. Because California is one of the expensive
The structure of the legislative arm is simple. It comprises of the assembly and the senate just like the federal government. In California, the state assembly comprises 80 members who are elected on a two-year term. The state senate comprises 40 members elected on a four year term. The requirements for election into office are: US citizen 18 years of age, resident
In short, Proposition 140 was an initiated constitutional amendment that sought to reform several key aspects of its own state legislature. One such reform limited the amount the of expenditures the legislature could spend on staff. Another reform barred state legislatures from earning
Our Legislative Branch has two chambers or as some will call it bicameral. The chambers consist of the Senate and the House of Representatives just like the National Legislative Branch. In our Senate we currently have a total of 31
California's Proposition 13 had a big impact on American government and public policy because it put to vote the reduction of property taxes. This Proposition had a great impact as it swept the county and made headlines in newspapers around the world. People used this initiative process to gain a greater control over their lives. The California taxpayers stood up and said no more to excessive taxes because they were tired of out of control property taxes and losing their homes because they could not pay property taxes while the government did nothing to help them. This in turn hurt the schools, cities, counties and special districts. From this proposition, we have a few others like
In an article titled, “How Much Should State Legislators Get Paid” by Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, it discusses the benefits of increasing a state legislator’s salary. Peverill Squire, a professor of political science at the University of Missouri and an expert on state legislatures created a scale which created to assess professionalism. “The question of salaries has haunted American legislatures since the 1640s,” said Squire. With the use of this scale, the question received a possible answer. Politicians found the state legislatures who meet for longer time periods and give their legislators more resources are capable of being more productive and doing a better job. “…more resources…are more efficient, passing a greater percentage of bills overall and enacting more bill per legislative day” (Thomson-DeVeaux). Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux makes reasonable points in her article on reasons why state legislators should receive a higher salary however, she didn’t take into consideration that politicians are going to try and make a career out of being a state legislature. With an increased salary, legislatures aren’t necessarily agreeing or promising to work better or efficiently. If they aren’t agreeing to doing more or doing better, why should we increase their
Abstract: The term limits movement for state legislatures has been gaining momentum. Fourteen states adopted limit initiatives in 1992. The goal of this final paper was to determine the factors that have contributed to the growth of the term limits movement. Much background research was conducted to determine the characteristics of the movement. Past research suggested several apparent reasons for the growth of the movement. These reasons included the existence of direct initiative, rates of legislator turnover, incumbency, regional political culture, citizen involvement, and the influence of interest groups.The overall questions for the project were to evaluate the factors which may have affected the movement. Including: what factors have influenced the growth of the term limits movement? In order to answer this question several hypotheses were tested for factors which have been used to explain the movement. The overall research conclusion was that the only explanatory factor for the growth of the term limits movement was the existence of the direct state initiative. The other factors include the regulation of the congressional developments. More states would have term limits if they had the power of initiative and term limits will likely be restricted to states which have this power, however, they should be placed in congress.
This week’s topic of California becoming such a diverse powerhouse in the U.S and also how California being such a diverse state plays an important role in the U.S. government”. California is a hybrid democracy which means there are two types of democracies within California’s government. Representative means that we elect of political officials that best represents our interests. This also happens on a federal level which is why we have various elections throughout the years that allows us to vote for who we want in Congress, also on who we want to be our president. Direct Democracy gives power to the people in California allowing us to have a voice in how we want to see our state government run California (The Basics, 3:33). These two democracies
Just as long as the U.S. Congress is reelected, they have an unlimited term. The California legislature, on the other hand, are limited to two-year terms in the Assembly and two 4-year terms in the Senate.
Proposition 50 was the only California state proposition on the primary ballot last June. Due to current law, no official can be suspended and stripped of their benefits or salary, causing them to be able to get away with actions they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with. Due to many recent actions involving the issues of suspension Prop 50 was drafted. This proposition was designed to refuse legislative members’ salaries, pensions, or other privileges of their office if they have been suspended by a two-thirds vote from the state legislation. Voting yes would allow the legislature the ability to suspend a member and his pay. It gained bipartisan support on this proposition because of recent events that have shed new light on how corrupt
Initiatives like any other issues have two sides to it; we must assess both sides to get a better scope of the issue. Contrary to the believe, propositions gave some benefits to the people of California as well as the legislature. In 1911 the California legislature passed the initiative process and was later approved through an election by Californians. By doing so Californians were given the right to directly vote on constitutional amendments and statues. In California, the legislature is prohibited from repealing or amending any statutory initiatives. The first initiative that had a beneficial effect on the legislature is Proposition 1A, which professionalized the California legislature by increasing their salary from $6,000 to $16,000 per
The 2010 Nevada referendum, commonly known as question 1, would change the way judicial elections are held in this state. Under this proposed constitutional amendment, a Commission on Judicial Selection would be created with the task of recommending candidates to the governor for the appointment of open judicial seats. After the governor appoints the candidate to that position, that candidate would have to run for a retention election in two years. If the candidate receives more than 55% of the vote, then that individual would then serve the remainder of the 6 years term with the possibility of running for another retention election assuming the candidate seeks a second term. One of the reasons that may explain why this ballot initiative was
Gaurav Sharma Professor Sherry Sharifian Texas Government 2306 SLO#3 April 24, 2017 Local Control in Texas In Texas, there are very many functional Interest groups and lobbyists that operate effectively influencing the policy-making processes. The Interest groups and lobbyists are in close association with policy-makers whereby they act as negotiators of democracy to the citizens who cannot reach the legislatures (Texas Vox: 1). This has impacted local control in Texas greatly. However, the nature of laws that have been passed recently in Texas shows that the policy-makers are diverging from interest from the citizens and favoring individual groups and companies. The following essay will address the impact depicted by Interest groups and lobbyists
I have been informed upon an issue that needs to be addressed. Whether or not the citizens of California should be able to put legislation directly onto the ballot by obtaining signatures. I believe that that should not be allowed at this time. I would like for the will of the people to be met, but at this time this is not the best way to achieve this goal. I know that there are many educated people know that do know a lot about the government and would be able to recommend some helpful bills. However, there are a plethora of problems using that system. For example, voters are usually quite uncaring for other people's feelings and beliefs. Some would like to get rid of bail, while maybe that person is in fact innocent