Peter Schrag On State Governance In California: Paradise Lost Revisited?

Peter, you've been covering in the State Capitol and writing editorials for the Sacramento Bee for a long time. What's your take, six months into the Schwarzenegger Administration, on his impact on the politics and workings of government in California?

He's obviously had an enormous impact. He's broken some logjams and there are a lot of people who are surprised at how effective he's been. A lot of Democrats in the Legislature have told me how much they like him and think positively about him. I'm not even sure that he isn't doing better with Democrats than with Republicans at this point.

He still has some very tough situations ahead of him. He has to deal with the budget, not only this year but also next year, which may be tougher. To date, a lot of the actions he's brokered have been symbolically successful, but I still question the substantive impact. It seems to me that the $15 billion deficit bond is pretty much business as usual. With the workers' comp deal, I don't think anybody yet knows if there will be any real savings. And if so, will those savings be passed on to employers? But, symbolically, I think he's done very well.

Then, of course, you have the big question about the budget. The rumors now are that sometime in the next year he's going to go for a tax increase. Whether that's significant or not significant is hard to know. Governor Schwarzenegger is still a big x-factor. Somewhere out there in the ocean, there was a huge splash. And, we haven't yet quite figured out what the nature of that splash is. But there has been a splash.

It's 25 years since Prop. 13 passed, and you've been covering the Capitol for at least that amount of time. Is California more or less governable today?

It's a good question. And that leads to the second question, is there one California? There's an enormous diversity of regions, places, interest groups, ethnic groups of all sorts throughout the state. As a result of the wave of initiatives we have seen in this state, local government has been enervated to a considerable extent. As a result of Prop. 13 and a whole series of other things, a lot of the control has gone to the state. That makes California harder to govern. If people can't connect or don't see the efficacy of local government, they may not be involved with government at all.

The understanding of who is accountable in government also is much more impenetrable today than it was at one time. If the L.A. County budget runs short, who is responsible? Is it the county, because they spent the money wrong? Or, is it the state, because it's taken another x-percent of money away from the county?

So, there are all of those instances for which nobody can pinpoint responsibility. And it's interesting that people in California, and again the record is fairly clear on this, are more willing to put their trust in local government in all kinds of ways, particularly when things are fairly well tied down. People in the last couple of elections have voted quite strongly for local school bonds, for example. We've voted for school bonds at the state level too, but the distrust of government, particularly of the Legislature, is enormous.

One hundred years ago, a group of then-unknown progressives got together to think about how to liberate state government from the control of the railroads. Many people think there's a comparable structural paralysis in California state government today. If you were drafting the next initiative to correct our problems, to right the ship for the next century, what would be included in your initiative or reform?

My short answer is, I'd repeal the constitution, adopt the civic textbook, and go back to giving local government jurisdiction over the things that historically have belonged to local government.

The more complicated answer is, you'd have to reform the reapportionment process, I don't think there's any question about that. You have to recreate as many competitive races as you can, to bring back some sense of accountability to the general electorate and not just play to the extremes of either party. Certainly you'd reestablish the open primary, and we're probably going to have this on the ballot in November.

I certainly would modify term limits to make them longer. I think terms are much too short right now. We are seeing more legislators arrive in Sacramento with no experience and, by the time they really get on top of anything, they're on their way out. I would go with a 55 or 50 percent margin to pass budgets and tax increases in Sacramento. If people don't like it, they can always vote out their representatives.

All of those suggestions are classic democratic institutions; I'm not very inventive. Most of this stuff was invented 200 years ago, and we have to go back to some of it.

You're presently working on a new book, a sequel to your last very successful book - Paradise Lost. Give us some insight into what you're thinking about; what you feel needs to be covered.

There are a number of things that I'm looking at. One topic of interest is the impact of demographics and of demographic changes in the state on its political culture and political behavior. What is the true impact of globalization? I think ten or fifteen years ago when we talked about California being extremely well positioned at the Pacific Rim, we thought this was a great economic advantage for California-and I think it still is. But, it's become more of a two-way street. We also realize that we have potential losses in that process, as well as winners.

I'm also looking at the effects of the further institutionalization of direct democracy. And of course, we had a recall, which has a lot of impact on this state. The recall reflected the weaknesses of the old, fossilized electoral politics that we've had in California. Because of the recall, because of this extraordinary event, we have a governor now who could never have been elected in a regular election. I believe that's what a lot of people now see as a hope for California engaging in structural reform. So, I'm looking at all of those things and trying to figure out how they relate to each other and what the dynamics are.

And then, California has to make an enormous choice. Is the state interested in providing and fostering a high level of public services and good government, while at the same time stimulating business and the economy? Or, is California intent to maintain its decline and compete with Mississippi for the bottom? On the whole, the state wants the former. But, unless we restructure the way the government functions, we may be heading toward the latter.

From your platform at the Sacramento Bee and engagements with many other civic groups, where do you see the political leadership coming from to lead California towards adoption of such an agenda?

From Austria. We have this discontinuity between the population and the electorate. And it seems to me, that in and of itself is inherently unhealthy. And, to the extent that the Latino population begins to get its share of the votes, or begins to assert its share and become citizens, we'll have many more Latino politicians in California. I think a lot of the new leadership is going to have to come out of that community. The question is whether they can get beyond the social welfare paradigm that a lot of their constituents are necessarily very concerned about, turning toward the broader issues of growth, economic development, and structural redevelopment that the state needs.

So, we in California lack an institutional memory because of term limits, and because of the dynamism of the demographic changes. What else do you keep in mind when you are writing your editorials? What's the prism through which you see California evolving?

I'm a journalist, so often I'm necessarily bound to what happened last week. I try to put the past in context, however I too labor under the somewhat sentimental notion of what California used to be. I first came to California in the early 60s, which was towards the end of that great boom period, and maybe I'm sentimental about it. But, that's one of the things that you look for. I'm not suggesting that we can turn back the clock and do what we did in 1955 or 1960.

Today, we operate with political institutions that are antiquated in many ways and an economy that doesn't respect any of those institutions and doesn't respect national boundaries. The thrust of this book project is that California is trying to do something that's never been done in this world at any time by any society. California is attempting to take this enormous diversity and multiplicity of languages, cultures, ideas and so on and create a dynamic progressive social system out of it. And that's just fascinating.

Lastly, when I say the words "Los Angeles" to you, Peter, what do you think? How do you imagine/picture this metropolis?

Perhaps you need a perch from which to look down at Los Angeles so you can connect all the parts. And I am thinking beyond the extensive geography of the city. There are very few people in this metropolitan area who have been in all of its major parts. I certainly haven't, and every time I come down, I see something that I hadn't seen before. I sense that most Angelenos live in and consume the city following a barbell pattern-you live in your neighborhood, go to your place of business, eat in that neighborhood, and then you return to your residential area and rarely do you get beyond that. And those two concentrated areas of activity can be totally different from person to person.

I was at the Getty Center yesterday and I was struck by the diversity and variety of people who were up there. When it was first built, I questioned why they are putting it up there on the mountain-it's hard to get to, and it's out of the way. But, the mixture of people at the museum was just astounding. There's just no way to generalize this city or this state, and that's a positive in my book.