The California Fix

News and Commentary on the California Crackup

The California Fix

News and commentary on the world of California politics, policy, and governance, the California Crackup.

June 19, 2011

California Crackup Gets Ruled

June 19, 2011/ Mark Paul

It's always nice when someone thinks your work is useful, so Joe Mathews and I were honored on Saturday when Californians for Electoral Reform, at their annual meeting in Oakland, gave us the 2011 Wilma Rule Award for California Crackup. CFER is a model of the kind of reform group California needs: grassroots, composed of people from across the political spectrum, committed to thinking deeply about how we can bring modern electoral and governing ideas into our creaky institutions. You can learn more about CFER at its website.

The California Fix

In California Crackup, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul provide clear and informed answers.

Their fast-paced and often humorous narrative deftly exposes the origins of our current political and fiscal problems—from the ugly 1879 constitutional convention to Hiram Johnson’s Progressive reforms to the Prop 13 tax revolt and its legacy of supermajority requirements and voter initiatives.

Mathews and Paul then furnish an uniquely California fix: innovative solutions that allow Californians to debate their choices, settle on the best ones, hold elected officials accountable for results, and choose anew if something doesn’t work.

Concise, lively, and provocative, California Crackup offers something new: a genuinely democratic operating system for the state.

The California Fix

The California Fix

The California Fix

The California Fix

The California Fix

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