Prepared for Panel 30-3, 'Group Mobilization, Partisanship, Ideas, and Leadership: The Los Angeles and New York Mayoral Elections of 2005', September 2, 2006 at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia

With all that is at stake in reforming the government of the nation’s largest state, with responsibility for the welfare of 38 million Californians, we know very little about how to make a constitutional convention work. How large should the convention be? Should delegates be elected or...

Prepared for Panel 30-3, Group Mobilization, Partisanship, Ideas, and Leadership: The Los Angeles and New YorkMayoral Elections of 2005,ʺ September 2, 2006 at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia

Welfare reform has increased labor force participation among welfare parents. But is work leading to self-sufficiency or another cycle of defeat for these workers? The answer is that most welfare workers remain trapped in the cage of poverty.The basic premise of the work-first model that...

Given the apparent lack of new jobs created for the region's unemployed aerospace workers, this survey was designed to investigate the progress and strategies of high technology firms confronting precipitously declining defense sales. Defense conversion programs that bring aerospace technologies...

Recent welfare reform legislation mandates that aid recipients become employed and economically self-sufficient. The allowable interval of continuous assistance is limited to 24 months for current recipients and 18 months for new recipients, with a lifetime limit of five years on welfare. At...

The civil unrest of 1992 can be understood as a manifestation of rage over economic deprivation and blighted hopes. At the time of the April 1992 civil unrest, Los Angeles County was in its second year of what proved to be its most severe recession since the Great Depression. The greatest...

The most salient fact about the South Bay economy is the importance of high technology manufacturing and services. The area's high technology sector is a tapestry of industries linked to space systems, aeronautical services, and aviation; its output includes research and development services as...

This report examines why more welfare parents did not become economically self-sufficient after participating in the LA County Welfare to Work Program, GAIN (Greater Avenue for Independence). It provided information about what happened to these parents when they entered the labor market after...

The loss of a welfare safety net for most adults for most of their lives makes the quality of jobs available to the working poor and their success in finding and keeping jobs increasingly important. The economic and civic life of the Los Angeles region will be shaped by connections that are...