In 2009, Matthew Jarvis and I offered differing opinions in this journal about the potential effects of redistricting reform on California’s budgetary process. Jarvis suggested redistricting reform could help the process by either reducing legislative polarization, or giving Democrats the...

For the first time in California history, a carefully vetted commission of citizens has overseen the delicate task of redrawing the state�s political boundaries. By analyzing the maps produced by the commission and comparing these plans to the redistricting overseen by the legislature a decade...

Thirty years after its passage, Proposition 13 did the job it was intended it to do. People are secure in their homes because the property tax is controlled and state government has not been shortchanged.

Thirty years after voters ushered in the tax revolt by passing Prop. 13, it remains the third rail of California government. In the throes of the budget crisis of 2008, there was no serious talk of reforming the property tax system. Prop. 13 was opposed by the elite, supported by the masses, and...

Much of the best scholarship on the economic or fiscal impacts of Proposition 13 probably understates those impacts, because it considers only impacts of property tax limitation in California. Proposition 13 spilled over from California into other states. It spilled over from the property tax...

Opponents of Prop. 13 make a political miscalculation as serious as that which conservatives did with Social Security. For 30 years, they have tried to dismantle Prop. 13, or modify it. Their efforts are as doomed as the efforts to change Social Security, because Prop. 13 is considered part of...

Direct democracy, particularly the initiative process, has become an important feature of the political landscape and influences the national agenda. California candidates for governor regularly sponsor and endorse measures that appear on the ballot with their candidacies. This article combines...

Conventional wisdom suggests that voters are biased against women candidates for public office. Voters’ hesitation in supporting female candidates is thought to depress the number of votes women receive, causing women candidates to lose more elections than their male counterparts. Despite...

Over the past decade San Benito County has emerged as California’s textbook bellwether county, narrowly mirroring statewide election results on ballot measures and statewide candidate races. San Benito’s uncanny predictive power suggests the importance of California emerging political...

Much recent California political commentary stresses the sharp rise in the proportion of voters declining to state a party preference and the supposed increasing importance of political independents. Yet The Myth of the Independent Voter and other political science literature provide grounds for...