Why California can't be governed

Budget initiatives: Proposition 13 also ushered in an era of ballot-box budgeting, as fiscal initiatives became a favored special-interest tool to take control of public fund expenditures. A series of post-13 initiatives -- including measures creating the lottery, financing public schools by mathematical formula and earmarking revenues for special programs, from mental health to medical care -- established an exquisitely complex state budget calculus that has hamstrung the rational operations of government.

Gerrymandering: The once-a-decade process of redrawing political maps based on the census has created an increasingly partisan Capitol atmosphere. Reapportionment has become essentially an incumbent protection effort, as lawmakers craft districts that are either safely Democratic or safely Republican. In this way, the crucial contests are party primaries, not the general elections. Because primaries draw the most partisan voters, the most conservative Republicans and the most liberal Democrats tend to win the nominations that guarantee election in November. The dynamic locks in ideological polarization in Sacramento, where lawmakers have little motivation to compromise.

Term limits: Despite the claims of backers, the 1990 term-limits initiative did not get rid of career politicians -- it simply changed the arc of their careers. Instead of spending decades in the same Assembly or Senate district seat, legislators position themselves for the next office -- or job as a lobbyist -- as soon as they arrive in Sacramento. The up-or-out system rewards short-term, self-interested political thinking more than long-term policymaking in the public interest. Term limits also make lobbyists, not the Legislature, the repository of Capitol expertise; that lobbyists are useful in raising campaign cash adds an overlay of soft corruption to the process.

Boom-and-bust taxation: Since Proposition 13, state government has become increasingly dependent on volatile sources of revenue -- the sales, corporation and progressive personal income taxes -- that generate annual shifts in tax collections corresponding closely to the business cycle. When economic times are good, as during the dot-com and housing bubbles, money pours in and there's little political incentive -- in fact, term limits create a perverse disincentive -- for long-term financial planning. When revenues contract, the Capitol has rarely made real spending reductions, preferring to wait for the next boom.