50 years of writing about CA policy – and still counting

This week is a personal stage that marks half a century to write about the ever -changing political atmosphere in California.

My move to the Capitol Bureau of the Union of Sacramento on March 3, 1975 was part of his efforts to become more competitive with the bee Sacramento.

The bee had great capitol staff and believed that his only real competition on the political arena was the Los Angeles Times. Al Donner, who was the only Capitol reporter of the Union, and I was determined to change this situation.

The capitol was subjected to one of its periodic political cataclysms, so it was a journalistic sense-the rich environment. Jerry BrownFormer governor Pat Brown’s 36-year-old son was found as governor only two months earlier and has already become something like a political pop star.

Jerry’s unclear left political person contrasts sharply with that of the predecessor Ronald Reagan, and he made waves by filling his administration with civil rights defenders, the sympathy of the Union of Agricultural Workers and environmental jealousy.

Although Brown’s Democrats held a majority in both legislative houses, he was unpopular, based on his campaign to present the Capitol as a discharge of corruption that needed cleansing. He had sponsored a A successful measure of voting since 1974, The Political Reform Act to limit the contribution of campaigns and what lobbyists could spend on legislators, as he said, “two hamburgers and coke.”

Brown’s youth and Brash disregard for the unwritten protocol of the Capitol have annoyed the legislative branch made up almost entirely of white men of middle age or even the elderly. A senator was first elected to the legislature in 1938, the year in which Brown was born.

There were several women in the assembly, but The first woman was not chosen in the Senate Until 1976, Brown, on the other hand, appointed a number of women in large administrative positions, most of all Rose birdwhom he later identified as the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the State and Adriana Jansturowhich won the contempt of legislators to block new construction of highways and support the institutes for road sails.

Brown’s clashes with the legislature, his two presidential campaigns and battles between the two control parties provided heavy opportunities for the spoon’s journalism, as Donner and I waged a guerrilla war against the bee. For several years, we have defeated everyone to the state budget before being officially released from Brown.

Donner and I – and later the third Union reporter – had a lot of fun in those days. However, after reflecting Capitol for several years, I believed that California’s policy needed another approach and began to write a daily column about the connection between the evolution of California and its policy.

This column started in January 1981, lasted three years in the Union and 33 years more in the bee, before changing the seats again in 2017 to Calmatters – about 11,000 columns so far and is still counting.

Among other things, the column allowed me to appreciate the huge contrast between Brown’s first rule and its second few decades later.

However, the contrasts extend beyond Brown’s person. With the development of California’s demographics, So did the legislature “Much less white men, many more womenLatinos and Asian Americans and many of the sexual identities or sexual orientations that People were less tolerant Since 1975

This said that today’s legislature is less corrupt, but more conscious and less conscious than 50 years ago. Bill committees hearing were really relevant then, but they are Most meaningless Shadra nowS

California has almost twice as many people than in 1975, and its demographic qualities and its economy have undergone massive transformations. Unfortunately, Capitol’s ability – or desire – to deal with the political issues arising from these changes has decreased.