Recently a journalist concluded the “California Dream Is Dying.”
But another says CA is still the land of opportunity.
Another characterizes the state as tilting leftward while another sees it as captured by union and corporate interests. At GFC, we see California as Walt Whitman’s words might describe it:
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
— Walt Whitman
California’s multitudes are reflected in a legislature consisting of 120 diverse representatives from 58 diverse counties who preside over 29 diverse legal codes that govern the daily lives of 40 million diverse people residing in the most diverse state in America. When liberated from reliance upon and fear of special interests, those legislators are more diverse than their party affiliations suggest and more supportive of the general interest. That’s our mission.
The only summaries we care about are of ~1000 bills passed by the Legislature every year, >80% of which on average are signed into law by governors (>90% this year). As those who are attending our upcoming Legislative Session Reviews will learn, we would summarize the recently-adjourned 2021 session as “mixed.” While we blocked bills to expand collective bargaining for government employees, waive compliance with pension reform, raise taxes and more, bills to reform tenure and retiree health subsidies were pushed to 2022, the agenda for which we will also discuss on the Reviews.
Decades of persistent political philanthropy will be required to reverse the damage caused by decades of our collective inattention to the California Legislature.
Mission
To counter special interest influence and to support like-minded organizations.
