CA state Local Government Flashcards
What aspects that the states focus on their budget on?
- Welfare
- Education
- Prison systems
- Water policy
- part of public work projects
What are two elements of California political culture?
- Diversity: topography, economy, languages, ethnicities, and diverse agriculture and technology.
- Tradition of progressivism
What were the primary goals of the progressive movement?
- political equality
- clear merit based government
- direct citizen control of the government
What are three tools used for direct democracy?
- Initiative: Citizens petition for CA amendment/ law
- Referendum: Type of initiative that allows for citizens to accept or reject laws passed by state legislature
- Recall: A procedure that allows citizens to remove elected officials before their term is up.
What is the purpose of the tools for direct democracy?
-To allow citizens to run government and take it back from large corporations
What is the primary function of state legislature?
- Make policies
- Representation
- similar to that of Congress
What is the structure of the legislative branch?
- 49 out of 50 states are bicameral
- Is made up of 2 chambers Assembly-(House) and Senate
What is structure of the Assembly?
- Composed of 80 members
- Elected by district
- Can have up to 3 x2year terms
What is structure of the Senate?
- Composed of 40 members
- Elected by districts
- Can have up to 2x4year terms
What are the differences between the state legislative branch and Congress?
-California has limited terms for office holders.
What are the issues that are raised with term limits?
- Tell citizens cannot vote for a citizen after certain amount of time, because the person is no longer eligible for office.
- –>Democratic
- Issue of diversity
- Spend there time focusing on getting reelected for a new term and position for office.
- ->Ambition
- Lobbiests and Interest groups become stronger based on the fact that legislature is always new to the system
What is the committee structure?
- Party leadership have the same names as those in Congress
- Speaker of the assembly
- ->decide who gets to speak
- ->Sets agenda
- Leader of senate is President pro tempore
What amount of people does it take to pass the state budget?
-Passed by 2/3 of the people
What is proposition 13?
-
What occurred in 1990 to state legislature?
- Term limits for state legislators
- Shift from the professional model of state legislatures
