California politics

Located in the western part of the country, California is among the largest states in
United States of America and is quite known for its political scenario. Being a state
which is almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, politics of
California have always been quite complex. There are are several issues that all
governments that have ruled the state till today have failed to deal with. The most
recent incident that heated up the political scenario of the state was the failure of
the local government to pass the budget almost within three months of the
Constitutional deadline. Other major political issues are term limits and tax revolts
that have always kept California alive on the headlines of newspapers.

While discussing California politics it is necessary to describe the political geography

of the state. The inland areas of Northern California and Southern California (outside
Los Angeles) are marked as Republican areas and the coastal part of the state
including the bustling city of Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and
Sacramento are dominated by the Democrats. In the last general election where the
country elected Barrack Obama as its President, among 17,304, 091 voters in
California, 44.4 per cent voted for the Democrats and 31.3 percent voted for the
Republicans, while the other affiliated political got 4.4 per cent votes and remaining
19.9 per cent voters declined to cat their votes. However as the Los Angeles
County and San Francisco are the most populates areas of the state, California is
quite liberal as far as favoring political parties is concerned.

Since early 50’s water and water rights and land pricing problems have been the
two most dominant issue in the politics of California. Lack of rainfall in the dry
season often affects agriculture activities in the southern part of the state as most
of the water is in the northern part. Though pipelines, dams and canals have been
developed in large numbers over the years to make the distribution of water in both
parts of the state even, people are still not satisfied. Inhabitants of Southern
California always claim that people of North get excess water while the residents of
the Northern part justify it by saying it is essential for fisheries, wildlife and
agriculture. As the southern part of California is much populous than the North,
people’s grievance on scarcity of water always makes an impact on the vote bank.
The state also remains disturbed with countless agitations centering high prices of
land. Buying home or investing money in land is a major problem in California as
people struggle to arrange sufficient money as the prices are on a continuous rise.
Problems often cope up with school boards as reputed schools try to take advantage
of this price hike by increasing their housing prices. Problem regarding price of land
has also been a major factor behind the lack of development in California compared
to many other states. People here even revolt against government’s decision to set
up airport.
Another major problem that keeps the political environment of California heated is
the threatening rise in the rate of crime. The rate of murder in the rural areas of the
state is among the highest in the country due to the dominance of criminals and
anti-socials. Even developed cities of California are not free from the operations of
gang who operate with arms. The rate of crime is so high in the state that people
bear arms for self defense and that’s why the law does not prohibit people from
possessing firearms. This is also an issue that political parties in the state have
failed to deal with over the years.

Bipartisan gerrymandering is another point without describing which discussion on

California’s politics remains incomplete. New district boundaries were set in
California after the 2000 year census and few congressional districts both for the
Assembly and the Senate were created. It was decided among the Democrats and
Republicans to gerrymander their boundaries according to their strength of their
support. Bothe the parties decided to maintain the status quo on balance o power. It
was done with an aim to demarcate the districts according to their political
dominance.