Is CA like Italy?

The NYT's Timothy Eagan says that the state may have a chronic inability to form a government, like a certain boot-shaped European nation, but he still considers it a wonderful place (and the reason so many folks want to live here).

Tthe rejection of those ballot measures should not be read as another California death notice. Such obituaries have been around at least since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and they've always been wrong. Chaos from the natural world (wildfires, earthquakes, droughts) and from the political system are background noise, the camouflage of California.

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I do blame the voters. They're part-time citizens, and not very good at it. They shackled the tax system back in 1978 with Proposition 13, limiting how much government could take from a homeowner. It was a reasonable middle class revolt. But then, in succeeding years, voters passed laws that packed California's prisons with criminals (many of them petty) but also mandated that the education system get a lion's share of the budget. On top of that, the voters made it nearly impossible to pass a budget. Then they walked away from their car wreck.

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Fixing that system is something legislators should do. But voters have handcuffed the politicians, and now they've told them to go away -- we hate you, both parties, don't bother us any more. Never before have polls shown the state's elected officials held in such low regard by voters. And here in the capitol, the feeling is mutual -- though no politician would dare say so.