Rumors of California’s Realignment Are Grossly Exaggerated

Despite the congratulatory spin that Republican consultants and politicians in California put onto voting results in November 2024, there was little to celebrate. The most consequential election outcome in the state came perilously close to delivering a national catastrophe. California’s Republicans lost three more seats in the U.S. Congress, nearly handing control to the Democrats. In California, Republicans now hold only nine seats out of their 52-seat delegation in Congress.

And while Republicans picked up two seats in the State Assembly and two seats in the State Senate, they remain a mega-minority, outnumbered 60 to 20 in the Assembly and 30 to 10 in the Senate. Every one of the eight statewide elected executive positions—governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, controller, superintendent of public instruction, and insurance commissioner—are held by Democrats. And for the last 15 years, Democrats have wielded a trifecta—control of the state senate, state assembly, and governor’s office. They wield absolute political power.

Such is the level of delusion that informs Republican state party officials and affiliated consultants when they speak of “progress” made in 2024.

These same Pollyannas mention the passage of Proposition 36 as a significant accomplishment, and perhaps it is, if you consider it an accomplishment to again make criminal behavior a crime. And Proposition 36, for all its much touted restoration of common sense law enforcement, does not compel prosecutors to implement most of the new and tougher charges or judges to impose the new and tougher sentences. It only restores that option.

Meanwhile, and here’s the real news: Californians have continued to display an appetite for higher taxes and borrowing. Also put before voters along with Prop. 36 were two $10 billion bonds, which were both overwhelmingly approved. Prop. 2 borrows $10 billion to construct more public education facilities, and Prop. 4 borrows $10 billion to fund “parks, state and local parks, environmental protection projects, water infrastructure projects, energy projects, and flood protection projects.”

That all sounds great, until you consider where this money is really going. The state is borrowing another $20 billion to, for example, perform “deferred maintenance” on school facilities, i.e., work that used to come out of operating budgets, and, quite likely, subsidies for “renewables” and spending to implement water rationing. California’s record on big capital project spending is abysmal. Prop. 1 in 2014 borrowed $7.1 billion and was sold to voters on the promise to build or expand four major reservoirs. Not one of these projects has even begun work. And then there’s Prop. 1A, approved by voters in 2008, which borrowed $9.9 billion to build “high-speed rail.” It’s been 17 years, and not one mile of track has been laid.

This is the corrupt context in which California’s voters have just saddled themselves with another $20 billion in debt. For the financially uninitiated, let’s be clear. Bonds are taxes. At a rate of 5 percent interest over a 20-year term, California’s taxpayers are now on the hook for another $1.6 billion per year to pay principal and interest on these newly approved bonds.

Underreported but equally significant is the appetite of California voters to approve taxes and borrowing at the local level. The numbers are smaller, but they add up. Altogether, local government officials and heavily funded pro-tax “citizens groups” placed 533 tax and bond measures on the November 2024 ballot in California. Voters approved 405 of them, a success rate of 76 percent.

Never forget, once approved, these new taxes never go away. In five cases, local, underfunded citizens groups placed tax repeals on local ballots. Heavily opposed by the usual suspects—government unions and government contractors—they all failed.

The financial impact of these local measures exceeds the damage at the state level. The total amount of newly approved local taxes is $2.3 billion per year. The total amount of new borrowing approved at the local level is an eye-popping $47.1 billion, which equates to $3.8 billion per year in principal and interest payments.

California’s voters, in their infinite wisdom, imposed upon themselves a total of $7.7 billion in additional taxes per year, in what is already the most heavily taxed state in America.

Without DOGE-style intervention and fundamental realignment, California’s tax and spend orgy has only just begun. The Democrat-controlled legislature has the power to place initiatives on the state ballot without going through the arduous petition process required of citizen groups. And their current plans include at least two new tax schemes. The first will gut Prop. 13, the legendary 1978 reform that capped property tax reassessments at 2 percent per year. Prop. 13 remains the only protection allowing long-time small businesses to stay competitive and allowing retirees to stay in their homes. The second, convoluted enough to ensure deceptive ballot language, will in effect take away completely the already tenuous ability for Californian citizen groups to ever qualify and pass effective anti-tax measures.

It is difficult to put into words the level of greed and dysfunction that defines California’s public sector. Along with the exemplary disasters of the 2014 water bond and the 2008 high-speed rail initiative, consider the union-run K-14 (K-12 plus community colleges) public school system. In 1988, in a close election, the teachers’ union supported Prop. 98 was approved by voters. It mandated 40 percent of the state’s general fund to be spent on K-14 education.

Like all big-government, public-sector union-supported initiatives, it sounds great. “For the children,” etc. But California’s general fund spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased nearly 60 percent since 2001, while California’s K-12 enrollment is actually down, from 6.1 million in the 2000-01 school year to only 5.8 million in 2023-24. Has anything improved since then? Are California students performing 60 percent better on achievement tests?

No. Currently only 35 percent of K-12 students meet state math standards, and only 47 percent meet state English language standards. Nearly two thirds of California’s Latino students and 70% of Black students do not meet basic standards in English; for math it is even worse, 77% of Latinos and 83% of Black kids do not meet basic standards.

In every sector of public service, California’s public sector is failing. But voters continue to back the same politicians, the same partisan rhetoric, the same failed model, and in the process, more taxes and more borrowing.

Such is life in the Golden State. Thank goodness for the good weather.

This article originally appeared in American Greatness.

Edward Ring

Edward Ring is a contributing editor and senior fellow with the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. He is also a senior fellow with the Center for American Greatness, and a regular contributor to the California Globe. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Forbes, and other media outlets.

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