SPECIAL REPORT


California by the Numbers


SANCTUARY SETUP From left: Sen. Kamala Harris, Gov. Jerry Brown, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein fight for California’s sanctuary status.


down to 1940s levels, shut down eco- nomic opportunity and forced the middle class to flee the state. “The result is Brazil-like: a thin


layer of oligarchs and a teeming body of tax slaves and dependent serfs. It’s ugly — it’s the antithesis of the Ameri- can dream, but it may last.” Adding to these woes are growing


calls for a single-payer healthcare sys- tem, which almost every major Demo- crat has endorsed. Last year, the state Senate passed a


single-payer bill without identifying a funding source to pay its $400 billion annual cost, leading even former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to describe it as “snake oil.” Tied in with the support for single-


payer is the incredible power of the state’s “deep state” i.e. its public sector employee unions. Gloria Romero served as Demo- cratic majority leader in the California


46 NEWSMAX | MAY 2018


State Senate from 2001 to 2008. She was appalled at how union control destroyed educational quality and lim- ited accountability in public schools. She learned that 70 percent of prison inmates lack a high school diploma. Education, she told The Wall Street


Journal in 2012, “is a civil-rights issue. If we don’t educate, we incarcerate.” But she quickly learned that the


unions weren’t interested in real re- form. Instead, they wanted to squeeze the legislature for more money. “No one would vote for reform if


the California Teachers Association was against it; it was their sugar dad- dy,” she told me. Even though the unions killed her campaign to become state schools chief in 2010, Romero continues to fight for change through Democrats for Education Reform, a group of lib- erals who say the state’s public schools are failing its poorest children.


Admission to the Union: 1850 Population: 39.5 million Capital: Sacramento Largest City: Los Angeles Spoken Languages: 57% English 29% Spanish 2.8% Chinese 2.2% Filipino U.S. Senators: Dianne Feinstein (D) Kamala Harris (D) U.S. House: 39 Democrats 14 Republicans California’s Registered Voters: Democratic: 8,700,440 Republican: 5,027,714 Independent: 4,762,212 State Song; “I Love You, California” State Motto; “Eureka!” (Alluding to the discovery of gold) Highest and Lowest Points in the Continental U.S. Are Within 100 Miles of Each Other in California: Mt. Whitney, 14,495 feet, and Death Valley, 282 feet below sea level


But rather than question their


joined-at-the-hip alliance with radical public employee unions, the state’s Democrats are doubling down on ex- tremism. In February, the state’s Democrat-


ic convention delegates handed four- term veteran Sen. Dianne Feinstein a stinging rebuke by giving her only 37 percent of their votes and denying her the party’s official endorsement. Despite a nearly impeccable vot-


ing record, Feinstein failed the test of total “resistance” to President Trump. Weirdly, Cristina Garcia, a Cali-


fornia state legislator who is on un- paid leave over allegations she sexu- ally harassed four male staffers, was endorsed. Garcia, one of the lead- ers of the feminist #MeToo move- ment, professed her innocence but says she will only address each case individually when the internal inves-


HARRIS, BROWN, FEINSTEIN/GENARO MOLINA/LOS ANGELES TIMES/GETTY IMAGES


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