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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 3 page book review that examines Schrag's Paradise Lost, California's Experience, America's Future (1999) from the perspective of how the voter initiative process in California has affected racial and ethnic minorities in that state. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khsch2.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
and bypass the legislative process. The idea was that this provided voters with a tool to curb the excesses of state government and specifically to circumvent the power of the
Southern Pacific Railroad, which was increasingly becoming the "prevailing instrumentality of government itself" in California (Schrag 11). According to journalist Peter Schrag, this strategy, so well intended at the time,
has backfired in the contemporary era and created problems with government rather than solving him. In his text Paradise Lost, Californias Experience, Americas Future, Schrag explores, among other topics, how
the initiative process in California has affected racial and ethnic minorities in that state. According to Schrag, at one time, California was close to perfect in its public policy.
It was progressive and optimistic. It was a leader in enacting a "string of civil rights and poverty bills--not just fair housing, but a law outlawing discrimination in employment...and a
landmark welfare bill that centralized welfare practices (Schrag 45). However, this idyllic state of affairs was forty years and prior to the 1978s Proposition 13, which Schrags paints as
the beginning of a degenerative era when the voter initiatives began to wear away at the foundation of progressive California politics. Californias voters were, at one time, open and
generous in regards to social welfare and progressive policies, according to Schrag. This situation has changed drastically according to Schrag. He points out that that, in 1994, the citizens
of California voted to exclude all illegal-alien children from the public school system, and have also voted to prohibit every form of "race and gender-based affirmative action in public employment"
(Schrag 8). California politics are increasing driven by rancor, rather than optimism, as the state has developed a penchant for bypassing the legislative process completely by placing various ballot initiatives
...