Karl Manheim, John S. Caragozian and Don Warner | L.A. Times | May 24, 2010
We share the emerging consensus that California is broken. State government is failing its citizens in education, infrastructure, parks and elsewhere. These failures, in turn, cause counties, cities and school districts to slash their own services. Given the Legislature's chronic inability to deal realistically with the state budget, these failures may worsen. The governor's recent May revise, pilloried in the May 18 Times' editorial, "Schwarzenegger's 'ugly' budget," is another indicator that the state's problems are escalating.
The consensus breaks down over solutions. We've been polling some of the brightest legal and political minds for ideas on quelling the crisis in preparation for a September conference at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles on defining and addressing California's budgetary and constitutional problems. It is clear that though there are no obvious solutions, a number of issues require immediate attention.