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Eleventh Annual California Policy Issues Conference

November 6, 2003

Wilshire Grand Hotel
Los Angeles

A Crisis in Civil Society: Who is Leading California?

This conference will explore political leadership crises in state and local public policy environments. The state budgetary crisis, perpetual rookie legislatures, restricted legislative staffs begetting increased reliance on lobbyists, increasing partisan polarity, career and personal ambitions above public service ambitions, etc., are among the elements that have conspired to disconnect the average citizen from government, public policy environments, and elected officials.

Some of the causes are undoubtedly structural—negative fallout of term limits, resulting loss of collegiality and institutional memory in legislative bodies, proposition 13, super majority voting requirements on tax measures, tax structures, redistricting, etc. Others are more intangible—post 9/11 trauma, international and national terrorism, an escalating war-time foreign policy, record national deficit spending, lowering of urban safety net standards, and timid opposition candidates seldom raising fundamental issues.

Recent editions of the California Policy Issues Conference explored points of community growth and diversity, urban fragmentation, the state of California’s infrastructure, and the potential for urban implosion. In what may be seen as a preview of the 2004 national, state and local elections, the 2003 edition of the conference will continue in this topical directional by exploring and assessing the widely acknowledged leadership crisis at state and local levels in California, a crisis broadly perceived as creating near paralysis in the making of crucial public policy, in worsening state-local relations, and in widening the disconnect of governments and elected officials from their citizens.

Conference Brochure