The 2014 mid-term elections will be remembered for many things – pioneering use of information technology to comprehensively profile and micro-target voters, escalating use of polarizing rhetoric, historically low levels of voter turnout, and historic records in total spending. In California, in spite of all this money and technology – or perhaps because of it – the political landscape is probably not going to change very much this time around. But appearances can be deceiving. While Democrats will still control California’s state legislature and nearly all of California’s large cities and urban counties, new fault lines are forming within California’s electorate that defy conventional definitions of Republican and Democrat, or conservative and liberal.

Because as it is,California’s schools are failing, businesses and middle-income residents are fleeing, and the cost of living is the highest in America.Three powerful groups benefit from and perpetuate this arrangement with their money and their votes: Wealthy individuals and crony capitalists, unionized public sector workers, and low-income residents who have become entirely dependent on government… Read More