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Contributors
Carol Platt Liebau - Columnist
Carol
Platt Liebau is a senior member of the CaliforniaRepublic.org
editorial board. She is an attorney, political analyst and commentator
based in San Marino, CA, and has appeared on the Fox News
Channel,
MSNBC, CNN, Orange County News Channel, Cox Cable and a variety
of radio programs throughout the United States. A graduate
of
Princeton
University
and Harvard Law School, Carol Platt Liebau also served as the
first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. [go
to Liebau index]
 A
Rich and Rewarding Roadmap
California Republic.org on “The California Republic”...
[Carol
Platt Liebau] 4/9/04
With the
release of The California Republic – edited by
Brian P. Janiskee, assistant professor of political science at
Cal State-San Bernadino and Ken Masugi, director of the Center
for Local Government at the Claremont Institute – those
seeking to understand California’s politics, its culture,
and its history have found an indispensable source.
Made up of a wide-ranging
collection of essays that originated in a scholarly conference
hosted by the Claremont Institute,
California Republic is complemented by additional contributions.
The volume is divided into five parts: “California in a
Federal System;” “Institutions;” “Local
Government;” “Statesmanship;” and “Policies
and Perspectives.” But running throughout is an overarching
theme: The significance and impact of the rise of the Progressive
movement on California, past and present.
Unlike many such compendia,
California Republic’s editors
approach their work from an unabashedly political position: That
of full-throated opposition to Progressivism in California. Through
the selection of articles, they suggest that this bipartisan
movement has undermined the concepts of limited government and
constitutionalism adopted first by America’s founders,
and then by California’s. As a result, Janiskee and Masugi
contend, the role of California’s government has evolved – and
not for the better – from an initial commitment to realizing
the “equality” principle through the protection of
equal rights (albeit with ensuing inequality of results), to
a commitment to “guaranteeing minimum levels of security
and comforts for all.”
The issues of how
this transformation occurred, the impact of the change, and
the context through which Progressive themes
still resonate in the state today occupy the bulk of the book.
Particularly compelling is Claremont Institute president Brian
Kennedy’s examination of the governorship of Gray Davis – a
period that he asserts marked the moment in state political history
when constitutional government in California became virtually
impossible. Kennedy argues that Davis’ approach to governing – consisting
of little more than an essentially non-ideological devotion to
the interests of the state apparatus and public employees – and
the deeply disturbing political consequences, are the legacy
of the Progressive philosophy bequeathed to California by influential
Governor Hiram Johnson.
Other essays are likewise
intriguing and valuable, if not as obviously related to the
stated theme of the collection. They
include a piece by Ralph Rossum, a constitutional scholar, discussing
the role of the Seventeenth Amendment, which provided for the
direct election of senators, in undermining federalist principles
and rendering state interests less important. There are likewise
valuable analyses of the careers and significance of two Californian
presidents, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Classicist, historian
and writer Victor Davis Hanson discusses the role of the farmer
as the “last check on our innate democratic excesses” in
Ancient Greece and California, and ponders the implications of
the California farmer’s slow demise.
Even with twenty-two
essays – well-argued and carefully
presented – by some of California’s (and the nation’s)
most prominent thinkers, California Republic does not present
itself as a balanced or even comprehensive account of California
history, culture, policies and politics, nor could it. It does
not purport to be a textbook. Rather, it is a guidebook – a
rich roadmap to a fuller, deeper understanding of the nation’s
largest, most populous, and arguably most important state. And
it is a political treatise – arguing, sometimes subtly
and sometimes not, for the preeminence of natural law and the
limited government that follows ineluctably therefrom.
And it is certainly
a necessity – both for serious students
of California and for general interest readers seeking a deeper
understanding of the Golden State and political theory alike. CRO
CRO columnist Carol Platt Liebau is a political analyst and
commentator based in San Marino, CA.
copyright
2004
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