Polarized politics more common

Politically speaking, 1998 was a watershed year for California.

The 20th century was drawing to a close – a century in which Republicans had largely dominated the state’s politics, including three iconic governors: Hiram Johnson, Earl Warren and Ronald Reagan.

When Gray Davis won the governorship in 1998, he was the first Democrat to do so in 20 years and only the fourth in the entire century. However, his election marked the beginning of a new political era in which Democrats would become utterly dominant, acquiring all statewide offices and supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature and the state’s congressional delegation.

Although local offices in California are officially nonpartisan, Democrats also became dominant in county boards of supervisors, city councils and school boards.

Meanwhile, the ranks of Republican voters and officeholders shriveled into irrelevancy.

Not only has the Democratic Party achieved hegemony at all levels, but it has moved decidedly to the left — so much so that in 2016 it refused to endorse a long-

Downtown pedestrians

serving Democratic U.S. senator, Dianne Feinstein, for re-election and opted for her challenger, Kevin de Leon.

Self-proclaimed progressives dominate the Legislature and happily partner with history’s most outwardly leftleaning governor, Gavin Newsom, to enact policies and programs he describes as unique and potentially global in reach.

In his spare time, Newsom engages in verbal sparring matches with governors of other states, such as Florida and Texas, which were sliding to the right as California was drifting to the left during the first decades of the 21st century.

While academics and pundits debate the reasons why California politics have changed so dramatically over the last-quarter century, new research indicates that it is not an isolated phenomenon. Political polarization at the federal level is self-evident — such as the virtual 50-50 split in both houses of Congress between very liberal Democrats and very conservative Republicans — but a new study delves into how it’s also happening in state legislatures.

Boris Shor of the University of Houston and Nolan McCarty of Princeton University assembled a massive bank of legislative voting records and other data to chart the growth of state-level polarization. They discovered that the once-significant ideological “overlap” between legislators of the two parties — the point at which there could be bipartisan cooperation — had vanished in the last quartercentury. Democrats moved to the left, Republicans moved to the right and dominance by one party, such as what happened in California, increased.

“States in the West are both the most polarized and are polarizing the fastest,” the researchers write. “The South began as the least polarized region, but has been polarizing fairly quickly and overtook the Northeast in 2007, which is the region with the lowest growth.” spaces are indicated online.

“As with the U.S. Congress, all 99 state legislative chambers are polarized, that is, with party medians significantly different from each other,” they continue. “In 88 of those 99 chambers, the parties are getting even more significantly distant from each other over time.” California, not surprisingly, is a leader in what is not a positive trend.

“The five most polarized states in the country in 2020 are, in order, Colorado, California, Arizona, Texas and Washington State,” the study found. “While California was for a long time the most polarized state, it was overtaken by Colorado in 2017.”

Overall, Shor and McCarty concluded, shifts to the left by Democrats, more than shifts to the right by Republicans, account for the increase in legislative polarization — a contrast with the GOP’s dramatic rightward march in Congress.

“The ‘smoking gun,’ however, remains elusive,” they say. “No one ‘cause’ has been identified as dominant, nor is there likely to be one.” — CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California's state Capitol works and why it matters.

The current discussions over the closed portion of G Street offers Davisites a great opportunity to demonstrate the collective intelligence of a university town and introduce some visionary thought. For my money (aka taxes), it would be shortsighted to settle on a solution that allows factions to go away grumbling until the next debate which will surely comes.

I am nearly certain that Davisites have encountered compelling examples in their worldly travels to suggest and support a long term vision of pedestrian access to downtowns. My own personal experience is with Bremen Germany where some pedestrian ways and areas are hundred of years old and are fused with the modern. It is also a bicycle “town” of a half a million souls where bicycle ways take precedence over auto ways. Amsterdam is an extreme example, as well.

Technology has a role in the solution. Current street-level parking, both privately and publicly owned, can provide an opportunity for high tech parking structures bordering or integrated with pedestrian areas and still maintain an attractive setting ( google “parking towers.” Available

Driverless vehicles already prowl campuses in Silicon Valley on programmed routes. Alleyways can become routes for circulators ferrying clients between parking and stores. That includes both cycles and autos.

Economic redevelopments in our commercial community can be stimulated by a long-term plan for pedestrian access commitment

I firmly believe that satisfactory solutions lie in the imagination of our community and I hope this message will trigger others to engage. I plan to continue to research this subject area and be happy to share it in a charette type of setting, possibly online.

Bill Tournay Davis

A psalm for Israel

Doug Walter spoke of specific policies that should be meddled with and tied to our prodigious aid to Israel. Aid which seems ironic to pay to such a well-educated and modernized society.

So early this past Friday morning, before the headline about U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan, visiting the far-right coalition Israeli government, I had hoped to free part of my soul by writing a psalm about the grief that is Israel’s lethal theocracy and our nation’s complicity with it.

It seemed the Biden Administration, like every administration before (except Carter’s), knew of my intent and sent Sullivan to Netanyahu to say, “I bring greetings from President Biden, and as you know his commitment to the state of Israel is bone-deep and America’s commitment to Israel is ironclad.” Words that strike a blow to democracies everywhere, including our own.

I do not have the clout of Kenneth Roth, former chief of Human Rights Watch, who recently had his Harvard fellowship reinstated after being briefly purged for his former institution’s evenhanded observation that Israel is an apartheid state. I may not be treated with as much dignity as Kenneth Roth, but by speaking out my heart will no longer suffer as much.

Oh Israel, beacon of the east.

Authoritarians across the world rest their gaze upon you.

Your walls, surveillance and weapons are renowned.

Your voter, movement, and marriage suppression are mighty.

Your devotion to contempt strengthens divisiveness in every nation state.

May you turn away from this path and so may we all. So we pray.

Scott Steward Davis

CEO