ABSTRACT
From the state that gave you Hiram Johnson, Earl Warren, Richard Nixon, Angela Davis, Ronald Reagan, Cesar Chavez, Jerry Brown, and Howard Jarvis, it seems as if the only thing predictable about California politics is its unpredictability. A multitude of contradictory impulses-some rooted deep in its past, others shaped by visionary dreams of the future, some ruggedly individualistic, others mystically communitarian, some highly rational and pragmatic, others wildly romantic-contend against one another for the soul of the California polity and are reflected in its constitution, its institutions, and its laws. This has always been the case but now more so than ever, for contemporary California is the product of both its inherited paradoxes and its current complexities. Each generation has contributed its own traumas and complications to the character of California.
