Michael Warder

The Claremont Institute

"California and the Formation of the American Spirit"

Philadelphia Society Regional Meeting

October 16, 1999; Los Angeles Mariott Downtown

"Cutting Edge Issues in California Politics"

Thomas Mann, Director of Governmental studies at the Brookings Institution was recently quoted in an AP story: "California isn't necessarily at the top of the list in innovations. Often times they start elsewhere, but get picked up in California, and everyone notices-because California is California."

Indeed, Americans have been looking to California ever since our country began. First and foremost, the Golden State has always been a place of dreams, where as Randy Neuman put it in his anthem, I Love LA, "the sun is shinning all the time." Along with the sun, the mountains, and the Pacific Ocean-doorway to Asia, there came the discovery of gold, the orange groves, Hollywood, and, more recently, aerospace and silicon valley. We do not talk about earthquakes here.

Since 1962 California has been the most populous state in the union. This year California has about 34 million citizens and by 2025 there likely will be 50 million. We have a Congressional delegation of 54 Senators and Representatives, while New York, the former population champion, has 33 and Texas has 32.

In 1970 the Latino population of California was 15% and now it is 31%. In 1970 the Asian population of California was 3% and now it is 12%. Over 40% of the University of California at Berkeley undergraduates are Asian. The promise of liberty and justice is like a magnate.

With the passage of NAFTA in 1994, trade patterns in America and California have changed. Mexico is America's number 2 trading-partner now, after Canada. Japan is now number 3. California increasingly has dealings with Mexico economically, culturally, and politically. An estimated $5 billion is sent each year south to Mexico from immigrant workers here. Mexican politicians now campaign in California. Still, since the 1970s there is more American trade with Asia than with Europe. Californians feel this trend everyday in some way.

And while much of American history can be written in terms of the struggle between Whites and Blacks and the promise of equality in the Declaration of Independence and the 14th Amendment, these newer Americans in California have no heritage in that particular struggle. They are not descended from slaves or slave-holders.

What is happening here in California is that America is being redefined again. The idea that "all men are created equal" is as powerful as ever. 60% of voting Californians in 1996 rejected racial preferences, however benignly described and intended, and rather resoundingly affirmed the American idea that government should treat each citizen equally under the law. It turns out that the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, our founding documents, speak ever more powerfully to new generations of Americans, and new Americans, especially here in California, the place of dreams.

In this environment, we Californians do our politics, while the nation watches, fascinated, even without Warren Beatty. In this session we have three outstanding public policy leaders who will give their ideas as to what constitutes "cutting edge" issues in California. It is likely that, if Mr. Mann of The Brookings Institution is right, these issues will reverberate around the country in the near future.