Remember the articles about California being a failed state? Remember when California had other states notably hoping to poach thousands of jobs and businesses? There has been a mighty turnaround in California since the recession of 2008. Journalist Narda Zacchino has been changing -- has been following it in her new book, alifornia Comeback: How a ailed State Became a Model For the Nation. Remind us how bad the bad old days of California's recession were. What kind of mess worrying. It was terrible. It was not even that long ago. It was when Jerry Brown became governor in 2010, he inherited a $27 billion deficit. The unemployment by 2012 was over 12%. It was the highest in the nation. California was in a terrible situation. There was talk of taking the school week down to four days and terminating the school day earlier. Things were in really bad shape. In the depths of the recession, even sober historians were saying that California was on the cusp of being a failed state. At that time, some were looking to Texas as a potentially a better model. What was that comparison? The Texas governor at the time, Rick Perry, was going around the country and came to California saying that Texas is a better place to do business. He was trying to woo corporations and companies to move to Texas. Several of them did. Texas is not a really great place for business for many reasons. One is Texas boasts of having no regulations. Texas is first in the amount of carbon emissions, fourth in talks is really -- toxic releases into the water, if in cancer causing carcinogens in water, or the in carcinogens released into the air, first in hazardous waste, 10th in industrial toxic. It is a very polluted state. In terms of business, Texas did give pennies financial grants -- company's financial grants to come to the state. It was huge amounts of money. Companies like Apple and Google, they expanded some of their operations there. They did not leave California. The numbers were vastly overstated in terms of the impacts. I think the state of California did some calculations that it would take 20 years to lose 1% of all of the companies in California that would move out of the state to Texas. In California come back, you give credit to Governor Brown and you get a lot of credit to proposition 30 the resetting the fortunes of California. Let's talk about Governor Brown for a second. How much turnaround is due to Governor Brown personally as opposed to any other Democratic governor heading a party with overwhelming control of the state amidst an economic recovery? I think one of the things about Jerry Brown is he has always been a fiscal conservative. In terms of his budget, even though he had a Democratic majority, when he became governor again in 2010, he vetoed the first budget that his Democratic legislature gave to him because he said it was to spend the. It was too much. They were furious with him. This was his own party. He vetoed the budget. He said you got to come back to me with lower numbers. It is due in large part to him but also to the legislature. California has shown that it can have a vibrant and robust climate change policy and social policies that don't cost a lot of money and that people are willing to pay for. After this come back, you say California represents a model for the nation. They have boldly rejected that the idea of government is a dirty word. Who do you see emulating that model? It is not as if a state like Kansas will suddenly look to California and change its policies. My point is that a lot of these issues that are embraced by the Republican governors and legislatures of these states like Kansas and Florida, that the people in those states don't necessarily agree. Abortion is an issue that conservatives are very anti-choice. 58% of the people in the country are for abortion rights including 40% of Republicans. I see these issues as issues that will change because the people in those states don't support what the governor's and the conservative leaders of those states embrace. During this California come back, we have seen California move very heavily blue. The Republican Party in the state is in dire straits. The Democratic Party may also have its fishers as well. We saw the California delegation at the DNC being the most vocal opponents of Hillary Clinton. Is their polarization now intraparty in the Democratic party? I think that is true. The registration right now in California is only 5% Democratic, 20 -- 45% Democratic, 20% Republican. What we have seen in the last several years is that the Democrats have gone down. The Republicans have gone way down and people who are declined to state are going up. The establishment and the political parties don't necessarily represent the people. I think we have seen that to an amazing depth in this current election. Any insight on where the votes might go this year on death penalty, all the other hot button issues on the state ballot? I think marijuana is another one. I think California is a very liberal state. You have seen there were three successive elections were Californians moderated their tough on crime spans -- stance and became more humane. I think the death penalty missed slightly last time it was on the ballot. I think it might have a chance this time. I think marijuana will pass. California does tend to be very progressive, even the Republican Party in California is much more moderate than the Republican Party nationally. It has to be. There are only 28 Republicans in the 80 member assembly and only 13 Republicans in the 40 member Senate. I have been speaking with Nora's Aquino. Her book is called alifornia Comeback: How a ailed State Became a Model For the Nation. . Thank you so much. You're welcome.
It was less than a decade ago that economists and historians were warning that California was on the verge of disaster. In 2011, Bill Watkins, director of the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting, said the state was “fast-becoming a post-industrial hell.” Unemployment was 12 percent and the state recorded budget deficits of tens of billions of dollars.
Former Los Angeles Times politics editor and Sacramento bureau chief Narda Zacchino has covered Gov. Jerry Brown since his first term as governor in the 1970s. She said much of the state’s recovery is due to his stewardship.
While the national economy did recover and Brown was helped by Democratic majorities in both state houses, Zacchino said Brown spent a lot of political capital on the tax-raising Proposition 30, which helped the state put billions into a rainy day fund.
Zacchino explores Brown’s second stint as governor in her book, “California Comeback: How a ‘Failed State’ Became a Model For the Nation.”
“The second coming of Jerry Brown, prophet of revitalized notions of liberalism, progressive governance and sound fiscal policy, has guided California’s ascendance from the economic mire of the recession and near ‘failed state’ status a mere six years ago to prominence,” she wrote.
Zacchino joins KPBS Midday Edition on Tuesday with more on Brown’s track record.
