“As California Goes, So Goes the Nation, Alas.”

That was a headline from a Los Angeles Times opinion column from April 1989, which noted that, even though “Californians have long considered their state the cutting edge of social and political change… [it] no longer seems the vanguard of political innovation. Other states rarely look to California for policy initiatives.”

Fast-forward to 2022, and few would proclaim that California remains mired in gridlock and indecision. Quite the contrary. The state has enacted a variety of policies ranging from immigrant rights to criminal justice reform, to expanded access to health care and higher education, to large-scale experiments in guaranteed income and ambitious moves towards net-zero emissions in a variety of sectors. And despite the periodic waves of “doom and gloom” reporting about the state, California’s economic output over the last 26 years has grown faster than the national average, and on par with GDP growth for the state of Texas.

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