172-1-785
IN 1971 A CONFERENCE of state legislatures concluded that California’s “comes the closest to having all the characteristics that a legislature should have”. A lot of people agreed. In the mid-1970s a political scientist, William Muir, was so impressed by the collegiality, expertise and diligence he witnessed in Sacramento’s capitol that he called his book “Legislature: California’s School for Politics”. It was, he said, “the finest in the world”.
Alas, Mr Muir was working on an academic time scale and his book, though researched before Proposition 13, was not published until the 1980s. By then the initiative storms were buffeting the legislature. And thus another perfectly good book title became the victim of terrible timing as a model political institution turned into a caricature of itself.
Today Californians reserve a special disdain for their legislature. When Arnold Schwarzenegger called legislators “girlie men”, Californians for once agreed with him. In a poll last December by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), a non-partisan think-tank in San Francisco, 81% of voters disapproved of their legislature and only 12% approved: blood relatives and paid staffers, as the joke goes.
California’s legislature must therefore have undergone a stunning decline in the past three decades. What role the initiative process had in this deterioration is a chicken-and-egg question. In Hiram Johnson’s day initiatives seemed to be needed as a check on a venal legislature. Now perhaps a dysfunctional legislature is triggering a plethora of initiatives as citizens take matters into their own hands.

A. 어휘
legislature 입법부. wither 시들다. redistribute 재분배하다.
state legislatures 州(주) 입법기관. characteristics 특징.
collegiality 합동, 단체적 성격. expertise 전문성, 전문기술.
Sacramento 칼리포니아의 州都(주도). capitol 국회의사당 또는 州의회 의사당.
Proposition 국민제안. initiative 국민발의. buffet 타격하다.
institution 제도, 기관, 학회. caricature 戱畵化(희화화), 풍자만화.
a model political institution turned into a caricature of itself. 모범적인 정치제도가 스스로 하나의 희화적인 것으로 된 것. cf. turned 는 형용사.
reserve 예약하다, 어떤 목적을 위하여 비축하다. disdain 경멸.
girlie 소녀, 매춘부. for once 이번만은. poll 여론조사, 투표.
Public Policy Institute 공공정책연구소.
non-partisan think-tank 超黨派(초당파)적 연구소.
blood relatives 血緣(혈연)관계자. must have undergone 경험하였음에 틀림없다.
stun 기절하다. deterioration 惡化(악화), 저하, 타락.
venal 돈으로 좌우되는, 타락한. legislature 입법기관, 州 의회.
dysfunctional 기능장애의. trigger 觸發(촉발)시키다.
plethora 過剩(과잉), 過多(과다).