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The alternative view is that the initiative process, by mutating into a virulent form after Proposition 13, caused the decline of the legislature. This side includes Joe Mathews and Mark Paul, authors of “California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It”. Because of the cumulative onslaught of citizen legislation, “lawmakers slowly lost their control over pieces of the law, then over the budget,” they argue.

Too small for the job
Clearly the legislature suffers from some problems unrelated to the initiative process. For a start, it is almost comically small, given California’s size. America’s most populous state has the 35th-largest legislature, with 120 legislators (80 in the assembly, 40 in the senate) representing some 37m people. A Californian legislator thus represents three times as many people as does his counterpart in New York or Illinois. This must be a bad thing. Voters in California tend not to know their representatives.
For candidates it means that money becomes a crucial issue. Politicians cannot shake enough hands and therefore need to saturate the media to make themselves known. This costs money and makes them beholden to big donors. That is why Democrats in Sacramento are often in the pockets of the teachers’ or nurses’ union and Republicans in those of the prison guards’ or cops’ union.

A. 어휘
alternative 대안, 다른 방도. initiative process 국민발의 방법.
mutate 변화하다, 突然變異(돌연변이)하다.
virulent 有毒(유독)한, 악의가 있는. fix 고치다.
cumulative 累積的(누적적)인. onslaught 맹공격, 돌격.
citizen legislation 시민 입법. lawmakers 議員(의원). budget 예산.
populous 인구가 많은. assembly 미국 州의회의 하원. senate 상원.
counterpart 同(동) 자격자, 상대인. representatives 대표자.
candidates 候補(후보). crucial 결정적인. saturate 적시다, 滲透(삼투)시키다.
beholden to ...에 신세를 지는. prison guards 矯導官(교도관).
cops’ union 경찰연합.