Proposition 30, but voters didnt say yes to all taxes. An attempt to tax soda in richmond failed, as did a statewide tobacco tax on the june ballot. New districts drawn by a Citizens Commission and the voterapproved top two primary system shook up races for congress and the state legislature, putting a Record Number of freshmen in the assembly and giving democrats a rare supermajority in sacramento. It was the beginning of realignment of the states criminal justice system, and voters approved reform of the states tough three strikes sentencing law. The economy sputtered but finally showed signs of improvement in the housing and job market, but in Silicon Valley, the highly anticipated facebook ipo fell flat. The city of stockton made headlines as the largest city in the u. S. To ever file for bankruptcy. And a deadly shooting at Oikos University in oakland left seven people dead and a community in shock. And obama care was given the seal of approval by the u. S. Supreme court, now poised to take on prop 8 and the defense of marriage act. Californias highspeed rail stayed on track but just barely. The controversial bullet train came under fire from many sides with funding still in question. The state parks were saved from closing but suffered another setback when an unused surplus of millions of dollars was discovered sitting in a secret account. And there was also excitement. The Golden Gate Bridge celebrated its 75th anniversary, and a new bay bridge neared completion. The mars curiosity captured our attention and imagination, turning thoughts to the possibility of life on other planets. And with their backs against the wall, the San Francisco giants refused to die, bringing home their second world series championship in three years. And of course, belva davis retired after hosting this show for nearly two decades. Well, that gives us a little refresher of what weve just been through this year, but josh richman, everything was dwarfed by the president ial election in a lot of ways, 2 billion spent. So, how is history going to look back on this election, do you think . What are we going to remember about this year . Well, i think history will look back on it as, as you say, a very expensive and very hardfought election that presented a very clear ideological choice and in the end was not really close, certainly by the Electoral College count and even in the popular vote to some extent. The country has essentially doubled down on a lot of what president obama has stood for in his first term and says he wants to accomplish in the second term. And some very significant gaps became clear in terms of who is where in this country in politics. You know, theres a gap among minority voters, latino voters, Asian American voters. Women voters are clearly dividing toward one side. They all voted. I mean, they came out in big numbers. They all voted and there was huge Voter Registration drives in battleground states that went into this. California is now at a recor high Voter Registration level. Theres a Big Technology gap thats emerging between the campaigns, as you see a lot of monday morning quarterback on the gop side. But all the tech money, too, that went in. Those things are related, the connection president obama had the campaign had to the Silicon Valley and the money they raised. Absolutely. We have good reporting about how the volunteerism in the Silicon Valley for obama was a huge asset to that campaign that romney, and perhaps future republicans, cant really look forward to. There was huge victories for democrats in california house races, two supposedly embattled democrats in Northern California held on, John Garamendi and jerry mcnerdy. Om omnivera unseated dan lundgren in his second bite at that apple. In an interesting example of how the top two primary system is going to change things Going Forward in california, we said goodbye to the dean of our congressional delegation, dean stark, as he was unseated by a fellow democrat, representativeelect herb swolo. I want to ask you you about the ethnic shift you mentioned. Seemed to me the last 30 or 40 years, the republican has had a reliable model, the southern strategy, where you have to win roughly 60 of the white vote, mostly older, appealing to, you know, certain issues, gun control, abortion issues, things like that. But as the percentage of the vote has changed, going from, you know, 90 was white in 1980 that voted for president and now it was 72 , is there any way for the republicans to continue using that strategy Going Forward, or are they going to have to literally start from scratch because there arent enough older, southern white people anymore for them to win the election . I think olders a big piece of it, because i think youre seeing a trend toward the Democratic Party among Younger Voters who are coming out in bigger and bigger numbers and Voter Mobilization techniques improve. But yeah, theres a lot of talk now within the Republican Party about how to appeal for the first time in many cases to these constituencies that in the past theyve been able to get a little piece of, but could largely do without. Its hard to see how theyre going to be able to win a National Election or even a lot of statewide elections Going Forward without finding a way to make a convincing argument to attract latinos and women and people under 30 and so on and so forth. How do you see the tea party faring in the future and this idea that you make a pledge not to raise taxes and its for the rest of your life . What happens to those two key elements of whats happened in the election . There are some people who wonder if jim demints resignation from the senate toward the end of this year sort of marks the start of the downward spiral for the particular brand of conservatism that he and the tea partiers represented. Hes sort of taking his ball and going home, although he hopes to keep influencing the debate from a think tank outside of the senate. And i think, you know, youre starting to see that while its possible for candidates of that stripe to win house seats, you know, localized elections, its going to get really, really hard for them to carry statewide elections. Look at some of the senate races like in places like monta or some of the other ones where you would have thought that, you know, the conservatism would be a very convincing argument, and it just didnt win out. So, is it enough for them to say, okay, lets do comprehensive Immigration Reform, that will take care of the problem with latino voters . I think thats the first thing theyre going to try. I dont necessarily think its enough Going Forward. I talked recently to some Silicon Valley volunteers for obama, technologyists as they like to call themselves, and they said its hard to come to a party still catering for creationists. For People Like Us who are evidence and factbased, its just a matter of philosophy. I think this is maybe the first election where the latino vote really was a decisive, you know, in the margin of victory for the democrats. And there are folks who with Political Science looking at this who will say that latinos are really that republicans are leaving a lot of latino votes on the table because theyre not participating in a comprehensive Immigration Reform, and i think that thats something that were going to start to see change. Yeah. And let me just add to that, too. You touched on it earlier, josh, this whole idea of the divide, the economic divide and the haves and the havenots, and certainly, latino voters are part of the havenots in many occasions. The occupy movement, which really got started in 2011, but really exploded in places like oak laerland earlier this year. What impact do you think that had on the National Conversation . I think it enshrined a place in the National Dialogue for issues like income disparity. I mean, the whole fiscal cliff situation is very much, look at the way thats being framed. 98 versus 2 . Its very close to the 99 that was the rallying cry of occupy, and the same thing with the argument over jobs versus austerity. Are we going to go the way of europe or are we going to try to stimulate the economy back into a more comfortable spot, rather than waiting for it to grow by inches as weve been doing. There were a lot of issues on the state ballot, and tyche, you can say Governor Brown put all his eggs in one basket, proposition 30, and it passed. What does he get. Well, he gets forward momentum, which was really, i think, really in question for a while. There were folks saying, you know, if prop 30s polling below 60 of the vote that its sunk, that you cant pass a tax measure with such a close margin. It ended up passing with a 55 45 margin. And it really i think you were talking about voter turnout efforts. There was a very sophisticated effort for prop 30 and against prop 32 that would have restricted Union Political contributions, that had some union money behind it, and also a lot of organizations like voto latino, like mi familia, civic groups that are looking at engaging voters who are in many cases not regular voters and have been written off as we cant depend on them. And there was real Grassroots Energy that got them out. I think College Students were a big part of the win for prop 30. The fact that the current years budget was built assuming that 30 was going to pass and that if it didnt, there were going to be trigger cuts that were going to cut into the Higher Education budget, really motivated a lot of students out. So, brown moves forward with that momentum. I really feel like thats kind of the nub of it. There was a huge component of fear involved, and wellbased fear involved in the prop 30 campaign. It seemed like it finally got through to people that a tremendous percentage of the state budget is dedicated to k12 and Higher Education and you can only cut so far, and we had come to that point without impacting those sections of the budget. What i think is so fascinating, tyche, about the passage of that, is people were scared, people voted, they decided it was worth even though they didnt trust the legislature, it was worth giving them more money. But weve been talking in the media for the last ten years about how california is broke, theres a structural deficit. There isnt a structural deficit anymore. Theres 1. 9 billion yeah. But that is small. It was 25 billion just a couple years ago. This problem is a good part of the way toward being solved, and i think if people would have i dont think people even still completely understand that. And to me, the big question is, are the democrats, now that they have twothirds majorities in each house, are they going to blow it up again and create new deficits like when gray davis was in charge, by rewarding in spending and locking in unions and things like that. And i think the democrats do have the supermajority in both the state senate and the state assembly, but a lot of the new freshmen coming in are from more centrist districts. They won by small margins, and i dont think its a foregone conclusion that theyre going to be steamrollering with big government. Voters also passed prop 39, which closed a Corporate Tax option of some would call it a loophole to pay a lower tax. That brings another 1 billion into the state budget. And for some of thats earmarked, though. For the first five years, half of it is earmarked for green jobs, environmentsal things, and it looks like the legislature wants to put that into Energy Retrofits for schools. But Going Forward, its not earmarked money. So, the supermajority and the potential budget surpluses on the horizon a year or two out, does this give jerry brown like a new life politically . Does he you know, what does he do with it. A new life, but not a blank check, maybe, yeah. Had he lost, he might not have run again for governor, and that would have been a huge rejection of everything he had argued for, that you could bring sanity to the process, people are reasonable, theyll find a middle ground. All that would have been in ruins. And i think now and obviously, it depends on his health, now that weve learned recently about his prostate cancer, which thankfully, they caught early. You could see a scenario by which he runs for reelection and he wins quite easily. I mean, ive been wondering, given these democratic shifts which have been under way in california as well and the party has not adjusted to it here, how long will it be before there is a viable republican candidate for governor . In our lifetimes, can you show a path where a republican governor goes through the primary and wins the governors seat . Thats the key. Theres a pendulum swinging and theres an Arnold Schwarzenegger out there. He didnt have to win a primary. Prop 37, the gmo labelling bill, which big food spent an awful lot of money to deful, paul. Yeah, you know, the election the two biggest issues for environmentalists this year were hurricane sandy, which actually convinced a lot of people who were on the fence about Climate Change that the oceans really are rising and can affect us, not just polar bears, and the second big thing was the election. The reelection of obama locked in place the doubling of the gas mileage standards, new rules that are coming out on Greenhouse Gases, no more offshore oil drilling in new places, things that romney took a different view on. And in california there were three or four big environmental measures as well. Voters in San Francisco rejected overwhelmingly a measure that would have studied draining hetechi, i think setting back that movement decades, frankly. Prop 37, the gm food thing, i think that sets back that movement. You know, they werent able to make a compelling case to the public, even though they were outspent, that genetically modified food is harmful to eat. I think thats part of the reason they lost. Is that a victory for science or a defeat . Weve been eating genetically modified food for 25 years, and there is not clear published in scientific journals studies showing that its unhealthy. Now, there are other problems with genetically modified food, like for example, corporations like monsanto that have owned the patent to the seeds, like drifts into organic fields, things like that, but from a health perspective, thats why the tv ads were so vague on the yes on 37 side. They dont have the science clearly to show that people are getting sick from it. Wasnt it claimed that and this is something that i think a lot of people took very much to heart that this was going to spawn a whole series of lawsuits absolutely. Against Food Companies and grocers and all kinds of other people, and that basically, this was the plaintiff attorneys fulltime employment act. And i think a lot of people looked at that and said if thats what this is about youre exactly right. The key part is that is the retailer was responsible. So if youre a momandpop Grocery Store and you have one product on the shelf where the maker of the product didnt tlabl properly, you can be sued. And weve seen it in prop 65 and other measures where there are specialists attorneys who go around looking for Little Things like that they can sue on. The other one is prop 39, which i would add to what tyche said, very, very important. California will now be spending 500 million a year for five years. Its more money than any state has ever spent to retrofit School Buildings and other public buildings. And this is not solar panels. This is the boring stuff, the duct work, you know, the insulation. And you can save 25 on your electricity bill. Some high schools have 100,000, 200,000 a year or more, and all that moneys going back into the classroom. This year you did a lot of reporting on state parks. What kind of a year was it . A lot of closure talk, then all of a sudden, some money was found. Total disaster. I blame Arnold Schwarzenegger and jerry brown, who played politics with this. They talked about closing parks and would save a pittance. It was to scare people into voting for higher taxes, and in the end, it hurt parks, because when the two accounts were found with 54 million that they hadnt spent nobody stole the money, they hadnt reported it properly then the backlash was huge. Because then the public was like, why are you asking us for money and then Holding Money . That leended up in the resignatn of the parks head. Is there somebody who will fix this . Anthony jackson, hes a former marine general. I dont know how much he knows about parks, but hes a guy who jerry brown can show to the public, look, weve got a nononsense guy whos going to whip these folks into shape. Yeah, well, you know, tom vacar, 2011 in some ways was the year of the pg e sam bruno explosion. 2012 we had a refinery fire in richmond. Were there commonalities to those stories, common lessons to be learned . The common lesson is that whether youre a corporation or an individual, you really dont want to pay for Infrastructure Improvement