I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII

III. The Solution

Common Sense California

The Structure: Organizing Common Sense California

Table 1: Roles and Responsibilities of the Board and the Organizing Committee

Conclusion: The Time is Now

A Fuller Discussion Roadmap (PDF)

Common Sense California (CSC) is a statewide group of California citizens concerned about the future of our state. Our mission is to improve and reform the broken system of governance in California by serving as a civic bridge between the citizens of California and our elected officials in order to face and resolve the significant, long term challenges facing our state.¹

An in-depth study of the attitudes of Californians² has informed our approach:

For most Californians pragmatism wins out over ideology. While many Californians have strongly held political beliefs, they are far more interested in finding workable solutions than in adhering to a particular ideology.
An all-pervasive climate of mistrust (of government and elected officials) exists throughout the state that distorts all issues, creates gridlock, and causes citizens to restrict government freedom of action.
Californians are insufficiently engaged in policy issues of great importance to them, and so have not given much thought to the tough tradeoffs that each of these issues requires. This creates and reinforces a striking disconnect between citizens and government.³

As a civic bridge, we intended to pursue two purposes: 1) to serve as a mechanism for the public to have meaningful and informed dialogues about the major long term issues that should be on the agenda of our elected officials, and 2) to demonstrate for elected officials the pragmatic areas of common ground so that "common sense solutions" to our state's challenges can be developed and implemented.

Ultimately, the success of Common Sense California should be judged on the basis of evidence of (a) greater and more realistic public engagement with issues affecting the future of California and (b) whether efforts to address specific issues of importance gain traction and achieve a measure of success in changing public policy.

¹ Our mission is inspired in part by the work of the New Jersey Coalition for the Public Good that was created in 2000. (www.njcpg.org). We are grateful to Ruth Wooden and Will Friedman of Public Agenda, Tom O'Neill of Partnership New Jersey, Mark Murphy of the Fund for New Jersey and Bill Schluter of the Coalition for educating us about the Coalition and the Citizens Tax Assembly.

² Listening to Californians: Bridging the Disconnect, A Report to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation, Viewpoint Learning, Inc., La Jolla, California. January 2005. The full report is available at www.viewpointlearning.com/vlpubs/hi_report.pdf. This study is notable because it is not based on 20 minute phone interviews or 2 hour focus groups. Rather, Viewpoint Learning engaged more than 500 Californians, in small groups, for intensive, eight hour dialogues.

³ "On most issues we found citizens engaged in a significant amount of wishful thinking at the beginning of each dialogue-for example, about the real cost of changes in transit systems, or about how much could actually be saved by reducing 'waste, fraud and abuse' in government. This also reflected the degree to which Californians don't feel they have a voice in shaping public policy, and therefore have no incentive to get engaged and to confront tough choices�Where leaders too often see an uninformed public with little to contribute to policy-making, the public sees a decision-making process completely taken over by special interests and partisan battling. Where leaders too often see an apathetic public that has little interest in being engaged, the public sees governments doing little of value to address the challenges that matter most to them." Ibid.