by Peggy Kerns
The California-based Center for Governmental Studies (CGS) has closed. Goodbye to CGS and thanks. Thanks for 28 years of rattling the cages with thoughtful, nonpartisan and provocative research on governance reforms. Thanks for ideas on campaign finance laws, state budgeting, ballot measures and higher education - to name a few. Thanks for the hundreds of studies and more than 70 books and reports. You will be missed. A victim of the economy and loss of foundation funding, the center will continue access to its website and publications.
The center was guided by a two-fold principle that “21st century democracy can only be improved by efforts both to reform the underlying structures of government and to use new communications technologies to inform citizens and help them participate in government,” said CGS founders, Tracy Westen and Bob Stern. The center’s research focused primarily on California, but its impacts went far beyond the state’s borders.
Its July 2011 report, Citizen Legislators or Political Musical Chairs: Term Limits in California, concluded that term limits in California have failed as term-limited politicians bounced around to other political offices.
The center took on the U.S. Supreme Court's Arizona Free Enterprise decision in its September 2011 report, Alternatives to Triggers: Public Campaign Financing After Arizona Free Enterprise. The decision invalidated “trigger funds” that gave publicly-financed candidates additional funding to meet high-spending wealthy or self-financed candidates and independent expenditure committees. In its report, the center gives alternative approaches to state and local public campaign finance systems.
Political pundits lament the center’s passing. Bill Boyarsky of the blog LA Observed, quotes CGS board chairman Steve Rountree from his email to the San Francisco Chronicle. “In my view this is the result of the impact of the recession on foundation (funding) but, more than that, the consequence of our dramatically polarized political environment and court rulings that have tended to gut laws and regulations aimed at making the democratic process fairer. I believe that foundations have given up hope of meaningful reform in this climate,” Rountree said.
The well-respected CGS leaders and other staff members will complete pending projects before moving on. Westen plans to continue his work on governance reform and online democracy. Stern expects to continue as an expert consultant, public speaker and political commentator.
A prominent watchdog organization has folded and the public is the loser.
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