May 2018 – Page 2 – Public Policy Institute of California

The 100th Anniversary of Women in the California Legislature

The Public Policy Institute of California is hosting a public event in Sacramento to commemorate the election of the first women to the California Legislature in 1918. Today, with Toni Atkins as the first woman in the powerful position of senate president—and in the wake of the capitol’s sexual misconduct scandals—we want to offer some reflections on the status of women in California’s statehouse.

First, it’s important to point out that the legislature has far fewer women than men at a time when women have an edge over men in voting. Women now make up slightly more than half of California’s likely voters (53%). This edge persists across racial/ethnic groups: women make up more than half of African American (57%), Latino (57%), white (52%), and Asian American (51%) likely voters. Across parties, women make up 62% of Democratic likely voters, 49% of Republican likely voters, and 44% of independent likely voters.

But the predominance of women voters is not reflected in the composition of the California Legislature. After the path-breaking elections of 100 years ago, the following decades saw relatively few women serving in the assembly. And it wasn’t until 1966 that women of color won assembly seats. A decade later, the first woman was finally elected to the state senate. The top two leadership roles in the assembly and senate were filled even more slowly. No woman held the assembly Speaker position until 1995—and that was for only three months. The next woman Speaker wasn’t elected until 2008.

Legislative term limits—passed by voters in 1990—were partially conceived as a path toward increasing diversity in the statehouse. But in the nearly 30 years since—an era that has been defined by California’s increasing ethnic and racial diversity, and Democratic leanings—there has been little change. The proportion of women in the legislature has ranged from a low of 18% in the 1991–92 session to a high of 31% in the 2005–06 session; overall, the average has hovered around 25%. A slew of recent reforms such as independent legislative redistricting, the top-two primary, and additional legislative term limit reforms—as well as efforts to encourage voter registration and voting—have had little impact.

Today, the proportion of women in the California Legislature stands at 23% and is similar in both houses. However, Republicans trail Democrats in the proportion of women legislators, with 6 women among the 38 Republican members and 22 women among the 79 Democratic members.

Surprisingly, California is a laggard in this area. Although a 2018 Rutgers University report finds that 25.4% of state legislators across the US are women, California ranks just 32nd out of the 50 states, close to the next-largest state, Texas (#35, 20.4%). Compared to our western neighbors, California is well behind Arizona (#1, 40%), Nevada (#3, 38.1%), Oregon (#8, 33.3%), and Washington (#5, 37.4%).

The lack of gender diversity in the California Legislature raises serious questions about the effects of political representation. What is the impact of the gender gap on equitable and effective policymaking? What are the greatest barriers for women in political careers? Will electing more women to legislative office provide inspiration and pathways for others—and help to build a more inclusive culture? One thing is certain: California’s current gender gap has consequences for the ability to recruit and retain top talent in the legislature today.

New Federal Policies Will Help Manage Wildfire Risk

California’s headwater forests have experienced a long-term decline in health and have suffered unprecedented tree death and severe wildfires as a result. About half the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascade forests are owned and managed by the US Forest Service (USFS). HR 1625, the federal budget bill enacted in March of this year, contains four new reforms that will make it easier for the USFS to ramp up management efforts and reduce wildfire risk in this region:

Protecting funds dedicated to forest management and restoration. The Forest Service’s fire suppression activities have traditionally been funded from the same pot of money that pays for management to reduce hazardous fuels, like prescribed burning and mechanical thinning. The rising costs of wildfire suppression thus draws resources away from management actions. This fiscal practice, sometimes known as “fire borrowing,” creates a vicious cycle. With low levels of management, fuels continue to build up, increasing the likelihood and intensity of future fires—and the cost of suppressing them. The reform freezes USFS expenditures on wildfire suppression at 2015 levels and creates a new source of wildfire suppression funds that is independent from funds for forest management and restoration. This change becomes effective in fiscal year 2020.
Expediting small-scale forest management projects. Currently, the USFS can streamline environmental review for certain types of small-scale projects that don’t pose a significant environmental threat, such as restoring burned areas, stopping insect infestation, and performing some commercial harvesting. This reform expands USFS authority to streamline approval for small, proactive fuel-management projects that improve forests’ resilience to drought, pest, and wildfires. USFS Region 5 (serving California, Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands) is evaluating opportunities to use this new streamlining tool in 2019.
Improving tools for collaboration between the Forest Service and local parties. USFS’s stewardship projects allow businesses, local governments, and nonprofits to play a larger role in carrying out forest management projects on USFS lands. This harnesses additional resources to promote forest health on these lands. The new policy doubles the maximum duration of stewardship projects to 20 years, which could encourage larger projects and more substantial investments in supportive infrastructure, such as roads, sawmills, and biomass energy generators.
Improving tools for collaboration between the Forest Service and states. This reform expands the management work that states may perform on USFS lands under the Good Neighbor Authority (GNA). The GNA can be helpful when private or local government landowners share a boundary with federal forests. The new policy expands the use of GNA programs to include road rehabilitation and repair projects that can improve access to forests in need of management. The USFS expects this will encourage partnerships with state agencies such as Caltrans and California State Parks, which regularly repair roads in the vicinity of national forests.

This new suite of policies signals a growing prioritization of forest management and provides concrete steps to increase the pace and scale of active management. The changes will allow USFS to develop stronger partnerships with other forest landowners and stakeholders, and could help lead to healthier headwater forests in California.

Out-of-State Students and Tuition at UC

After the Great Recession, growing demand among out-of-state students, including international students, helped the University of California (UC) offset funding cuts. But as nonresident tuition goes up, and as UC places caps on enrollment that trend may be changing—raising questions about the stability of what’s now an important source of university revenue.

The recession brought heavy cuts to state education budgets, and public universities in California and nationwide increased tuition substantially to compensate. UC implemented cost-saving strategies and looked for other sources of revenue. Campuses began enrolling more out-of-state students, who pay an extra $20,000 or more in supplemental tuition every year. As a result, nonresident applications, admits, and enrollees all more than doubled from 2010 to 2016, and out-of-state students became a reliable—and growing—source of revenue. UC states that this additional revenue helps provide funding to enroll California residents.

From 2011 to 2014, tuition was frozen for all students as the state recovered from the recession, but nonresident tuition started to grow again in 2014. By 2017, nonresident tuition surpassed $41,000, leaving it comparable to the most expensive public universities in the nation (Michigan: $47,476; Virginia: $46,643) and to the most expensive private schools in the state (Stanford: $48,987; University of Southern California: $53,448). UC tentatively approved another increase in March that would put nonresident tuition at about $42,600, but may scale that back if the state kicks in more funds.

However, growth in out-of-state demand may be starting to slow at UC. The number of applications from out-of-state students, which had grown steadily since 2010, dropped in 2017, though it then rebounded to previous levels in 2018.

There are many possible reasons for the potential slowing growth in demand among out-of-state students. UC has put a yearly cap on nonresident enrollment and stopped giving out-of-state students financial aid, which means they pay the full price of tuition plus living expenses, about $61,000 total. In contrast, private institutions do give financial aid, so even with higher tuition, they may be cheaper for some students overall. For example, the average estimated net cost for students who receive financial aid at the University of Southern California is $32,932, and at Stanford the net cost is $16,695.

Given the cap on out-of-state students—as well as the potential slowdown in the growth of demand—the University of California may have to look to other sources to increase revenue for its campuses.

Federal Spending Bill Boosts Education Funds in California

Congress recently agreed on a $1.3 trillion spending bill to keep the federal government operating through September 2018. Nearly six months behind schedule, the omnibus spending bill includes a $3.9 billion increase for the US Department of Education (DOE), even though the president had proposed a $9 billion (13%) budget cut that involved scaling back or eliminating more than 30 DOE programs. Since funding for most of these programs is based on student headcounts, California is expected to receive more federal money this year.

One contentious issue in the president’s budget was a $1.4 billion increase for public and private school alternatives. Congress rejected increases for the new Furthering Options for Children to Unlock Success grants—the president’s signature proposal—and the Education Innovation and Research program. Instead, it increased funding for the charter schools grant program by $58 million, a much smaller amount than the president—and Secretary DeVos—had proposed.

The spending bill also excluded a proposed 15% funding cut for Perkins grants and the elimination of the Preschool Development grants. In the previous school year, California received $113 million for Perkins grants, which support career technical education programs in high schools and community colleges. California is also expected to receive more money from the Department of Health and Human Services for programs such as the Child Care Development Block Grant and Head Start.

Congress voted to maintain funding for Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants, which the president also wanted to eliminate. Commonly referred to as Title II, this program supports the recruitment and development of high-quality teachers and principals, with a particular focus on serving students from low-income families. Title II is the third-largest DOE program, and California schools received more than $200 million Title II funds in the most recent school year.

At the postsecondary level, Congress increased funding for the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant by $107 million. The president proposed eliminating this $732 million program, which provides need-based grants to help low-income undergraduate students with college costs. The spending bill also increased funding for the federal work-study program by 14%, reversing the president’s proposal to cut it by almost half.

Historically, federal funds have been a small fraction of school district revenues, but they have become an increasingly important funding source, particularly for high-need schools. All in all, the new spending bill will support California’s ongoing efforts to improve educational outcomes for all of its students.

How “Weather Whiplash” Could Change California

First came the drought, then the floods: California has long bounced between the two weather extremes―most recently when the latest drought segued into 2017’s record-breaking rain and snow. Such “weather whiplash” could become much more common as the climate changes, according to a new study. We talked to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA—and the study’s lead author—about what to expect.

PPIC: California already has a highly variable climate. How will this be different?

Daniel Swain: There will be much bigger swings between wet and dry years. We project a 25–100% increase in extreme swings in this century. On top of that we’ll probably see some changes in seasonality. While it will still be dry in summer and wet in winter, spring is likely to become considerably drier in most of the state, especially in the south. This will have big consequences for things like the snowpack and wildfire risk.

California’s human and natural systems can usually withstand the kind of variations we’ve seen in the past. But as the frequency and intensity of these swings increases, it could push some species to the edge. For example, the warming climate is already stressing our forests faster than they can adapt—we’re seeing a dramatic example of this right now with widespread Sierra Nevada tree mortality. And warming temperatures are making it difficult to manage for salmon and other fishes that rely on cold water.

It could be equally hard for the state’s water system to adapt to the bigger floods. Our big dams were designed to capture smaller floods than what we expect in the future. We can make some changes on the margins, but these structures were built for a climate that we no longer have.

PPIC: What is the most surprising thing about your findings?

DS: We were surprised by how much the risk for really severe flood events increases. We project a 300–400% increase in the likelihood of events similar to California’s 1862 Great Flood, which brought weeks of unrelenting rain and inundated much of the Central Valley. We found that it’s more likely than not that an event comparable to the 1862 flood will occur in the next 40–50 years. Keep in mind that there’s no modern precedent for this—it would exceed all previous tests of our flood management infrastructure.

It’s important to remember that we based our study on fairly pessimistic assumptions. If the world greatly reduces greenhouse gas emissions, California could see a smaller increase in extreme flood risk. But social and political factors will ultimately determine how much we reduce emissions in coming decades, so uncertainty remains.

PPIC: What is the key takeaway for water managers?

DS: We need to think about managing droughts and floods simultaneously, because some adaptations to help manage drought could make it harder to manage floods and vice versa. For example, increasing water stored behind California’s big dams gives us a nice buffer against a couple years of drought. But this saved water can become a liability because it reduces the reservoir space available to capture flood water. A higher risk of big floods necessitates bigger safety margins, which means storing less water behind dams for dry times.

One way to help manage this trade-off is to increase the use of natural floodplains to take up some of the water from big storm events. For example, Sacramento’s Yolo Bypass is intentionally inundated to protect the city from big floods. Another approach is to capture the water released from dams to make space for floods and store it underground. And when floods inevitably come, use flood waters to recharge groundwater.