SUPPORTING OUR TERM-LIMITED LEGISLATURE IN DEVELOPING MODELS FOR TACKLING CALIFORNIA'S MAJOR CHALLENGES EXPEDITIOUSLY

INTRODUCTION

Effectively governing a state of more than 37 million people in a rapidly changing world, is no simple task. However, at a time when the challenges facing California only seem to grow more complex and challenging, term-limits have dictated that the overall experience of our Legislature will continue to decline as new Members cycle in and out of office with little time to gain experience and develop expertise. Our Legislature's relatively new encounter with term limits seems to have left it largely unprepared to grapple expeditiously with issues of enormous significance.

The Vasconcellos Legacy Project is a California 501(C)3 non-profit, non-partisan organization uniquely equipped, ready and willing to support the California Legislature in developing new working models for community and citizen engagement that will develop the trust and facilitate the Legislative progress and success necessary to challenge the cynicism, divisiveness and paralyzing dysfunction that has grown more prevalent in our term-limited era.

WHAT WE HAVE TO OFFER

The Vasconcellos Legacy Project has enlisted a bipartisan team of more than 78 former California State Legislators to help mentor and educate new Members on proven ways to be effective in this work. With their partnership, talents and networks, we can call upon their wisdom and experience to help the current term-limited Legislature develop efficient models that will empower current leaders to strategically design processes to engage the public and produce results in the record time that term-limits now require.

We are confident that developing regional stakeholder partnerships will allow the current Legislature to better meet the significant challenges facing California, during their shortened tenures.
We propose to be partners in developing an inclusive, stakeholder supported policy development model to enable our current Legislature to achieve the proposed benefits of term-limits without being disempowered and crippled by the constraints.

OUR GOALS

1. Creation of a policy development model featuring partnership, collaboration, trust and results.

2. Providing institutional memory and collation of the latest objective research to assure the finest information on which to pursue findings and recommendations.

3. Prioritizing and focusing goals to support accomplishment within shortened legislative tenures.

4. Facilitating a process of regional stakeholder partnerships to solicit the public input and support necessary to, assure the adoption of conclusions, as well as the development of hands-on pragmatic efforts to address the identified challenges locally and assure authentic local implementation of any enacted solutions.

5. Preserving the power in the hands of current leaders while providing historical perspective and constituent buy-in that will help empower a term-limited Legislature to protect the future well-being of the people of California.

IN SUMMARY

We offer our partnership and support as the Legislature develops working models for tackling California's most profound challenges expeditiously.

For more information, and to find out ways in which you can get involved, please contact Executive Director Jason Spencer at jason@politicsoftrust.net.