Government of California
The state also allows direct participation of the electorate by initiative, referendum, recall and ratification.
[6] State government is organized into many departments, of which most have been grouped together into several huge Cabinet-level agencies since the administration of Governor Pat Brown.
[7][8] When Brown took office, he was dismayed to discover that under California law, approximately 360 boards, commissions, and agencies all reported directly to the governor, and proposed his "super-agency" plan (then spelled with a hyphen) in February 1961 to impose order on such chaos.
[10] The superagencies operate as "umbrella organizations"[7] or "semiautonomous fiefdoms," but their Cabinet-level secretaries are not quite as powerful as they may appear at first glance.
[11] Today, the Cabinet-level agencies (superagencies) are the:[12] The independently elected officers run separate departments not grouped within the superagencies, and there are other Cabinet-level departments: Most (but not all) of the leaders of these entities are normally appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate.
The court has original jurisdiction in a variety of cases, including habeas corpus proceedings, and has discretionary authority to review all the decisions of the California courts of appeal, as well as mandatory review responsibility for cases where the death penalty has been imposed.
The state constitution allows direct participation of the electorate by initiative, referendum, and recall.
In a 2015 review by the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity of how effectively states promote transparency and procedures to reduce corruption, California received a C−, the second-highest grade in the country.
[21] In 2005, Pew Research Center's Government Performance Project gave California a grade C−, tied for last with Alabama.
[23] In discussing the results, the report noted that the personnel system is known to be dysfunctional, and that the Human Resources Modernization Project was underway to address the issue.
