PRESTOPUNDIT -- "An intense brain-buzz, guaranteed" (2blowhards)

History / PoliSci professor and self-described partisan Democrat (are there any other kind) Jack Rakove says that California is utterly unMadisonian. Actually California is a Madisonian nightmare -- the very model of the massive failure of Madison's "solution" to faction outlined in Federalist no. 10. And I'm talking about the pre-Progressive features of the California system. The Progressive reforms of recall and initiative have been the the only things which have saved the state from utter ruin as the narrow interested eat the baby of the general interest alive in the Madisonian state legislature. I admire Madison perhaps more than most -- but he utterly failed to come up with Constitutional solutions to the Madisonian problem of "faction". The faction driven legislature is killing the taxpayer and business in the interest of the trial lawyers, the government unions, and the countless spending lobbies and dependency constituencies. This is Madisonian government run amuck -- and the Progressives at least gave us some effective tools for saving the people and the common good from the corruption of the Madisonian logrolling and hand-greasing process of government by a legislature unbound by law, principle or simple decency. The Madisonian system has created Illiberal Democracy and The End of Liberalism -- taking us on The Road to Serfdom.