California State Legislature

1. LA Department of Water and Power

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) is the largest municipal utility in the United States. It is serving over four million residents. It was founded in 1902 to supply water and electricity to residents and businesses in Los Angeles and surrounding communities.

2. Missouri Plan

The Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan or Missouri Plan for short is a method of selecting judges. It originated in Missouri in 1940 and several other states have adopted the same policy. According to the Missouri Plan, a non-partisan commission reviews candidates for a judicial vacancy and informs the governor a list of candidates considered best qualified. The governor has sixty days to select a candidate from the list. If not, the commission will make the selection. After one year of service by the judge and during the next general election. The people will vote of that judge to see if the judge will stay or be removed from office. If a majority votes against the judge staying in office, the judge is removed from office. If the majority votes in favor of the judge, then he or she will serve out a full term.

The Missouri plan is a significant policy in Missouri, other states, and also California. California, however, uses a modified version of the Missouri Plan in which the Governor can nominate any California attorney with enough experience. The nominee then undergoes an evaluation by the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation (JNE) of the State Bar of California, which then forwards a nonbinding evaluation to the Governor.

For superior court positions, the Governor can make an appointment after receiving a report from Judicial Nominees Evaluation. For appellate court positions, the Gove...

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...t cost of it. Even though Three Strikes is supposed to be universal throughout the state, it varies by each county as each their “prosecutors enforce the law according to their own principles of proportionality.” (Bowers.) Furthermore, due to the consequence of a third-strike felony, inmates spend at least 25 years in prison. This is a big cost to the state because the cost of an inmate in a California prison was estimated in 1993 to be $ 20,800 per year. Thus, “keeping a third-strike inmate imprisoned for the minimum twenty-five years is a $ 500,000 investment.” (Bowers.)

Three Strikes shows a progress to which California and other states are still adapting. It was made for a good reason against violent crime such as murder and rape. Crimes went down as people heard of the notorious Three Strikes law. Simply knowing that fact, it was a well made policy.