Introduction
Local politics feel fundamentally different. Their immediacy and daily impact make grand ideological and partisan differences among us seem less important. Local issues are often about resolving traffic jams, providing good schools, planning for safe neighborhoods, and many other topics that do not polarize us in the same way state and national politics may. They are not trivial, however. For example, the tragedy of a school shooting illustrates the role of multiple governments in our community.
On the morning of November 14, 2019, at Saugus High School, a student murdered two of his classmates, injured three more, and then killed himself. The Saugus (and the larger Santa Clarita) community mourned the deaths of Dominic Blackwell and Gracie Anne Muehlberger with a vigil attended by 15,000, many efforts to better address school safety and gun violence, and a memorial placed in the nearby Central Park to honor them (Aubachon).
This episode and its aftermath show the interlocking roles of many local governments in our lives. Saugus High School is part of the William S. Hart School District, which is responsible for school safety as mandated by the state of California. The school district, governed by a Board of Trustees elected by Santa Clarita voters, contracts with the County of Los Angeles Sheriff's Department to provide school resource officers. The City of Santa Clarita also contracts for its police, fire, and paramedic services from the County, resulting in these county departments also responding to the shooting. The victims were rushed to Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, a not-for-profit hospital licensed by the state of California. Saugus High students and their families organized the vigil for the following weekend at Central Park, which the City's Parks and Recreation Department manages. The City leases the parkland from the Santa Clarita Water Agency, a special district with an elected board responsible for delivering water to the area. This agency agreed to the addition of the memorial to the park. Setting aside a further consideration of the complexity of local, state, and federal laws that regulate gun ownership, the response to this shooting illustrates the vital roles of multiple local governments in our community.
Local governments were first established by the California Constitution of 1849. Article 11 provides uniform procedures for establishing counties and cities as legal subdivisions of the state. California grants local governments their powers, and hence, they are but "creatures of the state." This doctrine of state control became known as Dillon's Rule (1868) after an Iowa state court decision that courts across the country followed. However, like many other states, California delegates limited autonomy to local governments when they create charters. A charter gives a local government home rule status, meaning more independence to organize government and policies as they choose, and then Dillon's Rule no longer applies. Hence, cities and counties are established as either charter cities and counties or "general law" cities and counties that follow Dillon's Rule.
In total, there are fifty-eight counties ranging from the most populous Los Angeles County with nine million-plus people to tiny Alpine County in the Sierra Nevada with just over one thousand people. Thirteen of these counties have charters. These include some of the largest counties, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, and San Francisco. As of 2017, there are 482 cities, with 125 having more autonomy from state law as charter cities. Then, there are over four thousand special districts, including school districts and other specific purpose districts, to manage many issues such as water, pollution, and medical care (Micheli). Finally, there are 109 federally recognized Indian tribes in California ("California Tribal Communities"). We will discuss each of these in detail. As we survey these many local governments, we will consider the following questions: How are they constituted? Who governs them? What are their responsibilities? Last, we will examine some of the current debates regarding electoral reform.
