By any measure, California is a failed state–and a national embarrassment.

Taxes? It has the highest income and gas taxes in the nation.

Roads? A Reason Foundation survey ranks it 49th among the states.

Mass flight? Between 250,000 and 350,000 more Californians leave the state than move in each year. Housing, gas, insurance, and electricity prices? The highest in the continental U.S.

Illegal aliens, the poor, the homeless, the foreign-born, and welfare recipients? The largest numbers in the U.S.

Public K-12 schools? Test scores in the bottom quartile.

Poverty? Twenty percent live below the poverty line.

So, what happened to the nation’s most richly naturally endowed–and once best governed–state?

The Left took total control–after millions of the embattled middle class fled. Millions more impoverished immigrants, legal and illegal, took their place. Left-wing Silicon Valley spawned some of the wealthiest elite liberal enclaves in the world.

The result was a neo-feudal society that was hardly democratic.

Millions of subsidized poor compose the bottom. A beleaguered middle continues to shrink. An ultra-rich apparat of left-wing coastal professionals and investors rules from the top.

As upper-bracket taxpayers fled, taxes rose on those who remained to fund expanding entitlements for newly arrived poor would-be residents. In turn, even more of the middle class left.

In 2014, Californians voted for Proposition 1, a $7.5 billion water bond designed to solve the state’s chronic water storage deficit.

Included was $2.7 billion specifically designated for new reservoirs, as the last major reservoir had been built in 1980, when California had roughly half its current population.

Despite the people’s vote, bureaucracies, elected officials, and green activists blocked all new reservoir construction.

Adding insult to injury, Governor Gavin Newsom instead used $250 million from the Proposition 1 fund to blow up four dams on the Klamath River. They had once provided storage, electrical generation, recreation, and flood control.

Californians have twice voted in referenda (for Proposition 209 and against Proposition 16) to bar the use of racial preferences for contracting, admissions, and promotion in public institutions.

Most public universities simply ignored the law. They continued their “diversity” quotas under new names, relying on left-wing elected officials and judges to ignore again the will of the people.

Preferential admissions, along with racially segregated dorms and graduation ceremonies, continued under euphemisms and denials. “Theme” houses, “affinity” graduations, and “safe spaces” practice “affirmative” discrimination.

California voters in 2008 passed Proposition 11 to stop political gerrymandering by creating a supposedly nonpartisan state redistricting commission of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four Independents. Two years later, the commission took over redrawing congressional districts as well.

But Democratic lobbyists and lawyers sabotaged the goal of disinterested redistricting according to population and geography. Instead, racial preferences and the interests of the Democratic majority of incumbents prevailed to warp the intent of the voters.

Although Republicans usually achieved nearly 40% of the California vote in national elections, two decades later there were only seven Republicans in the 52-person congressional delegation, or a mere 13% of the state’s representatives.

But even that tiny contingent was considered too generous by the Left. Thus, in 2026, it will likely be further redistricted down to four or five seats.

The balloting mess in the recent Los Angeles mayoral race further reminds the nation and the world just how dysfunctional and anti-democratic California has become.

Democrats warp elections without the need for the old Chicago way of outright ballot theft or destruction. Instead, they do so in a “legal” manner by passing insane laws that ensure fraud and Democratic victories.

The winners in the strange jungle primaries–usually both Democrats–were not announced until a week after the polls closed. One of the eventual winners in the mayoral race, the socialist Nithya Raman, had already given her teary concession speech after coming in well back at third on election night.

The Republican Spencer Pratt was comfortably ahead of her in second place on Election Day–only to lose, as expected, when large numbers of late ballots that broke roughly 90% Democratic were counted.

Remember, every registered voter is sent a mail-in ballot. If it is postmarked on election day, it can arrive at vote centers up to seven days after the election.

No one really knows whether the ballots are mailed to the dead, to former or nonexistent addresses, or to legally eligible voters–by design. In 2024, when losing presidential candidate Kamala Harris won the state by 20 points, only 0.09% of all ballots cast were rejected.

Anyone can register and receive a provisional ballot on the same day.

Ballot harvesting and ballot curing are legal.

Campaign operatives can round up voters, gather their ballots, and deliver them en masse to a voting center.

They can register anyone to vote, provide a ballot, and then deposit it immediately afterwards.

There is no requirement to provide proof of U.S. citizenship to get a driver’s license. Yet a license is not even needed to register. Any credit card without a picture suffices.

And it gets worse still.

If the potential voter has no license, no Social Security number, no proof of U.S. citizenship, and no credit cards, he still will be registered–once harvesters provide him with a “unique identifier” number.

He can then vote that very day without any ID at all.

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness. He is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won,” from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.

Editor’s note: This is the second of a three-part column series by Tom Wright, a regular contributor to El Rito Media, commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary.

“Our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

Such are the last words and pledge of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. They knew the ruthlessness of the British King George and his officers. Losing the Revolution meant losing all, yet their desire for a free confederacy of colonies, which would become the United States of America, was worth the risk and what would become an eight-year struggle for victory. Not all colonists agreed. There were differences from the beginning. A war of independence would be risky and costly and some colonists preferred remaining under British authority. For the fifty-six men who signed, their future would be sealed. George Washington was not a signer. He was in the field raising the Continental Army.

The separatist movement was taking shape in 1765. The debate over independence continued eleven years until the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776. Combat had begun on April 19, 1775, and would continue until September 3, 1783.

This country has experienced much in the 250 years of its existence. From colonial times to present day, there have been true statesmen, scoundrels and scandals. Men have risen and faltered, but our way of government has survived. Any resemblance between current times and the activities described here is intended. Human nature has not changed. Our shared American history recounts our nation’s origins and ascent along with our human frailties.

In 1755 or 1757 – history isn’t sure – an illegitimate son was born in the West Indies, the product of an extramarital affair between Scottish trader James Hamilton and Rachel Faucette Lavien. When Alexander Hamilton was born his mother had left her husband, who had her jailed for adultery. Nine years later, Alexander’s father deserted the family; his mother died when he was eleven. Given a job at a trading company, young Alexander Hamilton impressed the adults who helped raise him and they raised money to send him to New York to attend King’s College. While there, he wrote papers favoring the revolutionary cause. In 1775, Hamilton became a commissioned officer in the Continental Army and fought at Princeton and Trenton. In 1777, Hamilton became General Washington’s aide-de-camp, serving until he and the general had a falling-out. Hamilton took a leave of absence from military service to marry Elizabeth Schuyler, the daughter of a wealthy New York family. He had risen from poverty to influential social status.

In 1781, with supplies short, over 5000 colonial soldiers had died and 15,000 captured. One of Washington’s senior officers, Benedict Arnold, had betrayed him and there was a mutiny by soldiers who had not been paid.

Tempers were short. Several months after his falling-out with Washington, Hamilton was assigned to a field command, fighting alongside French troops commanded by Marquis de Lafayette. Moving from the Hudson Valley to Yorktown, Virginia, they engaged forces commanded by British General Charles Cornwallis, forcing him to surrender on October 19. This became the last major land battle of the revolution, elevating Lafayette and the 25-year-old Hamilton to hero status.

After the war, Hamilton passed the New York bar and began a private law practice in New York City. In 1787, he was appointed a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The Articles of Confederation were to be amended and a constitution drafted. Hamilton was a Federalist, believing in strong central control over states’ rights and earned criticism from delegates who feared creating a monarchy. Hamilton saw the need for a constitution which would give a congress the power to tax, raise an army, form a federal judiciary, control interstate commerce, establish a national bank and a national currency. This put him at odds with Thomas Jefferson and the anti-Federalists. James Madison wanted a Bill of Rights to a constitution. Hamilton felt one unnecessary.

Between 1787 and 1788, Hamilton, Madison and John Jay published 85 essays, known as the Federalist Papers, describing their ideas for a constitution. When the Constitution was finally ratified, Washington would become president, Hamilton Secretary of the Treasury and Jay would become the first Chief Justice. Madison was credited as the father of the Constitution and would become our fourth president.

As Treasury Secretary, Hamilton established a national mint which produced gold and silver coinage, recognized and began repaying the war debt through tariffs on imports and a whiskey tax, established the foundation for a national economy, including public credit authorized by Congress. Import tariffs were to protect American manufacturers, which raised prices for consumers and a whiskey rebellion ensued. Hamilton’s ideas were not always well received, by the public and other Founding Fathers. Although Jefferson, Washington and other states’ rights devotees had their differences with Hamilton, all considered him virtuously devoted to America.

In 1791, the incumbent Federalist senator from New York was Phillip Schuyler, Hamilton’s father-in-law. Aaron Burr, a Democratic-Republican candidate, won the election. Hamilton had publicly opposed Burr and there began bad blood between them. Hamilton would resign from public office in December, 1794, but his public life was not over.

In the election of 1796, Vice President John Adams was running for president, but Hamilton thought him to be too unstable for the office. Hamilton tried unsuccessfully to sway Federalists into voting for Thomas Pinckney, but it didn’t work and Adams became President and Jefferson, Vice President. More partisan bad blood resulted.

In 1797, journalist James Callender produced a recap of the 1796 election, which included revelation of an extramarital affair that began in 1791 between Hamilton and a 23-year-old Maria Reynolds. What began as Reynold’s story of spousal abuse and a need for $30 to find safe harbor, ended in a $1,300 blackmail scheme orchestrated by Reynolds and her husband. In an effort to clear his name, Hamilton published an account of the affair, claiming his integrity had remained constant while he was in office. To support his claim, he requested James Monroe to issue a public statement. Monroe refused. Tempers flared and Hamilton and Monroe reached the point of a duel before Aaron Burr intervened to arrange a settlement.

From July 18, 1798, to June 15, 1800, Hamilton served as Inspector General of the Army. Washington encouraged President Adams to promote Hamilton to the rank of Major General, which made him second in command of the Army. In 1793, the Congress had suspended repayment of the war debt owed to France and the First French Republic under Napoleon Bonaparte. That led to French privateers attacking and confiscating England-bound U.S. ships and their goods. An undeclared war began. Hamilton pressed Congress to raise a tax to fund rebuilding an army and navy. President Adams preferred negotiations over all-out war, but found opposition within his Cabinet. Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and Secretary of War James McHenry sided with Hamilton and were fired by Adams to avert a war.

In the election of 1800, Hamilton worked to defeat both Thomas Jefferson, the Democratic-Republican candidate, as well as his own party’s President Adams. After all of Hamilton’s political manipulations, Jefferson and Aaron Burr were tied, both with 73 electoral votes, throwing the decision to a vote in the House of Representatives. After 35 tie votes, Hamilton, still a power in the Federalist Party, endorsed Jefferson as being “the lesser of two evils.” Jefferson became president and Burr vice president.

As a result of Hamilton’s vicious campaigning against Burr, ill feelings festered. Jefferson saw Burr as an opportunist and began receiving reports of Burr forming a conspiracy to establish a Spanish colony in the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Jefferson indicated Burr would not be his choice for vice president in the 1804 election. Burr decided to run for governor of New York against the Jeffersonian-Republican candidate and appealed to the Federalist party for support. Hamilton again rose in opposition and Burr was defeated. After the election, letters Hamilton wrote in opposition to political leaders were published. Burr felt his honor had been challenged and in that day, a visit to the field of honor was the settlement method of gentlemen. On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton met on the field of honor in Weehawken, New Jersey. In that duel, 49-year-old Hamilton was mortally wounded and died the following day. He told the attending Rev. John Mason, “I am a sinner. I look to His mercy.” In 1801, Hamilton’s oldest son had also died in a duel, defending his father against Burr supporters. Historians speculate that Hamilton refused to aim his shot at Burr. Such an act was known among duelers as a delope, a gesture intended to end the duel. It is said Hamilton had counseled his son to do the same.

As a footnote: After Vice President Burr served his one term he was suspected by some of scheming to establish a Spanish territory within the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson won a second term and had Burr arrested for treason in 1807. Burr was acquitted.

Tom Wright is a Santa Fe columnist and El Rito Media investor.

As we observe the nation’s 250th anniversary, historians focus on the East Coast, but New Mexico has proud moments too. Return with me to 1851, when New Mexico became a territory of the United States.

Five years after the United States claimed New Mexico as a prize of the Mexican-American War, Congress declared New Mexico a territory and President Millard Fillmore appointed James Silas Calhoun as governor.Calhoun was a cut above the usual federal appointee; a former judge, legislator, merchant and banker from Georgia, he was highly ethical and conscientious. (I wrote his biography in 2021.) He was already serving as New Mexico’s first Indian agent. And he spoke Spanish.

New Mexicans had no experience with democracy. They had been under the thumb of Spain and Mexico for more than two centuries and in 1846 became wards of a corrupt U.S. military occupation.

Political debates were hotly divided. One faction demanded that Americans run everything, even though they represented a sliver of the population. And to avoid taxes they wanted to keep New Mexico dependent on the federal government. Calhoun’s faction argued for statehood and had the support of New Mexicans.

In his inaugural speech on March 3, 1851, he said: “An era in the history of New Mexico commences this day… The fate of New Mexico, under Providence, is in the hands of her own sons, and if wise and patriotic counsels prevail, a brilliant destiny awaits her.”

With Calhoun’s inauguration, New Mexicans became citizens – with rights – of a United States Territory. He understood that he must guide the creation of a just and stable government in this remote outpost and see that New Mexicans were closely involved in the process. His experience as a judge and legislator prepared him well for the job.

New Mexicans weren’t entirely unprepared. Prominent families had long sent their sons to the States to be educated, and among the American newcomers were a handful of lawyers.

On May 19 New Mexicans elected their legislators. The men chosen could be considered the fathers of New Mexico Territory, and most of them were Hispanic.

This high level of political participation was unusual for a conquered people, according to historian Phillip Gonzáles. The American political process gave New Mexicans a seat at the table and rewarded them as they submitted to the power of the United States.

Now, imagine 39 legislators settling into small chambers in the ancient, dilapidated Palace of the Governors on the Santa Fe Plaza. Their job was to create a government from scratch.

New Mexico then had about 57,000 people, not counting tribes, and seven in eight were illiterate. Only churches provided any education. Indian hostilities were rampant. And official Washington barely knew the territory existed.

Addressing lawmakers, Calhoun covered issues that are surprisingly contemporary, beginning with elections. He asked them to define the qualifications for voting and holding office so that “strangers temporarily residing in your midst” couldn’t interfere in elections and suggested requiring voters to register before elections to prevent fraud. Regarding taxation, it “should be borne alike, having a just regard to the means of each individual… Not one cent beyond the just wants of the government should be collected, and the most rigid economy should be practiced.”

On education, this father of two daughters said it was important to educate New Mexico’s girls as well as her boys. Agricultural laws should govern irrigation, sale of animals, and marks and brands. Improper use of weights and measures should be penalized. As for the poor, he said, “Let us, at the very commencement of our career in self-government, take special care of the weak and the innocent, and secure to them the means of an honest and virtuous independence…”

Issues of their day included defining relations between masters and peons, demanding that the military restore church property it had seized, exploring the territory, and persuading people to give up their Mexican citizenship and join the “political community of New Mexico.”

For 40 days the first territorial legislature tackled Calhoun’s priorities and their own. By adjournment new legislators had accomplished a great deal. They declared and established the people’s rights, decided who could vote, provided for punishment of crimes, regulated trade and interaction with the tribes, attempted to levy taxes, established the territorial treasury, standardized master-servant contracts, and regulated water and acequias. They passed mining and agricultural laws, and created judicial districts.

In just three months, Calhoun and the Legislature made a remarkable start on creating a territorial government that brought order and predictability. They reassured skeptical New Mexicans and welcomed their participation in the American democratic process.

Sherry Robinson is a longtime New Mexico reporter and editor. She has worked in Grants, Gallup, the Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico Business Weekly and Albuquerque Tribune. She is the author of four books. Her columns won first place in 2024 from New Mexico Press Women.