Via Instapundit, I saw this rather interesting article on New West about California and its presence as a bellwether state:

California is a trendsetter state. Much like the weather, every Californian fad eventually makes its way over the Sierras and diffuses into the intermountain West. That’s wonderful, and it’s frightening, because there are some pretty disturbing things going on in the Golden State right now.

The writer then proceeds to list a bunch of initiatives that originate from the Bay Area, such as:

- Berkeley’s Measure G, detailing an 80% reduction in the carbon footprint for the city and mandating the use of green materials, among other things.
- San Francisco bans smoking in some outdoor locations.
- SF also regulates psychics.

And so on. Read the article to get the full list.

What’s fascinating about this to me is that almost all of the wackier examples come from the Bay Area. This intrigues me for two reasons: First, a majority of the people that move into Reno these days (my home) comes from the Bay Area. It’s just simple geography. Second, the Bay Area does a lot of wacky things that isn’t necessarily tried in other parts of California, much less the rest of the country. For example, is Los Angeles going to start regulating psychics? Doubtful. Is anywhere else going to mandate an 80% reduction in their carbon footprint? Heck no - especially if Berkeley blinks. Rent control? Outside of very large urban areas (parts of Los Angeles, Bay Area, New York), you’re not seeing it - I’ll tell you right now, there is absolutely zero rent control in Nevada, at least as far as I can tell, and I used to live near Las Vegas.

However, Californication is very real. Nevada, for example, used to be California’s smoking section, at least until Nevada passed the Clean Indoor Air Act, which was a voter-sponsored initiative. Nevada also recently raised its minimum wage, something which San Francisco did recently as well, though to a much higher rate.

EDIT: I’m really getting annoyed with Blogger. I had about another half of a post here that didn’t publish, which is incredibly annoying to say the least. So, let’s see if I remember where I was going with this…

From where I’m sitting, it appears that most places just cherry-pick from California (anti-smoking laws, auto pollution controls, etc.). For example, are you going to see anyone regulating psychics anytime soon? No. Is any city outside of California going to mandate an 80% decrease in their carbon footprint? No, though I do think some cities might look at that idea and decide to do either a flat cap or perhaps a very mild decrease in their carbon footprint.

So, of the ideas percolating in California at the moment, which ones are going to spread to the rest of the country?