SACRAMENTO, California — California lawmaker Anthony Rendon likes to spend his free time outside the Capitol in Sacramento with his four-year-old daughter at home near Los Angeles. Last weekend he took her ice skating and to an indoor playground, then let her get a donut after she agreed to ride her scooter along the way.
“Those are the kinds of things that make me happy,” he said this week in an interview outside the chambers of the state Assembly, where he has served as a lawmaker for 12 years.
Now Rendon, a Democrat who was one of the longest-serving Assembly speakers in California history, is spending his final year in office trying to make happiness more central to policymaking. He founded a nation-first group to study the issue, called the Select Committee on Happiness and Public Policy Outcomes, which held its first public hearing this week.
It would be “foolish” for lawmakers not to explore how to make people happier, Rendon said.
“Because if we have everyone clothed, everyone has a house, everyone has a job and they’re miserable, then we’ve failed at what we’re trying to do,” he said, adding that lawmakers should consider happiness as a priority in their to live. make policy.
In California, three-quarters of adults say they are “very happy” or “quite happy,” while 26% say they are “not too happy,” according to a September 2023 survey from the Public Policy Institute of California. Adults ages 18 to 34, people who are renters, people without a post-high school diploma, and Californians with an annual household income of $40,000 or less tend to be less happy than others.
California is breaking new ground in the United States. At least a dozen state legislatures across the country have committees focused on mental health and substance abuse, but no other state legislatures have a committee focused on happiness, according to the National Conference of State Legislators.
But the idea of bringing happiness into public policy is not unprecedented: the landlocked country of Bhutan in South Asia prioritizes happiness as a public policy goal, measuring it through something written into its constitution, the so-called Gross National Happiness Index. The country surveys residents on their level of happiness, and officials are working to increase happiness by providing residents with free health care and education, protecting cultural traditions and conserving forests, said Phuntsho Norbu, Consul General of the Kingdom of Bhutan in the United States.
The government cannot make everyone happy, but it must “create the right conditions for people to pursue happiness,” Norbu said.
Lawmakers on California’s new commission heard from experts this week about the things that make people happy, what government officials can do to help and what roles state and local government can play. The committee has not yet found any solutions, but plans to issue a report with its findings after lawmakers adjourn for the year in late August, said Rendon spokesperson Katie Talbot.
Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo, a Democrat who represents part of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, hopes the commission’s work can address poor mental health among California youth, which her 11-year-old daughter has told her is a is a big problem in her class at school.
“It’s a real crisis we’re dealing with right now,” Schiavo said. “This really goes to the heart of what this crisis is about.”
Research shows that leisure activities, social relationships and life circumstances contribute to a person’s happiness, says Meliksah Demir, professor of happiness at California State University, Sacramento. Government officials can work to improve happiness by investing in mental health resources, making green spaces more accessible and teaching the value of happiness early on in schools, Demir said.
Happiness has far-reaching benefits, including making people more likely to vote, be more creative and healthier, he said.
The Public Policy Institute of California’s September survey found that 33% of adults overall say they are very satisfied with their jobs, 31% say they are very satisfied with their leisure activities and 44% are very satisfied with their housing .
Californians’ happiness levels fell during the pandemic, but experts are still investigating the decline, said Mark Baldassare, the group’s research director.
California, which often leads other states on issues such as climate policy and civil rights, lags behind many parts of the world when it comes to prioritizing happiness in policymaking, Rendon said. He was inspired in part by a report on happiness released annually by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network to create the Happiness Commission.
Last year’s report said that how people view the government’s effectiveness – including how well it raises money, delivers services and avoids civil war – can affect their happiness. According to the report, the United States ranked 15th in the world for happiness, based on a three-year average from 2020 to 2022. Scandinavian countries, including Finland and Iceland, scored the highest.
Rendon’s decision to create the happiness committee is consistent with his approach to making state policy that focuses on social issues in the “big picture,” said Kristina Bas Hamilton, a veteran labor lobbyist. People have different perspectives on government involvement in their lives, but the creation of the commission calls to mind the ultimate purpose of government, she said.
“The role of government is to take care of its people,” said Bas Hamilton. “The goal is to have happy citizens. That is the goal of all government policy.”
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Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: @sophieadanna
