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The state's first constitution was adopted in 1849. The present constitution, dating from 1879, is noted for its provisions for public initiative and referendum : which have led at times to difficulties in governance : and for recall of public officials. The state's executive branch is headed by a governor elected for a four-year term. California's bicameral legislature has a senate with 40 members and an assembly with 80 members. The state elects 2 senators and 52 representatives to the U.S. Congress and has 54 electoral votes. In the 1980s and 1990s, California elected Republican governors : George Deukemejian (1982, 1986) and Pete Wilson (1990, 1994) : before the Democrat Gray Davis was elected in 1998 (and reelected in 2002). In 1992, California became the first state to simultaneously elect two women to the U.S. Senate : Democrats Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.
Among the state's more prominent institutions of higher learning are the Univ. of California, with nine campuses; the California State University System, with 21 campuses; Occidental College and the Univ. of Southern California, at Los Angeles; Stanford Univ., at Stanford; the California Institute of Technology, at Pasadena; Mills College, at Oakland; and the Claremont Colleges, at Claremont. After a period from the 1960s through the 1970s when the state's well-financed public institutions were the envy of the nation, California's colleges have been forced to retrench by tax-cutting initiatives.
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