Douglas Schilling

The California Initiative Douglas Schilling

It is 2020, and America is in the thirteenth year of the worst depression in its history. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have a plan to ease suffering of the millions of people hit hardest by the economic conditions. Most people have little faith in the government, and fewer than thirty percent of the eligible voters bother to go to the polls. Ewald Zimmerman is a successful California furniture maker who has lost patience with the government's failure to act. He wants to force its hand by putting a voter initiative on the ballot. He proposes that California secede from the union and become an independent country if the federal government refuses to adopt the measures he feels are necessary to bring about a recovery. His intention is to spur the government into action, but his protest unleashes a firestorm of unrest across the country. Unwillingly drawn into the field of politics, he becomes the leader of a new party. Other third parties with more radical agendas grow in power and attract large numbers of the disaffected. One of them, the Christian Religious Party, wants to change the essential nature of American society. It is willing to see the country break up if it is the only way to achieve its goals. Alarmed by the forces he helped create, Zimmerman fights to keep the country together. To defeat those who wish to see the country torn apart, he must work his way through a minefield of special interest groups, fend off the dirty tricks of the political establishment and outwit the two enemies who have sworn to destroy him.