Steven P. Erie is Professor of Political Science, Director of the Urban Studies and Planning Program, and Senior Fellow at the Southern California Studies Center at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author ofRainbow's End: Irish Americans and the Dilemmas of Urban Machine Politics(1998),Globalizing L.A.: Trade, Infrastructure, and Regional Development(Stanford, 2004), andBeyond 'Chinatown': The Metropolitan Water District, Growth, and the Environment in Southern California(Stanford, 2006). Vladimir Kogan is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. Scott A. MacKenzie is Assistant Professor of Political Science at… the University of California, Davis.