What makes people happy? California lawmakers want to find out

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Assemblyman Anthony Rendon likes to spend his spare time away from the Capitol in Sacramento with his 4-year-old daughter back 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 on the way there.

“Those are the types of things that make me happy,” he said this week in an interview outside the state Assembly chambers, where he’s served as a lawmaker for a dozen years.

Now Rendon, a Democrat who was one of the longest-serving Assembly speakers in California history, is spending his last year in office trying to make happiness more central to policymaking. He created a first-in-the-nation 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 “silly” for lawmakers to not study how they can make people happier, Rendon said.

“Because if we have everybody clothed, everybody housed, everybody has a job and they’re miserable, then we’ve failed at what we’re trying to do,” he said, adding that lawmakers should think about happiness as a priority in policymaking.

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