Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: April Manatt

No. 97 April Manatt

In a time when both the parties and voters have run about as far away from each other as is politically possible, it almost sounds silly to talk about bipartisanship in the California Capitol. I mean, what’s next? Are you going to tell us the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus are waiting in the lobby for their one o’clock meeting? As cool as that would be, we think it’s actually way more fun that not only is there a functioning caucus with the sole function of fostering bipartisan solutions to vexing problems, but that a growing number of members are itching to join said caucus. And that is due in huge part to the work of April Manatt, Executive Director of the Problem Solvers Foundation, the mother ship for the Problem Solvers Caucus. At this time last year the groups had 21 members. It now has 26 and more are looking to get in all the time. Because as it turns out, a lot of lawmakers actually do want to get stuff done. They just needed the right leader to help show them the way.

Updated August 11, 2026.