As last night’s palace intrigue makes clear, California’s fate is being dictated by the Zombie Death Cult that was once known as the California Republican Party. And it is the 2/3 rule that is primarily responsible for this. Since 1996 Californians have rejected Republicans by ever-increasing numbers, with only Arnold Schwarzenegger being able to break through – and even then he had to run against his own party.
Like their federal counterparts, California Republicans have a shrinking regional base and are dominated by ideologues. No amount of redistricting can make inroads on these safe regions without even more intensive gerrymandering than what has previously been attempted. Instead the Republicans feel accountable to their own internal purity tests, administered by KFI radio’s John & Ken and carried out by the Senate caucus when necessary.
The only way out, and the first reform that we must undertake – the tree blocking the tracks, the door that opens the path to all other reforms – is eliminating the 2/3 rule that gives conservatives veto power over the state and turns the majority Democrats into a minority party on fiscal matters. It’s been talked about frequently on Calitics and in what remains of the media’s coverage of state politics. So it seemed time for an in-depth discussion of the issue and the prospects for restoring majority rule to California.
The short version is this: unless a special election can be called by Arnold Schwarzenegger after August 2009, the soonest we can put a repeal of 2/3 on the ballot is June 2010. And even then, there are some key questions about how to proceed that must be answered. Much more below the fold.
The story begins in the 1930s, when California was last mired in a severe economic crisis. Unlike the rest of the nation, California never had a New Deal. Republicans and conservative Democrats, worried by the FDR surge and the possibility that his agenda might take root in Sacramento, decided to change the Constitution to prevent the New Deal from coming to California, and got voters to approve a ballot measure to require a 2/3 vote for any budget that would increase spending by more than 5%.
In 1962, that was changed to require a 2/3 majority on all budget votes. This was the height of Pat Brown’s power, when Republicans and Democrats alike agreed on the need to spend money to build infrastructure and provide economic security for California.
There things stood until 1978 and the great constitutional revision that was Prop 13. How exactly it was that the California Supreme Court held Prop 13 was not a “revision” of the Constitution or a violation of the single-subject rule is beyond me, but here we are. Prop 13 required that the legislature also had to have a 2/3 vote to raise any tax, and that most local tax votes would have to meet the same standard. In 1996, Prop 218 closed some remaining “loopholes” to ensure that ANY tax vote in California had to be approved by a 2/3 majority of voters.
The reason this was included in Prop 13 was because, as you ought to know, Prop 13 wasn’t really about property taxes. It was about destroying government. Property taxes were merely the cover, the way that Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann convinced the public to back their radical scheme. Even at that time conservatives understood their place on the political margins in California (the last time Republicans held a majority in either the Assembly or the Senate was 1970) and wanted to make sure that Californians would never be able to undo the damage that Prop 13 was about to unleash.
In short, it created a permanent conservative veto over California policy. It didn’t matter how often Californians rejected conservative Republicans – and it was often – as long as they could hold on to at least 1/3 of the seats in either chamber, they would still have veto power over policy. It was California’s version of the liberum veto that eventually caused Poland to self-destruct as an independent nation in the 1700s, as the 2/3 rule ensured conservatives would put their own ideology above the survival of the state. That is the entire point of the 2/3 rule.
Fast-forward to 2002, when the budget crisis last brought the state to its knees. Republicans began exploiting the 2/3 rule to make the state – and Gray Davis – appear dysfunctional. That summer Republicans dragged out the budget delay for weeks, hoping to weaken Davis in the fall election. It didn’t work, as Davis was narrowly reelected that year, but after Darrell Issa bought a place on the ballot for the recall, Republicans proceeded to use the 2/3 rule to drag out the 2003 budget talks again, weakening Davis ahead of the October recall vote that kicked him out of office.
Since summer 2007, when the budget again went into deficit, Republicans have persistently used the 2/3 rule to demand things they could never get through a fair or open process. First it was an attack on AB 32, then Maldonado demanded more cuts and a guarantee of reelection in 2008. Last summer the same situation played itself out, and the budget wasn’t signed until September 23.
Now the 2/3 rule has brought California to its knees. The state is now entering financial collapse. It is happening as we speak. But the Zombie Death Cult refuses to do anything about, insisting that we go over the cliff with them. And as long as the 2/3 rule is in place, their demands rule the day.
So what can we do about it?
If there is a special election on May 19, as looks likely, the only way to put a repeal of the 2/3 rule on the ballot is for the Legislature to do so. But that requires a 2/3 vote, as does any constitutional amendment that the Legislature wants to put on the ballot. Democrats could demand it as a trade for, say, Maldonado’s open primary, but that doesn’t seem likely.
Nor is there enough time to put it on the ballot ourselves. State law requires initiatives to be qualified for the ballot at least 131 days before the election. May 19 is 90 days from today.
So the soonest it could go to the ballot is June 2010. And that raises the next question of what exactly we would put on the ballot.
It was tried once before. Prop 56 was on the March 2004 ballot and would have lowered the requirement for both budget and tax votes to 55%, as well as denying salary to legislators and the governor every day the budget is late. Prop 56 failed 34-66, which sounds like a bad precedent. But as Anthony Wright explained at the time the lessons are mixed:
A combination of factors conspired against Proposition 56. With no real contest in the presidential primary contest, it was a remarkably low turnout election, with an electorate seemingly exhausted from the historic recall election just a few months ago. The recall and change in Administrations also changed the dynamic of the race: much of the voter demand for change had dissipated. The reform agenda in the Budget Accountability Act was overwhelmed by the focus on Propositions 57 & 58, which were similar sounding and were also billed as the solution to the state’s budget crisis. Among the choices, Proposition 56 was the only initiative that had a funded opposition, which was successful in raising questions about the provisions. When voters are confused about an issue, they tend to vote “no.” And in this case, they felt they did their part to address the budget problem by supporting 57 & 58, something that was supported by most political leaders.
That analysis is bolstered by a PPIC poll released in January that showed 54% of voters supported changing the rule to 55% approval on the budget. PPIC did not ask about taxes, and did not poll any other numbers. They also found that voters support eliminating the 2/3 rule for local taxes, by a 50-44 margin. It is likely that support for action on the 2/3 rule has risen since then.
Still, it is not clear whether voters really care if it’s 55% or 50%+1 that we want the rule changed to. And the jury is still out, polling wise, on whether changing the 2/3 rule for taxes as well as budgets will cause voters to turn against it.
But as activists start working to repeal the 2/3 rule, these are decisions we will have to make. Personally I take a maximalist approach that says we should push to have budgets and taxes approved by 50%+1 of either voters or legislators.
There are several proposals floating around the legislature on this. Speaker Karen Bass has ACA 4 which would eliminate the 2/3 rule on budgets if they are passed by the Constitutional deadline of June 15. Republican Senator Mimi Walters has SCA 1 which would restore the pre-1962 rules of majority vote budgets if spending increases stay under 5%. Democratic Senator Loni Hancock has a much better bill, SCA 5, which would exempt General Fund expenditure votes from the 2/3 rule entirely. All of these bills will have hearings on them later in the year and that will provide some opportunity to continue agitating on the issue.
June 2010 presents a very interesting “triple political witching hour” possibility. If the current budget deal somehow goes through, then June 2010 would see a confluence of events – the expiration of the current budget and negotiations for a new one; a vote on the 2/3 rule; and the Republican and Democratic gubernatorial primaries. Personally I like the idea of using June 2010 as a chance to settle all family business, even though the economy and the state’s finances aren’t going to survive another 15 days, not to mention the 15 months between now and then.
Finally, since June 2010 is the earliest we can put this on the ballot, that means it is up to all of us to ensure that the public never forgets what has happened this week, this year, this decade. Republicans have shown they will happily destroy California rather than accept a tax increase. The only way to take away their power to hurt us is to eliminate the 2/3 rule.
Once we decide what we want the proposed change to look like, we can begin gathering signatures.
