Californians thinking that we will have to wait until November 2010 and get a single shot to put a dent in the 2/3 rule may be in for a pleasant surprise if AD-11 Assemblymember Tom Torlakson gets his way.
My friend and fellow opponent of Props 1A-1F Sean Keenan, President of the Ojai Valley Democrats, was on our weekly “Reality Check” segment on KVTA 1520 in Ventura County today; among other things, we discussed Torlakson’s bills AB 267 and ACA 10.
AB 267 would authorize school districts to form education finance districts for the purpose of raising revenue for local schools. Under the measure, each education finance district must be comprised of three or more neighboring school districts. The districts would be authorized to place a parcel tax on the ballot for voter approval provided that they agree on the division and expenditure of the revenues raised by the tax. ACA 10 is a companion constitutional amendment measure to AB 267 which would allow Education Finance Districts to levy a local parcel tax with a majority vote instead of the current two-thirds vote required for single local school districts. Both measures have passed out of the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee.
Allowing majority vote by the people for tax increases is a no-brainer: if people want to increase revenues for the common good and vote to do so, they should be allowed to do so. Ater all, as I’ve said before, we should be allowed as informed citizens to buy the government we want. It’s one thing for Republicans to argue about majority rule on revenue enhancements enacted by elected officials; it’s quite another to disallow the voters themselves to choose to raise their own taxes to benefit their own schools. Indeed, as Mr. Keenan said on the radio today, the voters of Ojai had chosen to levy just such an increase to benefit local schools with 65% approval, but failed to clear the insane 66.67% threshold needed for a 2/3 majority. Who needs schools, anyway?
Torlakson’s office states that the reason for creating the education finance districts comprised of multiple school districts in AB 267 is to help ensure that poorer school districts are not left out of parcel tax levies instituted by wealthier surrounding districts; additional measures to ensure this outcome would be added if it were discovered that wealthy communities were circumventing the intent of the law (thanks to Sean Mykael for relaying this info).
AB 267 is likely to pass through the legislature; it’s anyone’s guess as to whether the Hoovernator would veto the measure.
ACA 10, on the other hand, faces an almost impossible uphill battle: as a proposed constitutional amendment, it would require 2/3 of both the Assembly and the State Senate just to allow the measure to come before the voters, either in June 2010 or later in November. Can there be any doubt as to how the anti-democratic (in every sense of the word) Yacht Party will vote on this one? In an irony that will surprise no one, a 2/3 rule at the state level will no doubt prevent a remedy to the 2/3 at the local level.
In an environment where convincing voters of the need to do away with 2/3 at a state legislative level may be a challenge even given the budget crisis, convincing voters that they themselves should be allowed to vote on certain revenue increases without the onerous burden of 2/3 could be a significantly easier task.
Still, it will almost certainly require bypassing the legislature and moving to a signature-gathering effort and petition drive in order to put this commonsense change on the ballot. It will be interesting to see what kind of action this idea receives from the CTA and other motivated parties.
And I’ll vote for anything that will put an end to the tyranny of the minority in this state.
Now… does anyone have any information on how someone might go about starting the ball rolling for a ballot initiative that would freeze and then cut, executive, legislative and staff salaries and compensation by a percentage amount equal to that of the loss of actual services to Californians due to the graft, corruption or simple ineptness inherent in our state’s political system?
Example… if the cuts in social services, public safety, etc. equaled 10% then the exectutive branch… from the governor on down, and the legislative branch and all staff positions in either branch… would have their salaries and other compensation cut by the same amount.
It’s way past time for an actual pay for performance system around here and I’m sick and tired of these yoyos being able to cut services to those who need it most and raising their own salaries and bennies at the same time.
If these people are not going to provide adequate and meaningful services to the majority of California’s citizens, then the majority of California’s citizens should NOT be called upon to pay for the services they DO provide solely to the the Yacht Club.
And I still think we need to just do away with the state senate altogether but that’s for another post.
and ask her if she knows how we might go about it. She spent almost twenty years serving the special interests here in our county as a supervisor… maybe she’ll have some insights on how we might be able to measure her worth to the population as a whole. It was pretty minimal the last several years in her old job.
Her major effort then was in making sure that the BOS got raises every time a department head got one and then making sure at least one department head GOT one every year.
Third highest paid BOS in the Central Cal region, 2nd poorest county in the state. You can see why the minority wanted HER in Sacramento.
I care about schools and I think the overall condition of California’s school facilities is a disgrace that is overdue for correction. But one could say the same thing about most of California’s other local facilities as well.
This isn’t the first time Torlakson has tried to do a good thing for local government but limited the goodness to school districts. Hmm, could that be b/c he’s mostly about looking for campaign contributions from the teachers’ association?
So what about the OTHER legitimate units of local government? You know, like the 58 counties, 480 cities, and the 3000 (or so) independent special districts. They are part of the local government infrastructure, so shouldn’t they be able to raise funds from parcel taxes as easily as schools? For things like libraries, parks, community centers, sidewalk repairs, etc. Oh, wait. I forgot all about how the last time schools got a break like this (they can pass a bond with 55% voter approval), the I-hate-government groupies foisted AB218 on all the other units of local government. Under AB218 a simple majority is required to pass a local parcel tax, but the number of votes you (and BTW “you” is a parcel, not a person) get to cast depend on how big your parcel is, i.e. large landowners get more votes than ordinary homeowners and only property owners get to vote, hence the elections are rigged against tax increases. Did I mention the tightly-controlled limits on what the money can be used for? It’s basically about providing a quantifiable improvement to the value of specific property. Need more money for cops in your community? Or to replace the aging fleet of fire trucks? Forget AB218.
Oh sure, all those other units of local government still get to put a bond measure in front of the entire electorate (owners and renters), but it takes 2/3 voting for approval if the measure is to pass. That’s why you hardly ever see city, county or special district facilities (libraries, community centers, parks, boat ramps, etc.) improved via local bonds. Not that the esteemed Mr. Torlakson, all-knowing, all-wise local government legislation expert that he is, would care. For him, it’s just about schools.
In California 90% of the taxes are paid by the top 10% of wage earners (info from the Guv’s 2008-2009 budget). That means that if Torlakson’s bills were approved the 50% of people that pay little to no taxes would be able to vote in a proposal that makes other people pay more taxes.
If California had a flat tax and everyone paid the same amount into it, then a majority vote for taxes would be fair. If everyone is paying the same amount then they all have an equal stake in the outcome of the decision to approve a tax. What Torlakson is talking about is unfair.
With our current taxation system in California, those who don’t pay tax would be able to impose them on those who do pay them, per Torlakson’s bills.