Last week the Wellstone Democratic Club sponsored a wonderful event with George Lakoff and Phil Ting talking about budget reform. Ting is leading the “Close the Loophole” effort to reform Prop 13 (i.e. split roll). Lakoff is pushing for a majority vote of the legislature on both budget and revenues. Both issues are challenged in the framing department, as people tend to know them as “split roll” and “the 2/3 requirement.” Ting talks about closing corporate tax loopholes, and has named his campaign accordingly. One down. The other campaign, which is still shaping up and being defined by Democratic activists and their allies, has some work to do.
Lakoff made a very important point about the way we message the 2/3 issue, please bear with me as I attempt to summarize: We all learned that democracy = majority rule in civics class. We learned that a majority is 50% +1. The reality in California right now is that a minority (1/3 of the legislature, representing probably even less of the population of the state) is controlling our state legislature. But when people hear that it takes “a 2/3 majority” or a “2/3 vote of the legislature” to pass a budget, that sounds to a lot of folks like MORE DEMOCRACY, not what it really is, which is MINORITY RULE (less democracy)!
If we are going to win this fight – and we must – we need to start calling this the campaign to END MINORITY RULE OF CALIFORNIA. We need to have “minority rule” take hold as the problem with the CA budget problem, not the “2/3 vote requirement.” Minority rule sounds undemocratic, 2/3 sounds more democratic. Our goal should be for every article, every op-ed, every blog post, every mention of this by a legislator or activist, to use the term “minority rule” and not “2/3,” except as necessary to describe the problem. I do believe that our ability to reframe this debate could determine the outcome.
Minority rule, indeed it is. Also: Plutocracy.
As the leading slogan I’d go with Restore Majority Rule or Majority Rule for California. It seems stronger to me, since what were going for is more democracy. The sub-points can then discuss how a small minority has hijacked our government and caused rampant dysfunction.
I get the sense that my white middle-class suburban neighbors feel that THEY are the minority in the state.
They feel that the “Majority” consists of dark-skinned, funny-accented city dwellers (and illegal aliens), crowded into the teeming urban jungles of the Bay Area and the Los Angeles basin.
They think that this “mob” is ruled by craven Democratic politicians who have promised them all a free lunch, to be paid for with crushing taxes upon the poor oppressed suburbanites.
These conservative suburb-dwellers have convinced themselves that they are members of the Propertied Class, no matter how much the owe the bank. To them the minority in the Legislature are their champions and protectors, heroically keeping the mob at bay.
Of course, we don’t need all their votes to restore Majority Rule to this state… they’re in the minority. We just have to enlighten some of them, and frame a message that does not needlessly inflame their irrational fears.