Time to reform the budget process

Mark Leno
Friday, August 10, 2007

As our state Legislature continues to struggle with the passage of its annual budget, it is too easy for many of us to forget that millions of children, elderly, poor and disabled Californians are already experiencing significant hardship in their lives as a result of the delay. Medi-Cal funds have been frozen. Child care providers, adult day-care centers, medical transport services and hundreds of hospitals are not receiving the state support upon which their budgets have been designed. Even California's 72 community college districts will have to do without an expected $327 million.

So why is it that over the past 20 years our Legislature has missed its June 30 deadline of a signed budget 13 times? As noted in a recent Chronicle editorial-page column, California is one of just three states in the nation, Rhode Island and Arkansas being the others, which requires a supermajority vote of 66 percent to pass its budget. This means that one-third of the Legislature can veto that which two-thirds desires. The Congress passes its budget with a simple majority vote. The California State Association of Counties and the California League of Cities confirm that not one of our 58 counties, and few, if any cities, have a similar requirement. With nearly every state in the nation and all of California's local governmental agencies eschewing this supermajority threshold, why do we require this added burden of our Legislature? Why do we continue to allow the demands of a small minority of lawmakers to halt the governmental operations of the eighth largest economy in the world?

The answer to the first question is steeped in Great Depression era history. In 1933, voter passage of the Riley-Stewart amendment significantly overhauled the state's fiscal system. The centerpiece of the amendment dealt with taxation, but it also impacted the budget requiring a two-thirds majority vote for budget passage when it grew by more than 5 percent from the previous year. As the economy returned to long periods of expansion, the supermajority threshold became the status quo leading voters to drop the 5 percent growth formula in 1962, leaving us with our current predicament. Clearly, it is time to revisit this historical anomaly. Additionally, it was Proposition 13 in 1978 which added the two-thirds requirement for the passage of any tax increase.

The answer to the second question is both easier and more complex than the first. We continue to allow for this minority tyranny simply because voters have not reversed the decision made at the ballot box in 1962, though not for lack of trying. In 2004, Proposition 56 would have lowered the majority to pass both the budget and tax increases to 55 percent. Did voters not understand the poor reasoning and dangerous unintended consequences of the two-thirds requirement, or were they concerned that by lowering the necessary percentage to 55 percent their taxes may have more readily been raised? My guess is that both suppositions are likely true. Certainly the opposition's 15-second television commercials stating that "if you want Democrats to raise your taxes, vote for Proposition 56" played to that fear. Of course, no party in Sacramento would cavalierly raise taxes, for the ramifications of such an act could be devastating in the next election. How to explain to voters in a brief commercial the impact of our 66 percent requirement is a much greater challenge.

Depression-era policymaking haunts us to this day. Clearly, voters need to be better educated about the operations of their state government, but how is that accomplished with an ever more disenfranchised electorate? Can the Internet and blogosphere help us in this task? Would a grassroots campaign of town hall meetings or an investment in educational television spots grab voters' attention? The people need to know how out of step California is with the rest of the nation and even with its own local governments. Even conservative leader Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, supports scrapping the two-thirds vote requirement in favor of a simple majority so that the party in power is held completely responsible for the budget.

The idea that a single legislator of the minority party can cause such suffering to millions of Californians is appalling. Maybe if the deadlock continues for another month or two, recognizing the risk that would present thousands of social-service providers, voters will more quickly understand that it is time to change the way we do business and enter the 21st century.

Mark Leno is a San Francisco Democrat who represents the 13th Assembly District.