In the LA Times today, Harold Meyerson echoes a common complaint about California’s two-thirds rule for approving tax increases and budget resolutions:
The most basic principle of any democracy is that of majority rule, with minority rights running a clear but close second. Simple though this precept may be, California seems to have gotten it backward.
The budget deal that emerged from Sacramento on Monday was the result of minority rule — the consequence of a state Constitution that vests more power in the minority party than the constitution of just about any other state.
….Californians need to amend their state Constitution, in convention if need be, to end the practice of minority rule. Democracy — not to mention the future of the state — depends on it.
I agree, but I wonder if Republicans ever stop to think about how badly these rules have hurt them too? Don’t get me wrong: for various reasons, California would probably be a blue state these days regardless of whether we had a two-thirds rule or not. But the fact is that Californians, like most people, are generally unfriendly to tax increases. And yet they keep voting for Democrats anyway. Why?
Well, why not? Everyone knows the two-thirds rule will keep them from raising taxes, so if you like them for other reasons there’s no reason not to vote for them.
But what if they could boost tax rates? Then, basically, their bluff would be called. They’d have to either raise taxes, thus pissing off a lot of people and giving Republicans a great campaign issue, or they’d have to leave taxes alone and take responsibility for cutting services. There would be no Republicans to blame it on. And guess what? That might make Democrats quite a bit less popular.
Now, it’s unlikely that anything could turn the California legislature over to the GOP in the near future, but in the past 25 years California has had only one Democratic governor — and we recalled him after five years in office. We’re not all that unfriendly to Republicans. If Democrats had the power to raise taxes — and actually did it — we might become even less unfriendly toward the GOP.
In other words, even though the two-thirds rule is the only thing that currently gives Republicans any influence at all in Sacramento, repealing it might be their only long-term hope of ever taking back the California legislature. Ironic, isn’t it?
