State budget: Change to majority vote?

14 July 2010 |permalink | email article

As perennial delays over California’s state budget show no signs of resolution, a Field Poll indicates two-thirds of voters are prepared to let lawmakers approve the spending plan with a majority vote. Given the current $19 billion budget deficit it’s apparent that the public has had it.

Proposition 25, the budget measure on the Nov. 2 ballot, would remove the 48-year-old requirement that lawmakers approve each year’s budget bill with a two-thirds vote. History suggests that in the past, a provision has required at least some members of the minority party to agree to the plan. And again this year a summer long stalemate between Democrats and Republicans has ensued.

The poll finds that 65 percent of likely November voters favor a change from a two-thirds vote to a majority-vote approval, with 20 percent opposed and 15 percent unsure.

Poll director Mark DiCamillo noted that even Republicans, who would lose their clout in budget talks if Proposition 25 were approved, supported the measure, 58 percent to 25 percent. But he cautioned that GOP voters might not be fully aware that Republican lawmakers would be sidelined if the union-backed measure is approved.

In 2004, voters by a 2-1 ratio defeated Proposition 56, which Democrats and their union allies pushed to reduce the two-thirds vote requirement required for the Legislature to pass a budget and approve taxes.  The skirmishing amounts to a preview of the upcoming campaign which will pit unions against businesses and could sufficiently alter voter opinions.

DiCamillo noted that Field Poll statistics show that only about half of the measures leading in the initial poll end up winning. The bottom line seems clear: barring some kind of political miracle the chaos in Sacramento will continue.

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