Perfection was not a feature of the budget deal worked out among
California legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But it was
far from the worst bargain taxpayers could have gotten. And that
was largely because of the often-vilified two-thirds vote
requirement for passage of budget items and new taxes.
Perfection was not a feature of the budget deal worked out among California legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But it was far from the worst bargain taxpayers could have gotten. And that was largely because of the often-vilified two-thirds vote requirement for passage of budget items and new taxes.
Sure, the budget drama took much longer than it might have if there were no two-thirds requirement. And yes, most state employees wound up with a future including at least a few more days of unpaid furlough. In this they are far from alone at a time when workers in industries from computers and chemicals to newspapers, cars, telephones and chocolate are being furloughed and laid off through no fault of their own.
The bottom line here is that this budget deal is better for taxpayers than it would have been if Democrats could have slammed it through with the smaller 55 percent supermajority some have proposed. Even Republican leaders had agreed to two regressive tax increases, one upping the sales tax and the other a proposed 12-cent hike of the gasoline tax.
But getting the final vote needed to reach a two-thirds majority in the state Senate (it belonged to Santa Maria-area Republican Abel Maldonado) required axing the gas tax increase and substituting a small rise in income taxes. This will hit the wealthy far harder than the poor, something no one could say about either the sales or gas taxes. Meanwhile, if Republicans had their way completely, education budgets might have been eviscerated instead of merely taking a big cut. Welfare totally cut off, and on and on.
So this may not be pleasant for most Californians, but it was far better than they’d have gotten if either party had an exclusive say. What’s more, Maldonado extracted a huge concession from both parties in the final deal – placement of an open-primary proposition on the June 2010 ballot. This is the best item in the entire package for voters, as it could break the straight party line hack politics that have afflicted Sacramento since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s short-lived “blanket primary” system that prevailed in two 1990s-era election cycles.
Under that system, all voters could participate in the primary of whichever party they liked and the top vote-getter in each party made the November runoff election ballot. But a few years later, the court upheld a Washington state version of the longtime Louisiana primary system, in which voters cross over freely, but only the two top vote-getters make the runoff, regardless of party. No political party hierarchy ever likes this system because it allows moderate Democrats living in Republican-dominated districts to cross over and vote for a GOP moderate they might prefer over a hard-line conservative.
It gives Republicans in Democratic dominated districts a similar voice. That could be especially important in California, where almost no legislative seats ever shift from party to party. The only ones really harmed are the minor parties: Libertarians and Peace and Freedom members who, combined, usually win less than three percent of the vote. Too bad their candidates would likely not make any runoff soon in an open primary system, but using this to deny voters the possibility of electing centrist officials would be letting the tail wag the dog. The answer for small parties is not to gripe, but to grow.
The real losers would be party bosses, now among the most powerful politicians in California even though voters don’t elect them. Because the year-2000 Proposition 34 allows large contributions to political parties while imposing strict limits on giving to candidates, parties often funnel millions of dollars to candidates they like, even in primary elections. It’s no wonder they don’t like openness. An open system might mark the end of the hold they maintain over their elected adherents. If this weakens party politics, so be it. For party politics have often had severely destructive aspects from the beginning of the Republic to the last month’s state budget negotiations.
In his farewell address, President George Washington, who twice won unanimous votes in the Electoral College and was never subjected to party politics because of his stature, warned against “the baneful effects of the spirit of party.”
California saw some of those ill effects in recent years, not least the disappearance of the blanket primary, thrown out because the state Republican and Democratic parties jointly sued to end it. But soon, in large part because of the two-thirds majority rule so often blamed for the state’s ills, we Californians will get a chance to rid ourselves of many of the same baneful effects Washington forecast so astutely.
