Prop 63

Want more proof that the initiative process is too powerful in California? All the recent talk about lawmakers reaching a budget deal is bunk. The deal, even if it passes, requires the voters to sign off on multiple ballot measures later this year. That's right -- California simply can't handle a budget emergency without a vote of the people.

Details have not been released, but I count at least five separate ballot measures that would be needed to complete this deal: 1. a measure authorizing the modernizing of the lottery and borrowing against future funds. 2. the approval of some sort of new spending limit that Republicans insisted upon in negotiations. 3. Changes to the state's education funding formula. 4. A measure permitting the state to raid money that voters approved for early childhood programs and 5. A measure permitting the state to raid money that voters approved for mental health programs.

Given the extreme costs of delays by the legislature, and their inability to do much without the voters OK, the real question is: why bother having a legislature at all?

It has become obvious that Gov. Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders of both parties simply won't be able to reach a compromise that comes anywhere close to closing California's rapidly growing budget deficit, now estimated at some $40 billion over two years. The state government is running low on cash. Within weeks, it may have to start paying people in IOUs.

Democrats simply won't agree to enough cuts. Republicans won't agree to tax increases, and they can block that because of the state's requirement for a two-thirds vote. The Democrats' convoluted (if politically smart) attempt to do an end run around two thirds and raise taxes by majority vote isn't going anywhere; even if it's revived and signed into law, it's all but certain to get struck down in the courts or overturned by referendum. The governor you ask? Schwarzenegger has little credibility with lawmakers of either party. When it comes to big deals, he simply can't close.

Today's LA Times story by my longtime colleague Evan Halper makes one thing painfully clear. California's Republican legislative leaders, for all their championing of direct democracy and the rule of the people when it comes to subjects such as Prop 13 (property taxes) and Prop 22 (same-sex marriage ban), are prepared to violate all sorts of voter-approved initiatives to get a budget deal and avoid a tax increase.

Halper got his hands on a memo that details what Republicans are talking about. As Halper recounts the memo's contents, the Republican proposals involve "diverting money specifically set aside by voters for local governments, road and other transportation projects, mental health programs and early childhood education." To give a little history, voters set aside money for transportation via ballot initiative with Prop 42 (2002), for local government with Prop 1A (2004), mental health programs with Prop 63 (2004), and early childhood with Prop 10 (1998). For Republicans to want to raid such funds is hypocrisy. To borrow against such funds in the name of opposing tax increases is dishonest. The act of raiding such funds creates a debt for the state that must be paid back. The very act of raiding the funds is thus a tax increase in disguise.

Rose King was part of the committee that drafted Prop 63, the successful 2004 California ballot initiative to fund mental health programs. But she writes in the Sacramento Bee that she considers the effort a failure -- in large part because of the fact that it was established by initiative. (Hat tip: Fox & Hounds Daily).