A dispute over the meaning of California's complex education funding formula -- Prop 98, a union-backed ballot initiative that was approved by voters in 1988 -- is holding up budget talks at the moment. Prop 98 isn't as well known as Prop 13, the 1978 property tax limitation measure that also established the terrible two-thirds requirement for raising taxes in Calfiornia, but the two initiatives are cousins. Prop 98 has become Democratic holy writ, and Prop 13 is Republican holy writ. Neither measure has done what it's supposed to do (Prop 98 is supposed to protect education funding; Prop 13 is supposed to protect us from taxes and over-spending).  It's time to end both and start over. 

For a further explanation, check out these links.

-My recent column at Fox & Hounds Daily on why we should end Prop 98 and what we might replace it with.

-My piece from last year's LA Times on Prop 98, its complexity and its history.

-Eric Bailey's piece in today's LA Times on Prop 98's role in the current budget process.

A Democratic law firm filed  two versions of an initiative Monday with the California attorney general. As Democratic leaders have promised, the initiative effectively would eliminate California's requirement of a two-thirds vote to pass a budget. (Though, for political purposes, the two-thirds requirement would remain in the constitution--new language would merely exempt all appropriations from the two-thirds requirement for approving appropriations. Look for advocates of the initiative to say, over and over, that it doesn't remove the two-thirds requirement from the constitution. Because technically, it doesn't).

One of the two versions of the initiative also would eliminate the two-thirds requirement for raising all taxes (with an exception for property taxes that offers a bit of a nod to Prop 13). Again, this is political. Proponents are cutting the heart out of Prop 13, but they'll be able to say, "What are you talking about? We don't touch property taxes!" It's also possible that by filing two versions, backers are telegraphing a political strategy: they could agree not to take on the two-thirds requirement as it applies to taxes -- in return for support for eliminating the two-thirds requirement on the budget.

Thirty years ago today, California voters passed Prop 13. At the time, inflation was soaring, the president was losing popularity, and Jerry Brown was running for governor again. So nothing's changed.

The impact of the initiative, which limited property tax increases and required a two-thirds vote in the legislature for any tax increase, is still popular and still being debated. In general, descriptions of its impact are overblown. It's blamed for big declines in school and local government funding that exist only in fevered imaginations. But its impact on state politics and the structure of state government is undeniable. In general, Prop 13 has been a great distorter, separating constituencies and their funding, spawning an initiative industry that dominates politics in California and other Western states, and pushing California towads a volatile, income tax-based system that produces constant uncertainty and crisis. Prop 13 isn't solely to blame for the state's dysfunction, but it's a significant part of the problem.