Gov. Jerry Brown announced this afternoon he halted negotiations with legislative Republicans over a deal to place taxes on the ballot to help resolve California’s remaining $15.4 billion deficit.
A June election appears to be off the table entirely. Brown is no longer pursuing a two-thirds vote for a June tax election, while Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, told reporters he will not pursue a majority-vote option, either.
[….]The absence of a June election casts doubt on whether state leaders can resolve the budget before the next fiscal year starts in July. Democrats did not indicate how they would attempt to do so.
“They’ve done a pretty good job of running out the clock here,” Steinberg said, referring to legislative Republicans
I don’t think it’s clear that California can survive with its current constitutional structure, where one-third of legislators can hold up a tax increase. Remember, lots of Republicans want states to go bankrupt so that they can get out of their union contracts .
Here’s something I wonder about: could Democrats, who are now a large but impotent but majority in Sacramento, find a way to redistrict the state legislature so that Republicans can only hold less than a third of seats starting in 2012? I’m sure there’s a way to draw the lines that would do it, but I don’t how the redistricting works politically (can you do it with a majority vote or do you need 2/3 for that too?).
Update. From commenter danimal:
Redistricting is now in the hands of an independent commission as a result of a recent ballot initiative. This is, on net, probably going to be a good thing from a progressive POV since the GOP has more to lose (they protected all of their incumbents in 2000, and their numbers are shrinking).
Bubblegum Tate
I live in the Bay Area, and I love it here. I really do. I can’t even imagine moving anywhere else. But my god, this state is so completely and thoroughly fucked. It’s pretty much ungovernable thanks to the long-term efforts of right-wing crazies.
bly
We voted a couple years ago to create a non-partisan citizen redistricting panel,so no, the legislature can’t redistrict the repubs out of a majority.
We really do need a constitutional convention, because our state has become ungovernable. Ahhhnold was pretty dim, but even with Jerry’s smarts and experience, I do not know how he’s going to get anything done.
Steve
Note that it’s not the case that one-third of the legislature is blocking a tax increase. Instead, one-third of the legislature is preventing the public from even having the right to vote on the issue!
Barb (formerly Gex)
I go from asking if Canada will offer political asylum to Wisconsinites, and expand that to see if they will take any and all sane Americans. It’s pretty clear that there is political persecution of that class of Americans in our governance these days.
danimal
Redistricting is now in the hands of an independent commission as a result of a recent ballot initiative. This is, on net, probably going to be a good thing from a progressive POV since the GOP has more to lose (they protected all of their incumbents in 2000, and their numbers are shrinking).
The GOP is trying extra-hard to kill the tax extension because budgeting with a majority is going to be easier for the Dems as a result of another recent initiative. If the budget crisis is solved and they don’t have any functional power; the current-day CA GOP will die a deserved death.
Comrade DougJ
@Steve:
They can also block an increase.
PeakVT
I don’t thinkit’s clear that Californiacancan’t survive with its current constitutional structureFixt. The question is whether a constitutional convention would actually produce a better one, let alone a good one.
Hunter Gathers
Speaking of asshole GOPers, check out the latest gambit from the House That Whitey Elected –
From now on, if anybody asks, I’m hispanic.
jeffreyw
A meme takes wing! “With Notably Rare Exceptions”
Lev
I’m all for dumping the 2/3 requirement, but it’s popular with the public. In fact, antitax people were able to close a loophole last year that let some taxes be raised without the 2/3 requirement. I suppose I can’t blame them–California has a really high tax burden relative to other states, and it’s not like we get what we pay for (usually 48th or so in education, for example). And California is one of the few states where even a majority of upper-income people are Democrats, which makes progressivity in taxes tougher.
Still, I don’t fault Brown here. The alternative was to abrogate environmental law, which is what the Republicans were calling for.
Suffern ACE
@PeakVT: Who would be at this convention? The same political players that have created this situation over the years? I don’t see a different outcome.
trollhattan
We did pass Prop 25 in November, which eliminated the 2/3 vote requirement for the legeslature to pass a budget.
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Proposition_25,_Majority_Vote_for_Legislature_to_Pass_the_Budget_(2010)
The Republican’s latest game has been to prevent a June vote on extending certain taxes currently set to expire, thus creating something like a $6 or $7 billion budget hole.
MobiusKlein
As California goes, so does the nation.
One out of ten Americans live in California, more or less.
Why the rest of the states think it’s somehow expendable, or the Rs think so is beyond me.
Guster
Wasn’t there talk of a constitutional convention two years ago? Nothing happened? Nothing can happen?
We’ve gotta start thinking like Republicans. Is there no transparently idiotic ‘rules lawyer’ stuff Brown can do? I say he starts pardoning serial killers and sending them to the 1/3 districts until the population declines.
Xenos
That will be the day I go back to Annandale!
I am sorry. That was frivolous of me. But I can’t help it.
Sentient Puddle
@jeffreyw: Hey, I can understand Greenspan wanting the last thing people remember him by being something other than his tenure at the Fed.
In any case, I think we need a thread of our own over here to come up with variations.
pragmatism
@MobiusKlein: because it contains berkeley, san francisco and l.a. dirty fracking hippie ghey liberal entertainers must be punchasized. alternately people pray that the san andreas breaks off.
danimal
Comrade DougJ–CA budgetary politics have been bleak, but the logjam is almost clear.
Brown is front-loading all the brutal cuts and tax extensions in this year’s budget. If he’s successful, there will be no more permanent budget crisis. Without a budget crisis, the GOP in this state is completely irrelevant. If we don’t need 2-6 conservative votes to pass a budget, the GOP loses its ability to block everything–or anything, for that matter. They will not be able to obstruct if new taxes are not part of the budget mix.
Liberals in CA–victory is within reach.
mr. whipple
@jeffreyw:
OMG.
ppcli
@Hunter Gathers: The “Government Shutdown Prevention Act”. How is it possible that people voted for these guys?
Brachiator
No.
Oddly enough, both the Republicans and the Democrats were happy with the prior districting schemes. The Republicans were condemned to be a permanent minority, but they had safe districts. Whether this worked for the voters was of secondary importance.
Both political parties have been fighting 2008 Proposition 11, which was designed to set up a nonpartisan redistricting commission.
It’s funny that even though both sides claim that they are unhappy with political stalemate, somehow they fight harder to preserve it than they do to help the citizens of the state.
Dave
A question for CA people – how much of this problem originated with the ability for people to put questions on the ballot? Is it too easy to do? And if so, has that been remedied yet? Otherwise, can’t this just happen again and again?
Lev
@Dave: All of it. The 2/3 restriction is the legacy of Prop 13, gunned through by Reagan and the Howard Jarvis people in 1978. Ruined the state in many ways.
Comrade Javamanphil
@jeffreyw: Looks like http://www.Withnotablyrareexceptions.com is still available
Roger Moore
@Lev:
No, it doesn’t. California has a relatively high income tax burden compared to other states, but it’s balanced out by our tiny property tax burden. The overall level isn’t especially high.
Zifnab
Can they just staple the tax increase to an amendment? Amendments in California get thrown on the ballot all the time. Sure, it may end up turning the California Constitution into Alabama’s mess, but its at least worth considering.
Hunter Gathers
@ppcli: White people have lost their collective shit. The only way the GOP will be able to survive is to get Whites across the nation to vote like Southern Whites. And it’s working.
PeakVT
@Lev: California’s tax burden is higher than average, but not the highest.
@Suffern ACE: Convention composition could be set in a number of ways. The details would be part of the ballot proposal.
aimai
@danimal:
Can you explain that a little more? I’d love to see a silver lining somehwere, even if its in someone else’s clouds.
aimai
Lev
@Roger Moore: That’s true enough. And one of the contributors to the horrors of the housing crisis in the state. Higher property taxes = lower home prices.
BDeevDad
Interestingly, Charles Munger, Warren Buffett’s number 2 man, was a major donor to prop 20, the redistricting initiative.
Silver
@MobiusKlein:
What makes California expendable? It’s a cesspool of fags and Mexicans, that’s why. When you’re married to a first cousin who’s also your aunt and your family of 16 shares 4 teeth, that’s all you need to know.
Roger Moore
@Dave:
I’ll have to disagree with Lev’s “all of it” comment. Our elected representatives have done their own fair share of stupid stuff, like cutting taxes when the economy was doing well rather than building up reserves or paying off debts.
But it’s clear that there’s a really bad feedback loop between ballot initiatives and legislative budgeting. Voters who are unhappy with the legislature’s spending priorities vote for initiatives that lock in specific spending. That ties the legislatures hands at budget time and makes them adopt even less popular budgets. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s no wonder our budget is a mess.
Lev
@Zifnab: The alternative is to get enough signatures to put it on the ballot as an initiative instead of as a referendum. Which is indeed possible, though you need money for that.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@PeakVT: C’mon people. If someone claims that their taxes are unusually high, it is just true, period. Fuck this checking the actual facts. He lives in CA, and he’s sure his taxes are unusually high. That *is* the only fact that matters, not whether the tax is actually unusually high. Haven’t we all figured this out by now?
Millionaires don’t feel rich. Taxes are always too high. These things are always true.
Linda Featheringill
@jeffreyw:
Comment from the linked cite:
Love it!
Linda Featheringill
With notably rare exceptions, I am young and strong and beautiful and sexy and prosperous and popular and . . . .
Lev
@Roger Moore: It’s hard to dispute that the 2/3 requirement is from Prop 13. Admittedly, there’s other bad budget stuff that handcuffs legislators, and I was engaging in a bit of hyperbole there. But not much.
Zifnab
@Hunter Gathers: Lolwhut?
This bill doesn’t even make sense.
Roger Moore
@aimai:
The idea is that the Republicans can now only act as obstructionists on tax issues, not budget issues. The token Republican votes for the budget were their one piece of leverage to enact their insane priorities. If the Democrats no longer have to negotiate with
terroristsRepublicans to pass the budget, we can mostly ignore them.danimal
@aimai: @Roger Moore: My long-winded answer got eaten by the internets, but Roger hits the mark concisely.
Hunter Gathers
@Zifnab: It’s Scott Walker style governance. This bill becomes law, because we said so!
Brachiator
@Silver:
No, you’re confusing California with Kentucky or Tennessee.
danimal
@Brachiator: Brach, you’re not from the Inland Empire, are you?
trollhattan
Although a rerun from yesterday, I think it’s worth repeating the Republican hold on the legislature is so slender that the Kochs are funding an ad campaign targeting two Republican state senators. I guess Megs showed them the way.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/03/taxpayer-group-with-koch-ties.html
Their particular brand of obstructionist shite only works if they all act in concert, like fresh recruits in boot camp. Their D.I. is anybody with a fat wallet and an axe to grind.
Failure, Inc.
Wow. WE ARE FUCKED. Because Brown WILL balance this budget – no more carryovers, no more games – and it is what I elected him to do, but my God, cutting 15 billion out of next years budget is basically going to shut the state down for a year.
aimai
@Roger Moore:
So, what happened? It sounds like the Democrats managed to hive the budget off the 2/3 majority law but the 2/3 majority still goes for tax increases. But without tax increases what good does that do? All that’s left is a budgeting process of pure cuts and no revenue. Isn’t that what we’re getting at the national level? Anyway, thanks for trying to answer my question. I think I’ll do a little bouncing around the net to try to understand it better. I’ve had a lot of experience having my long posts eaten here at balloon juice and its very frustrating so I appreciate danimal’s attempt to give me a little free education and I won’t ask for more when the original post was eaten.
aimai
Silver
@danimal:
Ha!
Actually, that was a little ambiguous. I was talking about the rural God fearing white folks in South and Midwest. But yeah, a couple of weeks ago I was leaving Palmdale to head back down to Orange County and I took the 138 route. 20 minutes after leaving the hotel, I swear I could hear the Deliverance banjo playing.
Roger Moore
@aimai:
The idea is that we’ll be asking for a tax increase (or rather a continuation of taxes that would otherwise expire, but it’s still a revenue increase relative to baseline assumptions) on this year’s ballot. If, and it is a big if, that passes, the Republicans are completely marginalized. Yes, the budget situation would still be unpleasant, but it wouldn’t be further complicated by the need to buy the votes of a few Republicans with measures that will make future budgets even more difficult.
Failure, Inc.
@danimal: Oh, I agree with you. It’s just that one year is going to be pure horror.
But you’re right, and that is exactly Brown’s plan. He left this state last time with the largest budget surplus it’s ever had. Call him “Moonbeam” all you want; he knows how to get budgets in order and he knows how to crush his opponents. He was gracious enough to give the GOP a lifeline with this initiative proposal. They told him to go fuck himself, so now he’s going to unleash a little “shock doctrine” of his own and the blame for the ensuing catastrophe is going to ALL be on the California GOP.
It will hurt a lot of people. But it will solve both the fiscal and political problem once and for all.
Paul in KY
@Brachiator: Ha, ha, ha! May I offer a hearty ‘fuck you’ on behalf of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
Tennessee, you were right on the money ;-)
NonyNony
@Hunter Gathers:
Fucking US Constitutional government – how does THAT work?
Mrstrailer
I love that song. I was listening on my way to work this morning.
danimal
@aimai: @Failure, Inc.: Gotta get back to my day job, but there is a silver lining in these dark clouds.
Brown can now tailor his revenue enhancers without the GOP. This means that a November initiative can include GOP untouchables such as oil and gas royalties. I hope he’s as cagey as I believe he is and sticks the shiv in deeply.
Martin
@aimai:
True, but that’s not precisely the issue here. Brown campaigned on bringing any tax increases (apparently he’s decided that deferring a tax cut counts) to the voters. In order for the legislature to put it on the ballot, they need a 2/3 vote.
So, different shades of 2/3.
But Democrats are the ones balancing the budget, not the GOP. Cutting them out of the loop is almost a feature at this point. If this works, and Brown balances the budget without simply borrowing everything like Arnold did, then outside of the OC tax breaks for billionaires club, I don’t see how the GOP even holds onto their meager 1/3 of seats.
Martin
@danimal: I suspect he’ll poke at some sensitive spots, but Brown really isn’t a moonbeam liberal like they call him. He’ll go after those things that are long-term revenue generators. A small extraction tax would seem very likely.
I wouldn’t put it past the unions to toss up a millionaire tax as well. They’re going to put their national anger to work here, I think.
And polling suggests that if we can get voters out that tax increases will likely pass.
jibeaux
Has California ever had a ballot initiative proposing, you know, something like representative rather than direct democracy? Just wondering.
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
@Xenos:
Whoa no. Guadalajara won’t do.
Bill H.
California would go far toward solving its problems if, in addition to the redistricting, it would go to an open primary. That would reduce the degree of hyperpartinship in primaries and reduce the rigidity of partisan politics. Not by much, but we don’t need to reduce it by much to make the 2/3rds majority rule workable. We always come very close as it is.
Brachiator
@danimal:
Last time I passed through the IE, most of those people were old and leathery and past their reproductive prime. Or maybe they were just meth heads.
@Paul in KY:
Glad you took my remarks in the spirit in which they were meant to be delivered.
RobertB
Steely Dan shoutout FTW.
Paul in KY
@Brachiator: If I can’t take some snarking about my state, how can I snark about West Virginny?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
You’re on a Steely Dan kick this week, huh?
sacman701
@59: The state has an open primary now. We now use the same system as Washington does, where you have a top-2 runoff regardless of party. The upcoming special election to fill Jane Harman’s US House seat will be the first example.
Brachiator
@jibeaux:
The ballot initiative was originally a progressive tool used to deal with a stubborn, corrupt and unresponsive state government. Some of the first successful ballot initiatives eliminated the poll tax and provided the initial funding for the UC system. In recent years, however, the process has been hijacked by special interest groups.
@Bill H.:
California has, or will have open primaries, thanks to Proposition 14. Even though this is a bad idea, the Republicans have done what they could to make it a farce.
No word yet, on whether Democrats have any tricks up their sleeves.
By the way, a lot of progressives think that an open primary would help them. But I could see the Tea Party People gaining with an open primary, should they split from the GOP. You always have to be careful about what you wish for.
Failure, Inc.
@Bill H.: We already did this in the last budget fight; it was a precondition to get Abel Maldonado to be the sacrificial Republican vote on it.
And he was; drummed out by the Teabaggers in 2010. He then also lost for lieutenant governor, so he’s playing golf and hopefully reconsidering his party allegiance.
Ruckus
@Failure, Inc.:
That’s exactly why I voted for him as well. With term limits we of course usually have to elect someone with no prior experience in the job. That’s the nature of having term limits for the highest office in a state, or the nation. This time we got lucky, we have someone qualified who was willing.
trollhattan
@danimal:
I’m not up to speed on how this works under Prop 26, which institutes a 2/3 “supermajority” requirement on new fees. It was the stealth proposition that managed to pass last fall, and a damaging one.
Tax Analyst
@Comrade DougJ
Several, starting with Xenos at #15 have noted the Steely Dan reference here. So I won’t ask you now if you’ve decided to relocate in Annondale.
OOPS! I guess I kinda just did, huh?
Anyway, I’m just anxiously waiting for the topic you decide to plug the “Royal Scam” into. There are just so many possibilities to choose from and they are just about all just total doozies.
joes527
@Brachiator: I don’t understand your objection to the Republicans’ plan. They are free to use a poll, ouiji board or roe sham boe to decide who gets to be the king of the Republicans … and California, very correctly, takes no notice whatsoever of whether or not someone has a gold R on their forehead. All that matters is who gets the votes in the primary and the runoff.
Why should the R’s and the D’s have guaranteed slots on the ballot?
Omnes Omnibus
Tried to warn you about Chino and Daddy Gee
But I can’t seem to get to you through the US mail
Tax Analyst
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, I’ll have to do a little lyric streching here to make this work:
Now I hear the (lunch) whistle and have to blow. Free tacos grilling, gonna have some mo’
Explanation: It’s “Free Taco” day here at work in honor of several birthdays falling within a couple days of each other, + Tax Season moving down the stretch towards the Finish Line. (Mine’s April 1st) It’s almost time to start queueing up.)
Erik Vanderhoff
Well, that just blew my agency’s budget gap open. Well, it’s been nice being employed.
Ozymandias, King of Ants
I think we in California should have a ballot initiative to bring back cross-listing.
At one time, apparently, a candidate did not have to be a member of a party to run in the primary. And candidates weren’t limited to running in only one party’s primary.
I can remember older folks when I was a kid talking. about someone—I believe it was Earl Warren, third term—who won the Republican, Democratic, and Progressive primaries: the general election was merely a formality.
Erik Vanderhoff
@Lev: Those weren’t taxes, you nincompoop; they made it so that STATE AND LOCAL fees (like state parks’ admittance prices or your car registration) are subject to 2/3 majority.
What they did was fuck the municipalities from making up for lost state revenues at the same time they made it impossible for the state to raise revenue.
BECAUSE MY FELLOW CALIFORNIANS ARE FUCKING IDIOTS.
Brachiator
@joes527:
I think that open primaries are dumbass, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the Republicans are trying to get around the whole point of an open primary.
Whether this will help or hurt them in the long run remains to be seen.
matryoshka
@Paul in KY: Even the South is a divided nation!
Matt
The issue here is that the democratic process fundamentally assumes that everyone involved wants roughly the same thing, modulo some of the details. One cannot conduct a democratic process between a fox and some chickens…
The Populist
@Failure, Inc.:
Indeed. I live in California and don’t want to hear one snivel of whining from my right wing friends here.
Not one snivel.
Schools will be more fucked than ever.
Mr Stagger Lee
Thanks to our de-facto taxophobe master Tim Eyeman, the state of Washington also has a 2/3rds law to raise taxes or fees. Some have suggested, that the Democrats challenge this madness in court. But Christine Gregoire is the Harry Reid of the governor set. Too scared to try.
Paul in KY
@matryoshka: Low hanging fruit. Couldn’t resist. I do go to Gatlinburg & Smokey Mountains occasionally. Do enjoy myself down there.
FuzzyWuzzy
@Barb (formerly Gex): Maybe if you live in Toronto doing think tank and university work, they will select you in twenty years or so to be the new rebel leader of a soon to be liberated America.
Darkrose
Well. Be interesting to see if I still have a job in six months, or if they just say “fuck it” and shut down the UC system.