Group calls for majority rule
By Leonardo Chusan
Feb. 2, 2010 2:58 a.m.
According to the California Constitution, a two-thirds vote is needed in both houses of the state Legislature for budget bills and taxes to be approved.
Recently, this rule has caught the attention of Bruin Democrats, because it does not allow a simple majority, or 51 percent, to approve the state budget or taxes.
As a result, the rule’s repeal has become the group’s main focus, because members said it gives too much power to the minority group, the Republican party, in both houses.
“It’s the rule of the minority,” said Chris Ah San, a fourth-year economics and music performance student and external vice president of the Bruin Democrats. “All the one-third minority has to do is hold the budget process hostage by saying no to every budget until they get what they want.”
Ah San said as long as the state budget process remains like this, it will never be able to provide a sustainable level of funding to institutions of higher education.
As a result, Bruin Democrats are looking to change the rule by participating in the California Democracy Act coalition.
According to its Web site, the California Democracy Act is a ballot initiative that would repeal the rule. If the organization gathers enough signatures, the initiative will appear on the November 2010 ballot.
The coalition seeks to gather 1.3 million signatures to get the initiative on the ballot. Of that amount, the group hopes to garner 75,000 student signatures, Ah San said.
He added that the group is also organizing groups of students to speak about the topic of the California Democracy Act.
While the two-thirds rule has received attention from Bruin Democrats, it is not the same story for Bruin Republicans.
After some discussion, the group has not made the rule its focus because it does not see it as the reason for creating the economic crisis, said Matt Miller, a fourth-year classical civilization student and current chairman of Bruin Republicans.
However, it is still significant because whichever party is in power needs to compromise with the minority power, said Andrew Kreitz, a fourth-year business economics student and current Bruin Republican member.
“It is unreasonable to me for the majority party to enforce its will on a minority party,” Kreitz said.
The two-thirds rule was created in 1933 and was intended to limit spending by increasing the number of votes needed to pass budget changes.
The rule was extended to include decisions on tax increases through Proposition 13 in 1978, 45 years later.
The most recent attempt to change the rule came in 2004 with Proposition 56. However, the measure did not pass, with 66 percent of voters opposed to it.
Currently both Bruin Republicans and Bruin Democrats are working together to organize a debate that will involve the two-thirds rule. The debate is currently in the planning stages and is scheduled to occur during the seventh week of the quarter.
“We have decided that it’s important for our clubs to meet and express our opinions to not only each other, but also the campus at large,” Miller said.
