Cal Berkeley Democrats

The High Cost of Minority Rule

What’s wrong with California?

Many of us ponder this question with alarming regularity. Unfortunately, our concerns are well-founded. This summer, we saw our state fall over the fiscal precipice. We issued IOUs for the first time in years, damaging both our credit rating and our pride. We made drastic cuts to services, including K-12 education and our own university. We saw our political system paralyzed by gridlock, with its leading figures mired in childish bickering. Our state’s dysfunction lies exposed as it never has before.

The sources of our problems are numerous and multifaceted. We have an initiative process dominated by special interests, which abdicates responsibility to low-information voters. We have gross partisan gerrymandering, which produces extreme polarization and frustrating gridlock. We have a volatile tax system, which enriches us during good times and starves us during bad ones.

Our biggest problem, though, is the so-called “two-thirds rule”. Under this rule, any budget or tax increase must be approved by two-thirds of each house of the Legislature. However, since it allows a small fringe to thwart the popular will, the “two-thirds rule” is actually minority rule.

From any reasonable perspective, minority rule makes no sense. It is grossly undemocratic, as it allows a mere thirty-four percent of voters to override the other sixty-six. Moreover, with its excessive requirements, it traps our state in endless gridlock. Minority rule is a disaster, on both principled and pragmatic grounds.

Firstly, minority rule is fundamentally undemocratic. Undoubtedly, some decisions, such as those regarding basic rights, should require supermajorities. However, for bills as routine as budgets, they have no place. The central principle of democracy is “one man, one vote”, yet in California one-third of our citizens can negate the rest.

Minority rule is a radical perversion of democracy. We require only simple majorities for constitutional amendments, yet two-thirds for everyday business. This process is so twisted that California stand alone—we are the only state which demands a two-thirds vote for both budgets and tax increases.

In practice, minority rule grants Republicans de facto control of state government. This is true despite the fact that they are a small and dwindling minority in California. They number only 31.1% of voters, and they do not have majorities in any Assembly, Senate, or Congressional district. At the presidential level, California has not voted for them in over twenty years.

Yet, because they control one-third of the Legislature, Republicans have the power to block any budget. Unsurprisingly, they exercise this power with great frequency.  Forty of forty-four Republican legislators have pledged never to raise taxes under any circumstances, and, aided by minority rule, they have forced this rigid ideology upon our state.

Most recently, Republicans wielded their power during the July budget battle. Due to deteriorating economic conditions, legislators were forced to close a $26 billion deficit. However, instead of taking a balanced approach, Republicans categorically forswore new revenues. They left California with only one option: cut, cut, cut. As a result, we bore terrible blows to even the most basic of services. K-12 education lost $6.5 billion in funding, and higher education another $2 billion.

These cuts are especially painful because they could have been mitigated. Instead of slashing services, Republicans could have explored popular, common-sense revenues. They could have increased tobacco fees, which would have reduced smoking and raised over $1 billion. They could have placed “severance” fees on oil companies, which drill in our lands and profit from our resources. (At present, California is the only oil-producing state without such a fee.)

Both these solutions are overwhelmingly popular; according a July poll, 66% of Californians support severance fees and a whopping 73% tobacco fees. However, minority rule allowed Republicans to impose their anti-tax extremism. They blocked these common-sense solutions, choosing affordable cigarettes over affordable education in contrast to the popular will.

Budgets are literally the most ordinary, routine legislation in government. They involve basic allocations of resources, not fundamental rights. They should be shaped by majorities, as they are in nearly every other state. Yet, in California, we see the reverse. Democracy is diminished, overshadowed by the fact of minority rule.

Additionally, one should oppose minority rule on pragmatic grounds. With its unrealistic requirements, it is the chief cause of our perpetual gridlock. Under normal circumstances, a majority can pass a budget with little difficulty. However, with minority rule, our conflicts remain intractable. A two-thirds threshold is impossibly high; even the Washington filibuster can be broken with less. If Congress required such support to pass a bill, it would not have produced major legislation in years.

Gridlock is more than an abstract, theoretical concern; it became far too familiar last summer. In fact, minority rule led directly to our embarrassing episode with IOUs. We failed to produce a budget for the new fiscal year, and, as a result, we could not afford to pay our bills. We had no choice but to issue IOUs, halting payments to businesses, agencies, and taxpayers. Our credit rating sank to the lowest of any state, and we became a national laughingstock.

Unfortunately, this was not a one-time anomaly. California has missed its budget deadline 22 of the last 30 years, and minority rule has played a lead role in fermenting this gridlock. Majorities could easily produce bills, yet they are forced to deal with unwavering and uncompromising extremists. If anything, minority rule creates a perverse incentive for crisis—the more California deteriorates, the likelier majorities are to acquiesce. Gridlock is a systemic feature of minority rule, and eliminating it can mend our dysfunction.

Minority rule is a disaster—it eviscerates democracy, and it paralyses our government. Luckily, a consensus is emerging that California needs reform. Many diverse groups have called for a constitutional convention, including Repair California, the California Action Network, and the business-oriented Bay Area Council. San Francisco mayor and former gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom also supports such a measure.

However, a more direct assault has been launched by one of our own professors, George Lakoff. In September he submitted the California Democracy Act, a ballot measure stating (in its entirety), “All legislative actions on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote.” This proposal brilliantly captures the essence of our problem: democracy. Some may demonize it as a ploy to raise taxes, but it does not even speak of them—it only restores majority rule.

Under it, tax policy would reflect the democratic judgment of our entire society, determined through a fair and open process. If the legislature overreaches, we would always have recourse—elections. This initiative has no hidden agenda; it only upholds democracy. It offers a straightforward solution to minority rule, and it deserves our support in 2010.

One way or another, minority rule must go. It is the foremost problem of our state, and it enables countless others. We need to restore democracy. Our flag proudly exalts our “California Republic”—we should live up to that name.