Herdt: An on-time state budget, thanks to Prop. 25
By Timm Herdt
Ventura County Star
Posted July 5, 2011 at 4:57 p.m.
About two years ago, Kenneth Burt started pushing an idea that he thought California voters just might be receptive to, and one that he believed could break the chaotic cycle of late budgets that had made California a national laughingstock.
Burt's idea: Put an initiative on the November 2010 ballot that would allow the Legislature to approve a budget — but not tax increases — with a simple majority vote, rather than the two-thirds majority that had largely been responsible for the annual summer standoffs in Sacramento.
But when he shopped the idea around to the big players among Democratic interest groups, he couldn't find many takers.
Burt is the political director of the California Federation of Teachers, a union that represents 120,000 educational employees at K-12 school districts and community colleges. Although large by most standards, the CFT continually operates in the shadow of its behemoth big brother, the 325,000-member California Teachers Association.
If he wanted to pursue this, Burt was told, little brother would have to go it alone.
"Early on, people didn't sign on for one of two reasons," Burt told me. "They didn't believe we had the capacity to pass it, or they didn't believe it would make a difference. History has proven them wrong on both counts."
Burt, joined by other second-tier allies in organized labor in California, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the California School Employees Association, decided to press ahead anyway.
"Nobody thought we could do it," he recalled.
This is what happened: Burt and his allies qualified Proposition 25 for last fall's ballot. They put up $4 million for the relatively modest $10 million campaign. It won by about a million votes.
And then last week the Legislature passed an on-time budget, with a simple-majority vote.
"It played out exactly as we anticipated," Burt told me. "In my book, it was a success."
The initial reluctance of others to join the fight for Proposition 25 was understandable.
Six years earlier, a robust coalition had backed an initiative, Proposition 56, that would have lowered the approval threshold for both a budget and tax increases to 55 percent. It got swamped at the polls, 66 percent to 34 percent, a result driven by voters' refusal to let go of the requirement for a supermajority vote to increase taxes.
Over the objections of progressive Democrats who wanted to take another shot at a majority-vote-for-everything initiative, Burt and his allies stuck with the art-of-the-possible approach.
But the majority-vote budget allowed two important things to happen, Burt argues.
First, it allows school districts and local governments to make their plans for the coming year without being placed in a summer-long limbo, guessing what the state budget might look like.
Secondly, he says, "It prevented Republicans from demanding more special-interest corporate tax breaks in return for their votes."
For six months Brown negotiated with Republicans, trying to get four of them to agree to place an extension of temporary tax increases on the ballot. In the end, Brown didn't get the vote of the people that he sought, and the Republicans got exactly nothing.
Perhaps not appreciating how the landscape had changed, they took the pre-Proposition 25 approach: They asked for the moon, dug in their heels and tried to leverage their 37.5 percent minority for more than its proportionate due.
"We could have expected a late budget this year had the rules not been changed," Burt said. "It would have been so disruptive to schools and local governments."
Had there been a willingness to compromise, Republicans likely would have succeeded in getting a hard (but not as hard as they wanted) spending cap placed on the ballot and in adopting tough (but not as tough as they wanted) changes in public employee pensions. But there was no compromise, and no deal in sight as the deadline arrived.
This year, instead of playing out a prolonged game of chicken that would take California yet again to the brink of insolvency, legislative Democrats passed a budget with a simple majority vote.
"It was by far the best we could do," Burt said.
One other thing about Proposition 25: It includes a provision requiring legislators to forfeit their pay for every day a budget is late.
"Cynics said it was put in there just to pass the initiative," Burt said. "But it had a motivational effect."
Burt's idea: Put an initiative on the November 2010 ballot that would allow the Legislature to approve a budget — but not tax increases — with a simple majority vote, rather than the two-thirds majority that had largely been responsible for the annual summer standoffs in Sacramento.
But when he shopped the idea around to the big players among Democratic interest groups, he couldn't find many takers.
Burt is the political director of the California Federation of Teachers, a union that represents 120,000 educational employees at K-12 school districts and community colleges. Although large by most standards, the CFT continually operates in the shadow of its behemoth big brother, the 325,000-member California Teachers Association.
If he wanted to pursue this, Burt was told, little brother would have to go it alone.
"Early on, people didn't sign on for one of two reasons," Burt told me. "They didn't believe we had the capacity to pass it, or they didn't believe it would make a difference. History has proven them wrong on both counts."
Burt, joined by other second-tier allies in organized labor in California, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the California School Employees Association, decided to press ahead anyway.
"Nobody thought we could do it," he recalled.
This is what happened: Burt and his allies qualified Proposition 25 for last fall's ballot. They put up $4 million for the relatively modest $10 million campaign. It won by about a million votes.
And then last week the Legislature passed an on-time budget, with a simple-majority vote.
"It played out exactly as we anticipated," Burt told me. "In my book, it was a success."
The initial reluctance of others to join the fight for Proposition 25 was understandable.
Six years earlier, a robust coalition had backed an initiative, Proposition 56, that would have lowered the approval threshold for both a budget and tax increases to 55 percent. It got swamped at the polls, 66 percent to 34 percent, a result driven by voters' refusal to let go of the requirement for a supermajority vote to increase taxes.
Over the objections of progressive Democrats who wanted to take another shot at a majority-vote-for-everything initiative, Burt and his allies stuck with the art-of-the-possible approach.
He is the first to admit that the majority-vote budget signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last week isn't pretty. The spending reductions it includes are painful and regrettable, he says.
But the majority-vote budget allowed two important things to happen, Burt argues.
First, it allows school districts and local governments to make their plans for the coming year without being placed in a summer-long limbo, guessing what the state budget might look like.
Secondly, he says, "It prevented Republicans from demanding more special-interest corporate tax breaks in return for their votes."
For six months Brown negotiated with Republicans, trying to get four of them to agree to place an extension of temporary tax increases on the ballot. In the end, Brown didn't get the vote of the people that he sought, and the Republicans got exactly nothing.
Perhaps not appreciating how the landscape had changed, they took the pre-Proposition 25 approach: They asked for the moon, dug in their heels and tried to leverage their 37.5 percent minority for more than its proportionate due.
"We could have expected a late budget this year had the rules not been changed," Burt said. "It would have been so disruptive to schools and local governments."
Had there been a willingness to compromise, Republicans likely would have succeeded in getting a hard (but not as hard as they wanted) spending cap placed on the ballot and in adopting tough (but not as tough as they wanted) changes in public employee pensions. But there was no compromise, and no deal in sight as the deadline arrived.
This year, instead of playing out a prolonged game of chicken that would take California yet again to the brink of insolvency, legislative Democrats passed a budget with a simple majority vote.
"It was by far the best we could do," Burt said.
One other thing about Proposition 25: It includes a provision requiring legislators to forfeit their pay for every day a budget is late.
"Cynics said it was put in there just to pass the initiative," Burt said. "But it had a motivational effect."
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