1. California current requires a ⅔ majority in the legislature to pass a budget.
2. Democrats currently constitute more than ½ of the legislature but less than ⅔ of the legislature.
3. Prop 25 lowers the threshold to pass a budget to ½ of the legislature.
Historically, the state budget has been late. Each year this happens, this throws the continued operation of the state—DMV, Highway Patrol, state firefighting efforts, the state universities, the prison system, the state courts, state parks etc, into jeopardy.
Since Democrats cannot muster the ⅔ majority required to pass a budget, they must rely on at least a few Republicans to pass a budget. The Republicans refuse to vote for a budget that contains any tax increases—and they routinely use their leverage to extract certain “gimmees” from the majority to get a budget passed.
In fact, part of the reason the situation is so bad is that during the flush years during the dot-com boom, to muster enough votes to get a budget passed, the legislature in its infinite wisdom permanently increased spending and lowered taxes. This was short-sighted and now leaves us with a structural budget problem in Sacramento, especially when times are tough (such as right now).
I believe that the minority party should not be able to hold the budget hostage to extract gimmees. It should be the people—through the power of the ballot to remove incumbents—that evaluates whether the legislature is doing a good enough job to deserve re-election.