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David Lyell, a Los Angeles substitute teacher, gathered signatures in a Tulare shopping center parking lot on March 13 to help place the Majority Vote Budget Act on the November ballot. Lyell was on the March for California's Future.
On June 24, the Majority Vote Budget measure qualified for the state ballot for November 2010 as Proposition 25.
California is one of just three states that require a two thirds Legislative supermajority to pass a budget. Under these circumstances, a small minority of legislators controls the state budget process, and ensures the continued decline of funding for public education and other vital social services. Democracy is supposed to be simple majority rule (50% plus 1). We have lost democracy in our state budget process, with terrible effects for all of us. Proposition 25 will address that problem.
Each year the state budget is held hostage by the legislative minority until the majority, fearful of the impact on people's lives of withheld funding, is forced to eliminate a tax, or to create additional tax loopholes for special interests. In addition, items unrelated to the budget, but on the wish list of the minority, are inappropriately thrown into the process. Over the past several years these non-budgetary items have included
- elimination of time and a half pay for working more than eight hours in a day;
- removing restrictions on contracting out public sector jobs so that employers could instead pay minimum wage without benefits for what had formerly been decent jobs; and
- elimination of lunch breaks for workers in the hospitality business
- Two years ago, one legislator held up the entire process until the majority agreed to place a measure on the state ballot in exchange for his budget vote!
Such actions result in the budget deadlocks we experience each year. California's credit rating has plunged to the lowest in the country, costing taxpayers more for the state to borrow money.
As a result, the CFT, along with a number of allies, is proposing reform of this dysfunctional budget process. Under the Majority Vote Budget Act, the undemocratic Legislative two thirds vote on the state budget would become a simple majority, like it is in almost every other state. Democracy would be restored to our Legislative budget process.
Joinn our campaign. For more information, contact
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at CFT.
Coalition partners include, in addition to CFT: American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, California Faculty Association, California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, California Nurses Association, California Professional Firefighters, California School Employees Association |
