Sacramento — As we celebrate our nation's birth, it's a good time to point out that every year around now California makes a mockery of democracy by rejecting majority rule.
Some would argue that our Founders were not totally devoted to majority rule. They insisted, after all, on a supermajority vote to amend the Constitution. They required a unanimous vote, in fact, for adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
But for passage of a state budget -- a budget that changes every year? This hardly rises to the level of lasting importance that might justify an extraordinary vote margin.
California is one of only three states that require a supermajority vote for legislative passage of a budget. The other two are puny Rhode Island and Arkansas.
In California, unlike Rhode Island, the governor has extraordinary power over budgeting and that serves as an added check on the Legislature. It's called a line-item veto and allows him to "blue pencil" -- delete -- specific spending proposals.
The U.S. president doesn't even have line-item veto power. But Congress can pass a budget by a majority vote.
This is important to remember as California enters another fiscal year without a budget -- the 16th in the last 19.
Real people get hurt when Sacramento fails to enact a budget by July 1.
Small-business vendors who sell to prisons and schools may not be paid. Community college students -- including single moms -- are set back when their classes are canceled for lack of money.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders have been within coin-tossing distance of a budget agreement for two weeks. They have postured, but haven't produced.
And the worst culprit is:
* Not Schwarzenegger, although he did slow down negotiations by attempting to trade an on-time budget -- which Democrats wanted more than he did -- for a bipartisan package of "reforms." He'd like the Legislature to place compromise "reforms" on his November special election ballot.
* Not Democratic legislators, who had given Schwarzenegger practically everything he'd asked for in a budget. "We're really down to talking about whether to take wheelchairs away from people," Senate leader Don Perata (D-Oakland) said Friday after a meeting between legislative leaders and the governor.
* Not Republican legislators, despite their refusal to vote for a budget until Schwarzenegger flashes the green light.
