Majority rule plan could break GOP budget blockade

Reporting from Sacramento — "I've got some breaking news for ya," state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg exclaimed as he sat down at a popular breakfast spot near the Capitol on Wednesday.

Not another budget scheme, I thought. This is getting tiresome and boring.

Then he said the magic words: "Majority vote."

Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) had devised a deficit reduction plan that could be passed by a simple majority of the Legislature, rather than requiring a two-thirds vote. They'd wrapped up the package overnight -- after yet another futile, depressing budget debate in the Assembly -- and were preparing to deliver it to both legislative houses by nightfall.

If the last few months -- years, really -- have proven anything, it's that California's two-thirds supermajority vote requirement to pass a budget or raise taxes has made this complex state practically ungovernable. Few other states erect such hurdles to governing.

Modern-era Republicans adamantly refuse to vote for any tax increase. They took a campaign pledge not to and seem to regard it as some cult-like blood oath.

"I don't know why we don't believe Republicans after they've been saying it for years, but they're not voting for taxes," Steinberg told me, referring to other Democrats and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"Everybody was getting mad at each other and I finally concluded, can we just agree on one basic fact here: Republicans aren't voting for taxes.

"We needed to take control ourselves. We're not letting this thing go off a cliff. Period."

Indeed, Republicans are supposed to be the party of sound business practices and entrepreneurship. Would a business owner agree to sell a building but delay settling on the price until after the property had changed hands? Politicians don't operate that way either.

But it's precisely what Republicans have been demanding of Democrats and the governor: Cut spending and reform budgeting first -- then they'll talk about taxes. Maybe.

"You know," the new Senate leader said, "I'm a nice guy, but not that nice. What are we, fools, for crying out loud?"

Steinberg ordered a bowl of fruit and outlined his majority-vote tax plan.

"This is Plan B," he said. "It's fairly groundbreaking. It could be a precedent for the future."

The state's tax structure can be retooled on a majority vote if the result isn't a net revenue increase. It's a little-known fact that he learned years ago, the senator said.