Steinberg and Bass will order up a lot of polling and focus groups before they decide whether to attempt that move. "When you try to do all or nothing, too often you wind up with nothing," Steinberg notes.
Most states, 34, allow taxes to be raised on a majority vote of the legislature. The other 16 require some supermajority.
At the very least, California should return to a pre-1962 law that allowed budgets to be passed on a majority vote if spending didn't increase above 5%. That provision apparently had never been used because budget growth always exceeded 5%. So the clause was clumsily deleted in a constitutional streamlining.
That idea is endorsed by Joel Fox, former president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., the Prop. 13 sponsor. "The 5% cap would serve as a spending limit," he notes.
But I'd go all the way and require only a majority vote for both budget and taxes. Get things moving in Sacramento. The governor can always use his veto.
Let the legislative majority rule and be held accountable. We'll know whom to blame -- maybe even credit.
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george.skelton@latimes.com
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Late state budget: Day 70
California can't pay its bills. The fiscal year began July 1.
Negotiations to resume today.
