SACRAMENTO — California voters routinely use the ballot box to approve big spending on big things -- canals and superhighways, light-rail systems, levees and social programs.
Now, with the state struggling financially, they're being asked to do some ballot box demolition.
State lawmakers fighting to escape a riptide of budgetary red ink have two propositions on the May 19 special election ballot that would yank more than $2 billion from a pair of popular programs that help some of the state's most vulnerable: young children and the mentally ill.
Both programs were approved by voters over the last decade. Now lawmakers want to take that money away to help balance the books.
"I don't recall anything like this before," said Darry Sragow, a longtime Democratic political consultant. "We're asking for a do-over. We're saying give back the money."
But the measures, Propositions 1D and 1E, also represent ballot-box budgeting coming back to haunt the California electorate.
Though they often complain that statehouse lawmakers spend like drunken sailors, the state's voters have in recent decades repeatedly performed in much the same manner. Time and again they have approved propositions that critics say have combined to straitjacket the state's budgetary process.
"The voters have been as responsible for this budget mess as anyone else," said Larry Gerston, a San Jose State political science professor. "Election after election they have authorized money for this or that. And it ties the hands of the Legislature at budget time."
Californians have rarely shied away from funding public infrastructure projects -- and the state's annual debt to pay back money borrowed to build things has soared to 6% of the budget.
The Golden State's long-running budget travails -- the latest is a projected $8-billion deficit heading into next fiscal year -- have conspired to make California's bond rating on Wall Street the worst among all 50 states.
Meanwhile, the last 30 years have seen voters approve two dozen ballot measures telling lawmakers how to spend money. Gas taxes for transportation projects. Tobacco taxes for healthcare. Funding guarantees for education and after-school programs.
Two of the hardest-fought measures of recent years now stand to be retro-engineered if voters approve Propositions 1D and 1E next month.
