- End the supermajority – latimes.com (2008-12-23)
- This state's Constitution requires a two-thirds supermajority simply to adopt a budget or increase taxes. For most of the 75 years since voters engrafted the extraordinary threshold onto the Constitution, its effect was close to invisible, because budgets were adopted with near unanimity. But in the last several years, the two-thirds law has warped the budget process, giving an absolute veto to whatever minority can cling to just over 33% of seats in either house. In fact, it makes the governor superfluous, because any budget that passes also has, by definition, enough support to override an executive veto. …
Voters adopted the supermajority budget requirement during the Great Depression. It applied only when the budget grew by more than 5% over the previous year. It was a type of soft and permeable spending cap. In 1962…voters extended the two-thirds rule to all budgets, regardless of the amount of growth.
- Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog! Go!: Fishing for Austerity in California
- Why does Jerry Brown want to put the budget on a ballot? Because it's the only way around the requirement to pass a budget by super majority. The Governator caught a lot of heat for the financial troubles of California, but the truth of the matter is that it isn't as simple as being able to blame one man. A super majority is required to pass a budget in California, so as you can imagine, it has been next to impossible to pass legislation that actually fills the holes in the budget without obliterating essential services like education and law enforcement in the process.
- Pavement-to-Parks Efforts Blossom, but Not without Some Bumps in the Road – The Bay Citizen
- “Pavement to Parks” and other [San Francisco] city programs that are intended to “green” the urban environment have created so much buzz among urban planners that several cities — including New York, Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia and Chicago — have sought advice for similar transformations.
San Francisco has inspired a national movement against asphalt.
While the initiatives are a success on many levels, the projects have also faced numerous challenges: design and safety concerns; misconceptions about public use versus private; and the city’s seemingly intractable struggles with poverty and substance abuse.
- Help Make Education FAIR | Pass SB 48 – Equality California
- Anti-LGBT opponents are attacking the FAIR Education Act (SB 48), a critical bill that would ensure all students in schools learn about how LGBT people have contributed to California's history.
They are claiming that homosexuality is an abnormal medical condition and saying that we shouldn't teach about Harvey Milk because being gay had nothing to do with his success or his assassination.
[Please donate, if you can. -L]
- Key House Republican Pulls a Newt on Libya? | TPMDC
- …if committee Chair Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's (R-FL) recent statements are to be believed, [Clinton will] face some tough questions as to just why America has taken military action. But it's unclear just what Ros-Lehtinen's own position on Libya is, having apparently shifted between support and opposition for military operations over the last month.
none
[My bookmarks live at delicious.com/camryl. In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. Also, signal boosts are awesome! --L.]
The Of interest (Fri, Mar 25th, 11am) by Lee Salazar, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at leesalazar.com.