Actually, the only real question is: Is a legislature’s budget making ability sovereign or not? Can previous legislatures lock out any and all budgetary choices?
If the answer is no, it is not sovereign, what’s the point of elections? One single legislature could enact an eternal budget and it is all done with.
Seems to me to be a dance that the courts have tried mightily not step out to, but the music’s growing louder.
From the articles it looks like the judge cited straight from the state constitution to base the decision.
So the other option is to amend their state constitution so as to keep their state from going belly up.
The legislature is a creation of the constitution. It’s powers and it’s limits are defined by that contract.
The constitution must be sovereign.