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One Republican who is a maverick on this subject is conservative Sen. Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks, who received 13.5% of the vote for governor in the Gray Davis recall election and plans to run next year for lieutenant governor. McClintock has long thought that the budget should be passed by a simple majority vote. "A perverse result of the supermajority requirement is that it does not constrain state spending," McClintock says. "What it does is bid up the cost of the budget with each additional vote. Every additional vote comes with louder calls for higher spending.

<p>A coalition of political interest groups, led by public employee unions, is promoting a ballot measure that would, if enacted by voters, abolish the two-thirds vote for state budgets and the taxes to finance them, effectively eliminating the power of minority Republicans to affect state spending decisions.</p>

Prop 19 went down in smoke, but the world's fifth biggest economy passed three propositions that address its yearly budget crisis. One makes it better and two make it worse, according to Bond Buyer. First, California voters passed Prop 25 to allow the legislature to pass a state budget without a 2/3 supermajority. This was the main obstacle to passing a budget this year for over 100 days past due. Arkansas and Rhode Island are the only states that still require a supermajority to pass the budget, and Rhode Island is another fiscal disaster. Second, California voters passed Prop 26...

<p>By now, political analysts of every stripe have read the entrails of the March 2 primary election and have divined meaningful information about the "will of the people" as they "spoke" on Election Day. I'm never sure how much any given election actually means, given how little most people know about what or for whom they are voting, but some broad conclusions are valid, nevertheless.</p>

Universally, polls indicate Arnold Schwarzenegger is highly popular across the political spectrum, and that the state’s voters are largely grateful that the new governor appears to be fostering a more cooperative political environment while restoring some semblance of fiscal sanity in Sacramento. But along the way he made the calculated decision to ignore one of the major commitments he made during the recall campaign: an open audit of the state’s finances. While the marginalized newspapers made little mention of it, voters who are against any and all new taxes and continued lack of financial responsibility in state government remember Arnold’s,...

<p>The following is a summary of the Register's positions on the state and local measures on the March 2 ballot.</p> <p>Proposition 55: No. It would float $12.3 billion in bonds to upgrade and build new classrooms for K-12 schools, the community colleges and the Cal State and UC systems. It's more debt, costing about $823 million a year to pay off over 30 years, for a state that can't balance its budget now.</p>

<p>PROPOSITION 56 supporters promise less "partisan gridlock" if voters lower the threshold needed to pass a budget in Sacramento to 55 percent from a two-thirds vote of the state Assembly and Senate.</p> <p>Opponents counter that there would be less gridlock because state lawmakers would happily raise taxes. So the Proposition 56 folks came up with some gimmicks to entice voters fed up with politics as usual. One provision would revoke the pay of legislators for every day they miss the budget's ostensible June 15 deadline. Another would make legislators work until a budget is passed.</p>

<p>Given the latest polls, there's a fair chance that, come Tuesday, California voters will approve Proposition 57, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $15 billion deficit bond, and reject Proposition 55, the $12.3 billion school construction and repair bond that appears on the same ballot.</p>

<p>PROPOSITION 56 supporters promise less "partisan gridlock" if voters lower the threshold needed to pass a budget in Sacramento to 55 percent from a two-thirds vote of the state Assembly and Senate.</p> <p>Opponents counter that there would be less gridlock because state lawmakers would happily raise taxes. So the Proposition 56 folks came up with some gimmicks to entice voters fed up with politics as usual. One provision would revoke the pay of legislators for every day they miss the budget's ostensible June 15 deadline. Another would make legislators work until a budget is passed.</p>

<p>Like doughnuts or deodorant, politics is about selling. And what sells a product isn't so much what the product does, but what the buyer thinks it does. Take Proposition 56. It doesn't really matter if it actually reforms the budget, because as long as people think they are getting budget reform, they will vote for it.</p>

Received my unsolicited copy of the Fresno County Special Edition of the Election Special-March 2004, California Republican newsletter in today's mail.Noticably absent was any discussion of or recommendations regarding Prop 57/58 although Prop 55, Prop 56 and Cedillo's follow up to SB60 were discussed in some detail.Whatsup?

Support swells for $15 billion bond Poll results on Prop. 57 indicate bipartisan campaign is effective Governor gets positive marks in latest survey SACRAMENTO – In a dramatic turnaround, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $15 billion fiscal-recovery bond measure on next Tuesday's ballot is supported by half the likely voters, up from one-third who backed Proposition 57 last month, according to a new poll. The results of the latest statewide Field Poll suggest the bipartisan campaign by the Republican governor and Democratic state Controller Steve Westly is working. Schwarzenegger and Westly are promoting the bond measure and a companion balanced budget amendment,...

<p>Editorial director's note: What would life be like if Proposition 56 were already the law in California? Here is the second in a series of answers to that question.</p> <p>How much money did you save this year because Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, fulfilling a campaign promise, repealed Gov. Gray Davis' tripling of the car tax?</p>

<p>The state has been on a spending spree for decades. Our last governor was recalled in large part because we felt something drastic had to be done to bring our fiscal house in order. Desperate for change, we went to Hollywood for our casting call and brought in the Terminator.</p>

Major players in Napa County's economic world are at odds over a proposed revamp of California's budget and taxation process headed for the March 2 ballot. Whether Proposition 56 streamlines creation of a state budget in California or offers a blank check for legislators is at the heart of the debate. Public employees are lining up in support of Proposition 56, while leaders in the wine industry say it's a bad thing. Known as the Budget Accountability Act, Proposition 56 would lower the required majority of state lawmakers to pass the state's budget and related tax and fiscal matters from...

IMAGINE for a moment how California's financial bind might look today if all it had taken was very slightly more than a majority of the Legislature to pass the last few state budgets. For sure, taxes would be higher on cigarettes and alcohol. Chances are income taxes would also top today's levels, already the nation's highest by some measures. Spending levels would also be much higher, with the money spent on projects as varied as new parks and needle exchanges for drug addicts. All those items were proposed during the era of massive Democratic dominance of Sacramento that ended when...

In case the rest of the nation hasn’t noticed it, we here in California have a few financial problems. I know, it’s shocking, but apparently we managed to elect a whole bunch of Democrats in this state. This lead to a slight problem in that, we effectively became a one-party state. Which means that Democrats had control of everything as far as we could see. It was neo-Marxist heaven. We would get everything we wanted and the “government” would pay for it. Of course, we were smart enough to keep a few Republicans around so that if the Democrats screwed...

<p>SACRAMENTO – With less than two weeks until the election, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "fiscal-recovery" bond is within striking distance of winning - or losing.</p> <p>The biggest wild card: whether enough voters know that the $15 billion bond-borrowing measure, Proposition 57, and its companion "Balanced Budget Act,'' Proposition 58, are part of Schwarzenegger's grand scheme return California to fiscal health.</p>

<p>Last in a series of stories on the March 2 ballot propositions.</p> <p>It's the other bond measure on the March 2 ballot: Proposition 55 would authorize $12.3 billion for construction of school buildings to relieve overcrowding and repair existing facilities.</p>

SACRAMENTO – An initiative on the March 2 ballot would allow Democrats, who have held large legislative majorities in recent years, to pass state budgets and tax increases without getting a single Republican vote. Proposition 56 has been overshadowed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's drive for two other budget-related measures, a $15 billion fiscal-recovery bond in Proposition 57 and a companion balanced-budget amendment in Proposition 58. The proposal to lower the requirement for passing a state budget and increasing taxes from a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to 55 percent could result in a dramatic long-term power shift between the two...