March 4th, 2010

George Lakoff has a simple “Majority Rule” initiative in the works to remove the supermajority requirements for taxes and a budget from the California constitution.  This would remove one of the most important millstones from the neck of the California governing process.  It needs a lot of signatures to get on the ballot, but it’s pretty easy to move it along as the campaign has set up a web-based system.  Unfortunately you need to deal with paper and a few stamps.  Go here, download the petition, fill it out, and send it in.  Then go to the petition circulator page, register yourself, and get all your friends, colleagues, and everyone else to sign (this part requires careful attention to the rules; welcome to direct democracy).

Share this post:
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Facebook

7 Responses to “California voters: homework assignment”

  1. Mark Kleiman says:

    The people I know who know California politics say that this initiative is a sure loser at the polls, while an initiative to abolish the 2/3 requirement for the budget but not for taxes would likely pass.

  2. Michael O'Hare says:

    If we wait to put an oar in and break a sweat rowing until we’re guaranteed victory the first time out of the box, we aren’t really doing the work. There’s much benefit from putting issues on the ballot and (for example) forcing politicians to take stands. Every reform is tautologically politically infeasible when it starts. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454776/

    And likely is not an adverb, despite the -ly, so there.

  3. Warren Terra says:

    I’m moving to California very soon, but doubt I’ll be a California voter in time to sign and submit a petition by the April 5th deadline the organizers have set. I did kick in a (very) few bucks at the ActBlue widget on the page O’Hare linked to.

  4. Mark Kleiman says:

    Winning beats losing. I’d rather get rid of the 2/3 budget rule now, thus denying the Senate Republicans the chance to hold the rest of us hostage every year, than fail to get rid of that plus the 2/3 rule for taxes.

  5. NCG says:

    Is this for November? I heard it’s going to be a very ugly ballot, with a gazillion things on it. Not sure if that helps or not.

  6. Benny Lava says:

    How about repealing prop 13? That’s the root cause of California’s problems anyways.

  7. anon says:

    God, I’m beginning to hate Kleiman. He and Ried are peas in a pod.