Over in the right wing California blogosphere, they've worked themselves into a lather at the possibility of being denied the right to put some legislation to a referendum. Well, Joel Fox, Jon Fleischman and other Chamber of Commerce types anyway. This delightful post is from Loren Kaye of the California Foundation for Commerce:
Enter Proposition 25. Through careful word-smithing, the drafters created a loophole in the referendum power. They created a category of statutes, called "other bills providing for appropriations related to the budget bill," that would be approved by a majority vote, yet qualify for the exemption under "urgency measures," because they go into effect immediately.
Here's the heart of the complaint: urgency measures, such as budget trailer bills, go into effect right away. And thus, they can't be put to a referendum. Under the old rules, I suppose the Right didn't have a problem with that because they had a minority that could block the measure. And we know how the Right feels about the constitution and this pesky representative democracy that is clearly an experiment destined for failure. Washington DC is a passing fad I suppose.
Direct democracy feels better to them, with the wonderful opportunities that a few million dollars can bring. But the trouble is that there is no "there there." Most importantly, Prop 25 takes away no right of referendum. There was previously no right to put the urgency budget bills to a referendum now, so nothing changes, it is just that under Prop 25, you only need a majority.
But the crux of their argument is that now the Democrats are going to go crazy with their wild-eyed progressive bonanza. (Which after the last few days of Democrats voting against progressive legislation over and over again, doesn't seem to be much of a problem anyway.) And boogah-boogah no power to put it on the ballot. Except that Fox and friends seem to miss the part about these urgency measures and the requirement for them to be budgetary measures.
Substantive measures cannot be tied into the budget. For years, the same power has existed around electoral legislation. Legislation could, in theory, be tucked into legislation surrounding our elections, and be free of the possibility of a referendum. Except that that there is another rule: the single subject rule. Under the constitution, legislation can have just one subject, in this case the budget. Any substantive new policy in these bills would violate the single subject rule, and would thus be plucked out.
In the end, it is just another desperate false attack to keep Californians scared. |
