Over the next couple of days we’ll have worked out the kinks in the reformatted FR blog. Normally this post would come from Bill Leonard himself, but in this instance I am posting up from my account. Enjoy! – Flash
Proposition 25 and Taxes
By Bill Leonard
Over at Fox & Hounds Loren Kaye describes the loopholes in the recently passed Proposition 25. His list of bills is scary as they passed as majority vote bills that otherwise should be urgency bills requiring a two-thirds vote. They take effect immediately upon the Governor’ signature and the peoples’ power of referendum is voided.
There is only one problem with this analysis – these ‘loopholes’ are deliberately designed by the sponsors to ram through any kind of legislation as long as there is a thread of connection to a state budget. In fact they are probably are more significant change in the state’s constitution that the switch to a majority vote budget itself.
Here is the relevant language: other bills providing for appropriations related to the budget bill” shall consist only of bills identified as related to the budget in the budget bill passed by the Legislature.
Sharp-eyed readers will quickly question who exactly is the person in authority who makes the determination that a particular bill is related to the budget. The answer of course is that the Legislature itself will make this legal determination. While the Governor could always veto such a bill there is no other authority that could prevent such a bill from becoming law.
These budget trailer bills have a controversial history as in the end of the budget negotiations rush there are often bills included in the official list of bills necessary to implement the bill that are not really necessary at all. Now with Proposition 25 all of these bills are only a majority vote away from becoming law.
My scariest nightmare is that the Democrat leadership will declare that tax increases are identified as items of appropriation related to the budget and thus become majority vote tax increases. I know the sponsors of Proposition 25 denied this was their intent but my reading of this language does not bar including tax increases amongst the budget trailer bills.
The only shred of doubt is that the tax fighters will sue and force the Supreme Court to choose which provision of the Constitution is to prevail. Can the Supreme Court ignore its own conflict of interest and rule fairly?
But certainly for every other matter of law, the tyranny of the majority is here and is now enshrined in our Constitution.