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California’s two-third tax-and-budget requirement may head to ballot
SACRAMENTO November 17, 2009 6:00am 
• Proposed Constitutional amendment starts gathering signatures • Would align California with majority of states It would take just a simple majority vote in the Legislature to approve a state budget or raise taxes under a proposed amendment to the California Constitution.
Currently, such actions require a two-thirds vote. That has led to the annual budget wars in Sacramento as a minority of lawmakers controls the final actions. While Democrats hold most of the seats in the Assembly and state Senate, they lack a two-thirds majority.
The proponent for the measure, George Lakoff, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, must collect signatures of 694,354 registered voters – the number equal to 8 percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2006 gubernatorial election – in order to qualify it for the ballot. He has until April 12, 2010.
California imposed the two-thirds rule for the state budget in 1933. The two-thirds requirement for tax increases was part of Prop 13, passed in 1978.
Only eight states have the so-called two-thirds “super majority” requirement for taxes or budgets. California, Rhode Island and Arkansas have the strictest requirements of the eight states. Forty-two other states require just a simple majority vote.
The initiative proponent can be reached at (510) 848-7465.
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