A Draconian Requirement

This is in response to the failure of the bond issue for Oxnard’s badly needed new high school. The $45-million bond measure was actually supported by a handy 56%, so we citizens in the Oxnard Union High School District can hardly be accused of eating our young.

But eaten they indeed were, because we failed to get the required two-thirds majority. However this Draconian requirement originated, it has to go. Having grown increasingly concerned about this matter, I have concluded that a two-thirds requirement for any common ballot initiative or legislation is utterly unjustifiable and therefore would fail to pass any objectivity test of constitutionality. Who can possibly justify the arbitrary granting of double weight to the votes on one side of an ordinary measure over those on the opposing side?

Heavier stuff, such as constitutional amendments or veto overrides, obviously is quite another matter.

If the hotshots of the National Lawyers Guild, or some other like-minded legal defense organization, don’t submit a serious constitutional challenge to this super-majority legal monstrosity, they will have a very difficult time extracting another dime out of me.

JEROME S. HOPKINS

Oxnard