Majority Votes May Be Best for Conservatives

One sideshow of the annual state budget debate in the Legislature is the perennial proposal to change the current two-thirds budget vote to a simple majority.

Even in their new status as a minority, liberals support a simple majority vote in the belief that requiring anything more is undemocratic. That line of reasoning would be news to the nation’s founders. Democracies often have required extraordinary majorities to reconcile majority rule with minority rights, and to ensure that fundamental changes in public policy are supported by a broad consensus. The second Continental Congress required that the Declaration of Independence be unanimously approved.

Common parliamentary law requires a two-thirds vote to limit speech, since it is the inherent right of a minority to try to persuade the majority. Amendments to the Constitution require an extraordinary majority to guarantee a stable foundation for society’s basic institutions. Tax increases require a two-thirds vote on the premise that slight and temporary majorities should not wield such a potentially destructive power to appropriate the earnings and property of others.

The Legislature’s conservatives are also wrong. Their argument, that a two-thirds vote is an important check on state spending, simply doesn’t square with experience.

Certainly a two-thirds vote is an effective restraint on tax increases, but the dynamics of spending proposals, including the state budget, are altogether different. A tax is a painful taking from individuals and groups. The extra votes required to reach the two-thirds threshold come with progressively stronger demands to limit the pain. In contrast, a budget is the politically pleasant process of giving to individuals or groups, and the extra votes in this case come with progressively more expensive demands to share in the bounty.

In practice, the two-thirds vote makes larded budgets easier to adopt. Few politicians have ever demanded as a condition of their votes that just another $10 million be cut from their own districts. A legislator calling for serious reductions will almost invariably be at a bidding disadvantage in budget negotiations: Significant cuts involve many times more money than a few more district boondoggles.

Conservatives, even in their new status as a majority, also defend the two-thirds majority for budget approval in the belief that the state spending plan is so important an issue that the minority ought to be consulted and a broad consensus established.

In practice, though, the two-thirds budget vote does not require the minority party to be consulted. It only requires a minimal number of members in the minority party to be co-opted. The budget coalition is cobbled together with those minority members who are the quickest to cut deals for their own political self-interests. It is not the minority party that gains clout with the two-thirds budget vote, but rather the most morally flexible members of the minority.

Conservatives should heed two final reasons to adopt a majority vote for the budget.

First, the two-thirds vote is specifically designed to favor the status quo. Genuine reform of state government will require fundamental changes in multi-billion dollar expenditures for welfare, education, health care, pensions and public contracting. The two-thirds vote will seriously thwart such reforms.

Second, a conservative view of government is finally coming into widespread favor with the general public, but conservatives should be wary of a device that blurs and compromises their vision. Voters deserve to know which party has produced a budget and be able to hold it accountable. A sharpened debate between the majority and minority would distinctly delineate the differences between the conservative and liberal views of government and present to voters a clear and focused contrast between them.

When a constitutional device not only fails to serve its objectives but actually hinders and obstructs them, perhaps it is time to recognize that theory and practice have parted company.