Late State Budgets: Stuff This Genie Back in the Bottle

California officials held their breaths the first time the state slipped into a new fiscal year without having adopted a budget. That was back in the summer of 1969, and no one knew what would happen. Some feared chaos. There was speculation that highway patrol officers and prison guards might refuse to perform their duties since no money had been appropriated to pay them or support their activities.

But nothing dire happened, and that turned out to be unfortunate. The budget genie got out of the bottle. It’s time to put it back.

In recent years the Legislature repeatedly has busted the June 30 budget deadline with barely a wink and a nod. This year’s budget is now nearly four weeks overdue, the seventh time in the past eight years that the budget was not passed by the start of the new fiscal year.

Apologists claim that no real harm is done by missing the deadline. They are wrong. This is a deplorable abdication of responsibility. Before the Legislature adjourns this year, it should vote to put before the California electorate a proposed state constitutional amendment that would allow the budget to be approved by a majority vote in both houses of the Legislature rather than the present two-thirds. That’s the way it is in Congress and in virtually every other state.

California’s two-thirds vote requirement was adopted during Depression days to keep state spending in check. In recent years, however, the high threshold actually has encouraged more spending. Legislators learned they could block passage of the budget until they got their own pet projects included. Holding the budget hostage has become a legislative art form.

Even with change to a simple majority, the Constitution would retain several effective curbs on spending: the two-thirds vote required to raise any state tax, the state spending limits and a governor’s power to veto any budget item. This reform would make it possible for the Legislature to resolve major budget issues before the annual June 30 deadline rather than deferring them to secret negotiations by the governor and the top legislative leaders of the two parties.

The recent practice of leaving the critical issues to the so-called Big Five gives the governor extraordinary power over what is supposed to be an exclusive legislative function--the appropriation of state funds. And no governor has proved more skilled at playing this game than Pete Wilson.

The Legislature should act this year to begin restoration of responsibility and timeliness to the budget process. The current deadlock in Sacramento is proof of the need.