BY RANDY FALLOWS

The majority of Californians want our government to support public education and give schools, such as UCLA, the funding they need to maintain their great reputation while keeping tuition at a reasonable level.

So why do fees continue to rise while budget cuts rip into the quality of the education you are receiving? Because the majority does not rule in California right now.

Currently, we are one of only three states to require a two-thirds vote in the legislature in order to pass the state budget.

The result? Instead of a “super majority” we get a “super minority,” where just over one-third of our legislatures maintain too much power.

And, unfortunately, this minority continues to force unprecedented cuts to public education. Proposition 25 will reverse much of this injustice by requiring a simple majority to pass the budget.

This restoration of democracy will allow the legislature to give our public school system the support that most Californians think it deserves. I thus urge UCLA students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends to vote “yes” on Proposition 25.

BY RICHARD ANDERSON

I uniformly oppose ballot propositions.

Representative government exists because voters, me included, are inept legislators. Skillful legislation requires recognizing the trade-offs among alternatives that are all good if taken in isolation but produce perverse effects if enacted together.

Cutting taxes is good, spending on schools and spending on prisons are good, but approval of all three bankrupts the state, and that’s not good.

To Joseph Schumpeter, every voter is a “member of an unworkable committee, the committee of the whole.” With so many voting, no one gets credit or blame for what the committee does, and no one gains by expending limited time and energy learning enough about trade-offs to legislate skillfully. That’s why we pay legislators; so that they can take time to think about the trade-offs, and why we hold elections to make them take the blame if their trade-offs make us unhappy.

Proposition 25 tries to undo the damage done by the rule that requires two-thirds of each house in the Legislature to agree before a budget passes. That’s obviously a bad rule, cherished only by Republicans who can’t win a majority of seats in California, and used by them to frustrate democracy.

But Proposition 25 also retains the Republicans’ favorite bad rule, which requires another two-thirds majority of the Legislature for any tax increase. Abolishing the two-thirds requirement to approve spending while retaining the two-thirds requirement to approve taxing guarantees that spending will outpace taxation, putting the state in bankruptcy.

You want UCLA closed? Back Proposition 25.

Finally, Proposition 25 panders to public conceit by blaming the delay in passing a budget on the legislators, requiring them to work without pay and reimbursement of expenses for every day after the deadline that the budget still hasn’t passed . Blaming legislators distracts from the real fault that rests squarely on voters who refuse to be taxed.

Budgets are easy when the state has money. Do you want, as you should, to fix California? March peaceably on Sacramento. Demand a new constitution, with majority rule for all bills, no initiatives and no term limits, and none of the other abuses that make our state what it is.

But first, fix yourself.

Pay for what you get and advocate taxing yourself to pay for others unable to pay for themselves.

BY JOSHUA DIENSTAG

It is not news to anyone that the budget process in California is broken.

There are many causes of this: safe districts that encourage legislators to behave irresponsibly; a campaign-finance system that empowers special interests; a series of propositions that restrict the legislature’s ability to reallocate revenues to existing needs.

But prominent among these problems is California’s weird and unusual requirement that the budget be passed by a supermajority of two-thirds of both houses of the legislature.

Proposition 25 would not solve all our problems. It would not guarantee sound or timely budgets. It would, however, return us to the normal nuttiness of ordinary democracy. Opponents of Proposition 25 need to ask themselves a simple question: Do they want to live in a democracy or don’t they?

We have seen the results of the supermajority requirement year after year: Bad budgets crafted by the governor and majority are made worse by the inevitable deals that need to be cut to reach the magic two-thirds number. Sometimes, as was the case this year, the deals are cut between leaders; sometimes, as happened last year, it was a few defectors. Either way it is a sorry business that almost never results in better budgets.

Opponents of Proposition 25 complain that ending the supermajority requirement will only give more power to the Democrats who control the Legislature.

They are correct: Proposition 25 will give the budgeting power to the governing majority, where it rightly belongs.

What everyone should realize, however, is that Proposition 25 will also reduce the power of individual legislators to cut deals that benefit only themselves or their local constituencies.

Without the two-thirds requirement, every vote won’t be so precious and the leaders of the majority will have more flexibility to alienate some members of their caucus when making hard decisions.

As it stands now, a huge number of legislators have the effective power to veto the budget, so no one has the power to budget rationally.

The current rule also allows everyone to avoid responsibility for the budget. Complain to the Democrats about some budget provision, and they’ll blame the Republicans for making it necessary.

Supermajorities do have a place in democratic governance: namely, protecting fundamental rights and structures that form the arena within which ordinary politics take place. That’s why it’s hard to amend the U.S. Constitution.

But passing a budget shouldn’t be like passing a constitutional amendment. The point of democracy is that majorities make decisions and then bear responsibility for them.

Proposition 25 won’t produce budgetary sanity by itself. But it will allow all citizens to identify the culprits more easily.

What we have now is neither democratic nor effective. One out of two would be an improvement.