Jack O'Connell Latest To Throw Down For Majority Vote

State Superintendent for Public Instruction Jack O'Connell discusses the impact of the budget on education today, and it's predictably negative. After going through the particulars ($7.4 billion cut to Prop. 98 funding, additional flexibility for local control, a repayment measure on the ballot to return $9.8 billion to education under Prop. 98 in the future), he makes a strong announcement:

The painful budget process at our state and local school district level calls out for reform of California’s dysfunctional budgeting process. It is time for a sincere and frank conversation about reform. Central to this conversation is the idea of throwing out the two-thirds vote requirement to pass a budget and simply using a majority vote. Nearly every state in the nation and Congress, as well as counties, and cities use majority votes to pass their budgets. California should follow suit.

I understand that the minority party may feel that this would make them irrelevant to the process but, if anything, it would hold their majority party colleagues even more accountable.

Most importantly, a simple majority vote would protect our schools and districts from the instability they are forced to endure anytime the Legislature cannot reach a budget compromise.

It is time to bring about substantive changes to the way we do business in Sacramento — we owe the people of California this much.

Good for him, and it's explained and framed well. And now we have to line up our lawmakers along the fault line of a majority vote restoring democracy versus an arbitrary shift like 55%.

Majority Vote
John Burton, Jack O'Connell

55%
John Garamendi, Gavin Newsom

Every leader in the Democratic Party should be able to articulate where they stand on this crucial issue, the most important one facing the state. Call your lawmakers and ask them what they prefer.