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ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT
by Bob Pinzler
The tyranny of the minority
You figure that when 61 percent of the people agree with something, it should be implemented.
Not in Manhattan Beach, where the initiative to impose a property tax levy to assist in building a new Public Safety facility garnered 61percent of the vote, yet still lost. Why? Because all property tax levies like the one sought by Manhattan Beach require two-thirds votes for approval.
Super majority votes have a long history in California. In fact, this state is the only one of the 50 United States that requires a two-thirds vote of each House of the Legislature to approve its state budget. Part of the requirement dates back to the Progressive Era of the early part of the twentieth century when reformers wanted to wrest power from a government controlled by railroad interests and give the people a greater say. Additions to this practice of requiring "super majorities" have been implemented by the Progressive Era’s most lasting legacy, the initiative. This includes elements built into Proposition 13 and its progeny, which have made the appropriate financing of local government a far more difficult process than it was before.
Some say the two-thirds requirement is necessary because so many people who live and vote in cities are renters, and therefore feel that they will not have to bear the burden of an increase in property taxes. I doubt, however, if many of those people really believe that the property owner will not pass along most, if not all, of any tax increase in higher rents. They know they will ultimately pay.
Others say that local government should not be able to raise taxes so easily because doing so will bring back the madness that led to Proposition 13 in the first place. However, remember the context of the late 1970s when Prop 13 was proposed. Inflation was rampant (in the teens versus nearly nonexistent today) and interest rates were in the high teens versus the lowest rates in decades. Combined with dramatically increasing, and regularly reassessed, property values, the individual homeowner’s tax burden, especially for senior citizens, became impossible to bear. The Legislature was slow to act to change the system and the draconian Prop 13 was implemented, with all of its "extra added attractions" of which most of the voters who approved it were left blissfully unaware.
The removal of the two-thirds burden need not return us to those pre-Prop 13 days. The experience of the last 20-plus years has made local government generally the most efficient level of government. The question is, if you believe in the necessity of a "super majority" in order to maintain some fiscal discipline, what is the proper level? 60 percent has been bandied about as making the most sense. In most elections, if a candidate gets 60 percent of the vote, it is considered a landslide. Yet in bond elections, it is a loss. Just by lowering the bar from 66+percent to 60 percent would bring many more of the truly necessary local bond measures into a zone where they could have a reasonable chance to succeed. This is especially true for school bond measures. Inappropriate or unsound bond measures will still lose.
Isn’t that democracy, or do we wish to perpetuate the tyranny of a minority to keep the true will of the majority of the people from being implemented? ER