The California Democracy Act and the Polls

John Burton would love to see Majority rule in California. He still says so on his website. But he read a set of polls that convinced him that we could never get that, so now he’s asking for less. What Burton is asking for now is a 55% majority rule for Budget only, and 2/3 for Revenue. Budget votes decide how to divide the pie. Revenue votes decide how big the pie is. The problem with California is that the pie isn’t big enough. The cuts that were put in the California Tax system during the last boom period have lowered revenue to a completely unsustainable level. Consequently, getting power over the budget won’t solve the problem. It will just create feeding frenzies in which the parks, the schools, the police force, and all the other vital services will have to fight over an inadequate revenue pool. But Burton would rather fight a battle that makes no difference and win it, then fight an important battle that he might lose.

The majority of Democrats in California disagree with Burton on this. Back in July, the state party passed a resolution calling for majority rule for budget and revenue. And it passed unanimously. Burton spoke against it, but the rank and file supported it utterly. Burton has been working against this measure since then. I’ve even heard that he talked a big contributor out of giving money to the CA Democracy act campaign. But there are a lot of people in the party who think he’s being too cautious, and it’s pretty clear to me that if he saw that there was strong support for this, he would climb on board. (Particularly since he himself agrees with the idea, no matter what he is sayig now.)

I’ve read the data that made Burton give up, and I think he’s misinterpreted it.


First of all, there’s the Field Poll taken in 2009. It supposedly showed 43% in favor and 52% opposed to majority rule on Budget. It also showed 27% in favor and 69% against revising the majority rule on Revenue. This looks scary at first, but consider the following factors.

It’s been shown many times that you can shift a vote as much 20% by redescribing the same position with differently slanted language. These are the exact words of their question and they are clearly very different from the 14 words of the California Democracy Act. "Proposition 13 generally requires a two-thirds vote of the state legislature to increase state taxes. Would you approve or disapprove of changing Proposition 13 to enable the legislature to increase state taxes by a simple 50 percent majority vote?"

First, what in the world is a "50 percent majority"? When the question is worded to indicate that the questioner does not understand the issue, it takes away confidence in the response. A majority, of course, is more than 50 percent. There is no such thing as a "50 percent majority," even though the Field Poll uses the phrase repeatedly in these questions. If we took the phrase literally it would mean a tie. I certainly wouldn't vote for an initiative that said we could increase taxes whenever there is a tie vote.

Second, the answer is pushed by framing it in terms of Proposition 13, which remains highly popular -- and which, to most people, means protecting against high property tax rates. So if you ask people whether they want to change Proposition 13, most people will say no. This distorts the results, because an actual ballot measure to change the 2/3 rule on taxes would not mention Proposition 13. It would simply state a new rule on how taxes are determined, and ask for a yes or no.

The Question about budget made no reference to Proposition 13, the Question about Taxes did. This could have accounted for much of the difference right there. (Particularly since most people don’t understand the difference between budget and revenue anyway.)

Third, the answer is pushed by using the term "increase state taxes." That is only one possible outcome of changing the 2/3 majority, Majority rule doesn't just permit the majority to raise taxes, it permits the majority to either raise them, or lower them, or keep them the same. Mentioning only tax increases provokes a kneejerk response.

Why didn't they ask, "Is it fair for a small minority to determine the budget and taxes of the state, or should this be determined by majority rule?" This would obviously have produced a very different result, which is why George Lakoff wants to have a new poll.

And finally, what people believe now is going to be very different from what they believe after the campaign gets underway. Prop 56 was winning easily when the campaign began. By the end of the campaign, the vote had shifted by over 20 points. That’s why people campaign.

There’s also the September 2009 report of an institution called the public policy institute of California or PPIC. Here are the facts which appear to support Burton’s position.

1)A slight majority (53%) say it would be a good idea to lower the threshold needed for budget passage to 55 percent of the legislature (38% bad idea). Note that there’s a 10% between this figure and the results of the Field poll for what is essentially the same question. These polls always say they are accurate to 2 to 3 percentage points, even when they disagree with each other by 10%.

Because this poll didn’t even mention the possibility of revenue issues, but only discussed budgets, Burton concludes that there’s no evidence that there will be support for having a majority rule on revenue.

I think, however, that there’s lots of other information in the poll which shows that we already have good reason to be hopeful.

2)When Californians are asked about their preferences regarding the role of government, a little more than half (51%) would prefer to pay higher taxes and more services, while 39% would prefer lower taxes and fewer services. Once again there’s a huge undecided contingent, which could be easily swayed.


3)Nearly all (96%) Californians view the budget situation as a problem, with 78 percent seeing it as a big problem and 18 percent calling it somewhat of a problem.

4) 87% of all Californians are very concerned (60%) or somewhat concerned (27%) about the effects of spending cuts in their local government services—those provided by city and county governments and public schools. Concern over these cuts is far greater today than when PPI asked a similar but less detailed question five years ago (35% August 2004, 60% today).

What this means to me is that when you ask a Californian an empty question about services in the abstract and taxes in the abstract, You still get a very slight edge for services. When you ask about removing some aspect of the 2/3 you get a slight edge in favor of removing the only part asked about. When you consider that 96% of the people in the state feel that the budget situation is a problem, and 87% of the people are concerned about the effects of spending cuts on local services, it seems likely that when people think carefully about the budget mess and the cuts and services, a lot more people are going to decide to vote for this, even though they don't like the idea of tax increases. There are parents who are furious because their children are being given a substandard education. There are students who are furious because their tuition has doubled and their access to classes and teachers has been greatly reduced. Once a substantial number of these people can see that the 2/3 rule is at the root of these problems, (and it seems likely that they will, because this is the truth) they will vote for this measure and it will win. If a campaign can shift a vote level by 20% one way, as it did with prop 56, we can shift it the other way as well.

This is reason for hope, and hope is all we need to move forward, because this is our only real alternative. It’s not certain that we will win, but there is no other way out of this budget mess, no other way to turn California away from this path of self destruction.