The Budget Crisis and the California Constitution

The Bay Area Council isn't the only group thinking about reforming the California Constitution. Here's a paper by David S. Gamage, to be published in a forthcoming book on Proposition 13, that analyzes the reasons for California's recurring budget crises and proposes some solutions, such as doing away with the two-thirds requirement to pass a budget, requiring that initiatives be revenue-neutral or self-funding (take that, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association!) and putting the state's revenue from the income tax on capital gains into a "rainy-day fund." It will be interesting to see if the political will to adopt these changes--or any other changes--results from the current budget stalemate, now in its third month.