A former UCLA chancellor asked the California Supreme Court today to declare that the state constitution's requirement of two-thirds legislative votes to raise taxes is invalid.
The suit was filed by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP on behalf of Charles Young, former chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The suit described Young as "a citizen, taxpayer, and voter of the State of California, interested in seeing that the California government carries out its public duty consistent with constitutional mandates..."
The legal theory of the suit, which names the Legislature's chief clerks as the technical defendants, is that when voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978, cutting property taxes and requiring a two-thirds vote for tax increases, it was a "revision" of the state constitution rather than an "amendment."
The constitution allows amendments to be made by initiative petition but allows revisions - generally a more fundamental change - to be made only through a constitutional revision commission or a constitutional convention.
It's essentially the same argument that opponents of Proposition 8, the 2008 measure that outlawed same-sex marriages, made in attempting to persuade the state Supreme Court to void that measure. But the court, which had earlier sanctioned same-sex marriages, ruled that Proposition 8 was valid.
The two-thirds vote requirement has largely thwarted efforts by Democrats and liberal groups to raise taxes to cover the state's periodic budget deficits since Republican votes are needed. A few Republicans did vote for new taxes last February, but the budget remains imbalanced, and GOP leaders, along with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, are insisting that the remaining deficit be covered by spending cuts rather than new taxes.
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