Organizers of an initiative that would make it easier for the Legislature to pass budgets and raise taxes said Wednesday that they have more than enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot.
"It's a broken process that we're facing, and this is what's going to fix it," said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access, a statewide coalition that advocates for health care coverage.

Public employee unions, local governments and advocates for people who get state services are backing the initiative that would lower the state constitutional threshold for passing the budget and related tax increases from two-thirds to 55 percent.

Opponents said that a better name for the "Budget Accountability Act" would be the "Blank Check Initiative," and vowed to warn Californians that it will lead quickly to higher taxes.

"This initiative goes in the wrong direction," said Larry McCarthy, president of the California Taxpayers' Association.

In the meantime, a proposal to reverse the recent tripling of the vehicle license fee and replace the revenue with higher taxes on the wealthy and cigarette smokers will not be put to a vote in the current legislative session.

Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said that the elaborate tax swap, which Democrats argue could be done with a simple majority vote, needs more legal analysis.

The major question is whether a portion of the new revenue would have to be spent on schools under the terms of Proposition 98, a 1988 initiative that guarantees education a piece of the state treasury. Such a requirement could make the swap unworkable because it would shift billions of dollars from local governments to schools.

Steinberg said he also wants to monitor the progress of an initiative now gathering signatures that would roll back the car tax to $1 -- a move that would leave a $6 billion hole in the state budget. If the vehicle license fee is threatened, Steinberg said, it would make more sense to try to replace it with the other forms of revenue.

"In all probability, it's something we'll look at again next year," Steinberg said.

Backers of the budget initiative hope to get it on the March 2 ballot. They said they were submitting more than 1 million signatures to county offices this week -- substantially more than the required 598,105.

County election officers will validate the signatures in the next few weeks. California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has until Oct. 23 to determine whether the initiative will qualify for the March ballot.

Lowering the state constitutional threshold to 55 percent, under the current configuration of the Legislature, would make it possible for majority Democrats to pass the budget and raise taxes without the consent of Republicans. Late budgets have become the norm as the two parties haggle over tax increases and program cuts.

The initiative would strip lawmakers and the governor of their pay and expenses if they failed to approve a budget by the June 15 constitutional deadline. In addition, legislators could not leave town or consider other bills unless the governor declared an emergency.

It would bar lawmakers from threatening to "punish" their colleagues for their votes on the budget and related tax bills, making them subject to censure. Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga set off a controversy this summer by promising to campaign against members of his party who voted for tax increases.

The initiative calls for one-quarter of revenue windfalls to be put into a rainy day reserve, until the reserve grows to 5 percent of the general fund. And it requires voter ballot pamphlets sent out by the state before elections to include two pages of information about the budget.

Wright said the measure would end partisan wrangling and gridlock and put a stop to half-measures that fail to address the state's ongoing deficit. He compared the last two budgets to a bad movie.

"Some people think we can get a better movie if we change the actor," he said, referring to the Oct. 7 recall election. "In fact, I think we need a better plot."

Backers pointed out that only two states -- Rhode Island and Arkansas -- have a two-thirds requirement for passing a budget.

"It doesn't make sense for a state the size of California, with its diversity, to be saddled with this high threshold," said Cecilia Mansfield of the California State PTA.

But at least 14 other states require a "supermajority" to approve taxes, according to Mandy Rafool of the National Conference of State Legislatures. And a study in March in the Journal of Economic Literature found that taxes per capita were $46 lower -- about 8 percent -- in states with supermajority requirements for raising taxes.

McCarthy, of the taxpayers' association, said a coalition of businesses and tax organizations will work to defeat the initiative. He said voters will look askance at tinkering with Proposition 13, which enshrined the two-thirds requirement for legislative approval of tax increases.

"The opposition campaign will need to make sure the public understands what this initiative is really about," he said.