Could there be a lesson for California lawmakers in last week's ruling by the Nevada Supreme Court that legislators could not let a two-thirds requirement for increasing taxes block the mandated funding of education?

The 6-1 decision that a simple majority should raise revenue and break a budget impasse was a victory for Gov. Kenny Guinn. The court in effect said a "substantive" constitutional duty to finance schools trumped the "procedural" requirement of a super-majority for taxes.

The Nevada issues strike a familiar chord in Sacramento, where the two-thirds margin needed to pass the state budget is beyond reach in a partisan deadlock, and education funding is among the potential victims. Gov. Gray Davis let it be known he might go to court to empower a simple Democratic majority to overcome the Republican minority's veto of any tax-hiking budget deal to address a $38 billion two-year shortfall.

Don't dismiss the chance that trend-setting California might copy Nevada and call on the courts to unsnarl the budget tangle. All it might take for a judicial coup to save our schools is another few weeks of legislative futility.