Three of California's top Democratic officeholders are poised this week to ask the Supreme Court to set aside the constitutional provisions requiring a two-thirds majority for the Legislature to pass a budget and raise taxes. The Democrats seem to see the maneuver as a simple, common-sense legal request that will rise or fall on its merits. I see it as undermining the rule of law.

State schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell was the first to jump on the idea, inspired by a Supreme Court ruling next door in Nevada. The Carson City court described the Silver State's two-thirds requirement for tax increases as a mere "procedural" impediment and ordered the Legislature to ignore it while fulfilling another constitutional imperative, funding the schools.

Gov. Gray Davis says he thinks O'Connell is on to something and says he will join him if Republicans in the Legislature fail to support a budget by early this week. Treasurer Phil Angelides, meanwhile, says he will ask his lawyers to file a brief supporting O'Connell's petition.

The crazy thing is that California doesn't even need such a ruling to take care of its schools. Our constitution already allows the Legislature to pass the education budget by simple majority vote through two different avenues, including the declaration of an emergency by the governor. The reason the Democrats haven't done this is that passing the school budget by itself would leave the Legislature fighting over programs such as health and welfare assistance to the poor, which the public cares less about than the schools. The Democrats are holding the schools hostage, in other words, as leverage to get what they want on other matters.

Democrats might also argue that they can't fully pay for the schools without a tax increase. But there's a big problem with that reasoning as well: For weeks now, the governor and the Democratic leadership have been trying to pass a half-cent sales tax increase whose proceeds would be kept away from public education. Even if they could raise that tax by majority vote, the money wouldn't go to the schools.

The truth is they just don't like the two-thirds requirement because it keeps the majority Democrats from passing the budget and taxes that they would like to enact. And I concede that there is an argument to be made for majority rule. The best one is that voters could more easily hold the ruling party accountable. The majority passes their budget, and if we don't like it, we throw them out at the next election. The requirement that they compromise to win the votes of minority Republicans creates endless deadlock and budgets that seem to lead only to deficits, while leaving the voter in a quandary over whom to blame.

But there are also arguments to be made for empowering the minority. The best is that tax increases by their nature are invasive. They take, by force, the fairly earned wages of the people required to pay them. This should only happen after due deliberation. And that's why our constitution provides this check on the right of the legislative majority to raises taxes.

That's the kind of debate, however, that belongs to the people, not the courts. As it happens, the people might get to decide the issue next March. A ballot measure being circulated by the state's public employee unions seeks to reduce the two-thirds requirement to 55 percent. Given the current make-up of the Legislature, that would hand control over the budget and taxes to the Democrats and cut Republicans out of the picture.

But next year isn't soon enough for O'Connell, Davis and Angelides. O'Connell says he cannot "in good conscience" stand by while a budget deadlock delays payments to the schools. Davis says he thinks the school chief's legal maneuver is "perfectly appropriate." And Angelides tells me that his strong belief in majority rule persuades him that such a lawsuit is the right thing to do.

"You're asking the court to rule on whether in fact the law is constitutional." Angelides said. "If they rule it unconstitutional, then, in fact, it shouldn't have been in place. The very nature of our court system is to look at those things that may be in the law, or previously deemed constitutional, to see whether in fact they are."

But how does a court rule a provision of the constitution, adopted by the people, to be a violation of that very document? The justices could only rule that the two-thirds requirement is outweighed by another, competing provision of the constitution. And if this case follows the Nevada model, the politician-plaintiffs will be asking the justices to set aside the two-thirds requirement for the "greater good" of a timely budget. That strikes me as a mischievous invitation to the judiciary to pick sides in a conflict that is political, not constitutional, in nature.

The two-thirds requirements were placed in the constitution by majority votes of the people of California. The Supreme Court, if it takes this case, could overrule the people with as few as four votes from the bench. Now, that would be the tyranny of the minority.