A coalition of political interest groups, led by public employee unions, is promoting a ballot measure that would, if enacted by voters, abolish the two-thirds vote for state budgets and the taxes to finance them, effectively eliminating the power of minority Republicans to affect state spending decisions.

The measure would lower the threshold from two-thirds to 55 percent. With the Democratic margins in both legislative houses frozen above that percentage, Democrats would be free to do whatever they wished on spending and tax matters.

It is, proponents of the change argue, inherently undemocratic to allow a legislative minority to dictate fiscal policy for the state, noting that California is one of just a handful of states requiring supermajority votes on budgetary matters.

The argument may be valid, but it is more than a bit ironic that the same political interests that want to eliminate supermajority votes on budgets in California are very supportive of the Democratic filibusters on President Bush's judicial appointments in the U.S. Senate. It takes a supermajority vote of 60 senators to break a filibuster (ending otherwise unlimited debate), so on highly controversial matters of any kind, 60 votes become the threshold in the Senate.

What's undemocratic in Sacramento, those on the political left seem to be saying, is quite appropriate in Washington. And with a vote in the state Assembly on Monday, they seem to be saying that undemocratic supermajority vote requirements should become a legal mandate in local government, at least when it pertains to police and fire labor contracts.

The Assembly, by a 51-11 vote, passed a new version of "binding arbitration" legislation, aimed at overcoming an April ruling by the state Supreme Court that invalidated the former version.

Police and fire unions, which are among the Capitol's most influential interest groups, have long wanted contract disputes with local governments to be submitted to arbitrators, who would have the final word. Local officials, however, say that binding arbitration undercuts the fundamental authority of elected officeholders to make spending decisions.

After years of political wrangling, Gov. Gray Davis three years ago gave his blessing to binding arbitration that was confined to salaries and other economic matters, thus removing opposition of county sheriffs, another powerful group. With Davis' backing, the bill easily whipped through a union-friendly, Democratic-controlled Legislature and was signed by Davis.

Within minutes of the legislation's taking effect, local governments filed suit to overturn it, contending that their "home rule" rights under the state Constitution were violated by forcing them to accept arbitrators' decisions. The local governments prevailed in court, culminating in last April's Supreme Court decision declaring the law to be unconstitutional.

Senate President Pro Tem John Burton huddled with the unions and came up with a new approach to the old dispute, allowing local governments to reject arbitrators' decrees, but only by an unanimous vote of their governing bodies. The Burton bill, therefore, would not only create the mandate for a supermajority vote, but the even higher threshold of a unanimous vote. Or, to put it another way, just one City Council member or county supervisor could decide to accept an arbitration decision, no matter what all other members of the governing body might have wanted to do on the issue.

None of this makes any sense. If a supermajority vote on spending is undemocratic in the Legislature, how can it be sound public policy in local government? Yet the public employee unions that argue one way in the budget ballot measure are taking precisely the opposite tack on arbitration.

All of this smacks of banana republic-style politics -- altering the rules of government to fit the immediate political circumstances and guarantee an outcome -- but that, unfortunately, has become the norm in California. The redistricting plan that both parties adopted two years ago effectively denies voters the opportunity to choose from among competing candidates for legislative and congressional offices, simply because it was convenient for party leaders to carve up the state to their liking.