Proposition 56, the 55 percent tax and budget initiative, is a power grab gone sour. It was predicated on a Democratic Legislature and a Democratic governor being able to raise taxes and pass their budget with no interference from Republicans. But its authors never counted on the Political Event of the Century (21st that is), election of a Republican governor.

Passage of this measure now makes no sense for its liberal sponsors since the only beneficiary is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Without a Democratic governor, a Democratic majority vote is meaningless because it still takes two-thirds to override a governor's veto, and Schwarzenegger can just veto any tax increase or budget he does not like.

Proposition 56 grew out of the 2001 redistricting that created a safe Democratic majority in the Legislature and the return to a closed primary that gave liberal interest groups a lock on the nomination of the Democrats who were sure to be elected. But as they found out in the 2002 budget crisis, they could not get their way as long as the two-thirds rule for passing a budget required Republican votes. Proposition 56 was a way to get the Republicans out of the picture.

But it doesn't work with a Republican governor. Proposition 56 is now an orphan unless Republicans suddenly champion its passage. It will occur to Republicans that its enactment would make it far easier for Schwarzenegger to pick off the Democratic votes he needs to pass his budget. Consider the numbers. The 55 percent requirement of the measure means it would take 44 Assembly voters rather than the current 54 votes to pass the budget; and 22 senators rather than 27.

These numbers work two ways. Liberal interest groups that sponsored the measure were sure of 44 Assembly votes and 22 senators for anything they wanted, but Schwarzenegger can get to that number, too. He begins with 32 Republicans in the Assembly and 15 in the Senate for a hard-line, no-tax-increase budget.

He just needs to pick off 12 Assembly Democrats out of 48 and seven Democratic senators out of 25. Anybody want to question whether The Terminator can get those votes? The recall and Schwarzenegger carried 18 Democratic Assembly districts and nine Democratic Senate districts. Schwarzenegger outpolled Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante in many more Democratic districts.

Schwarzenegger cannot cherry-pick enough Democratic votes to get to two-thirds, but he sure can get to 55 percent.

Despite the obvious, Republicans will argue that while Proposition 56 helps them in the short term, Schwarzenegger won't always be there and ultimately Democrats may be able to ram through anything they want.

That may be true, but giving Democrats the power to actually pass a budget and major tax increases -- something the two-thirds rule prevents today -- creates a powerful political issue for Republicans in the post-Schwarzenegger era.

Republicans held the governorship of Illinois for a quarter century by running moderate, pro-business, anti-tax candidates. Republicans in California could do the same thing. Democratic tax increases will fall hardest on the rich, and the richest area per-capita in California is the San Francisco Bay Area, the one region that did not support Schwarzenegger. Republicans could have a powerful argument in places like the Bay Area not to let the Democrats ever have the governorship back.

In an ideological sense, pure majority rule supports a long-term Republican goal of total control of American politics. The GOP is on the ascendancy in the nation and in California and is driving the Democrats out of any participation in government.

GOP Rep. Tom Delay (R-Texas) rammed through a partisan congressional redistricting in Texas last fall by overturning a number of procedural restraints that allowed Democrats to stop the bill. He has been the most brutally effective leader in the U.S. House in a century by using his majority vote powers to decimate House Democrats.

U.S. Senate Democrats have held up the nomination of conservative California Justice Janice Rogers Brown to the federal court of appeals by using the archaic filibuster rule that requires a super majority vote in the Senate. The great battle of the second Bush term will be over his effort to reshape the federal courts, and especially the Supreme Court, with conservative judges. That means abolishing the filibuster and allowing pure majority rule in the Senate just as Delay exercises in the House.

Passage of Proposition 56 really serves the long-term Republican interest in California both by greatly empowering Governor Schwarzenegger and helping Republicans win back high-income areas like the Bay Area. It also validates the national GOP goal of pure majority rule, which is necessary in Congress if the conservative agenda is to be enacted.

Republicans should stop hiding behind the two-thirds vote rule and do in California what Tom Delay does nationally. Schwarzenegger should isolate the Democratic leadership and cherry-pick the vulnerable Democrats he needs to get his way. He can't do that with the two-thirds rule to pass his budget; get rid of it and he can.

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About the Writer

Tony Quinn is co-editor of the California Target Book, a nonpartisan analysis of California's legislative and congressional elections. He served on Republican redistricting staffs in the 1970s and 1980s.