Friday, January 29, 2010

An Act of Democracy for the State - The Daily Californian

An Act of Democracy for the State - The Daily Californian:

"The California Democracy Act, a non-partisan constitutional amendment authored by UC Berkeley Professor George Lakoff, consists in its entirety of a mere 14 words:

'All legislative actions on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote.'

California is one of the only states in the nation to constitutionally give a 34 percent minority of its state representatives direct control over all such legislation-thereby ensuring the budget and revenue gridlock we are experiencing.

California is in the middle of an unprecedented economic crisis requiring fundamental new approaches for resolution. Creativity is essential as we are currently unable to implement more obvious solutions to resolving the crisis. For example, we are also one of the only significant oil producing states that fails to charge oil companies an extraction tax on the oil they pump-even Governor Sarah Palin prided herself on taxing Alaska's oil profiteers."