Re:The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined
by dragonwriter on Sunday August 26, 2018 @02:35AM
(#17844609)
> I often wonder how many problems could have been avoided if we required 2/3 majority.
California used, until recently, to have such a supermajority requirement for the budget—not all legislation, just the one piece of legislation that is an annual must-pass.
It was the primary source of perennial budget crisis, and, it let a unified minority party that held it's unity (usually Republicans, because they usually were in the minority and almost always more unified in the state than Democrats) to dictate terms so long as they were more willing than the majority to hold the state hostage.
Plus, conversely, it also makes the majority party less accountable, because they can always blame the intransigence of the minority and the disastrous consequences of not reaching some deal for the actual contents of whatever deal is reached. A supermajority doesn't mean everyone owns the results, it means no one does.
California used, until recently, to have such a supermajority requirement for the budget—not all legislation, just the one piece of legislation that is an annual must-pass.
It was the primary source of perennial budget crisis, and, it let a unified minority party that held it's unity (usually Republicans, because they usually were in the minority and almost always more unified in the state than Democrats) to dictate terms so long as they were more willing than the majority to hold the state hostage.
Plus, conversely, it also makes the majority party less accountable, because they can always blame the intransigence of the minority and the disastrous consequences of not reaching some deal for the actual contents of whatever deal is reached. A supermajority doesn't mean everyone owns the results, it means no one does.