Commentary
It’s hard to believe I first started writing about California budgets in 1987, now 35 years ago.
In those days, it still took a two-thirds vote in both houses of the state legislature to pass a budget, instead of simple majorities as today after Proposition 25 passed in 2010. And Republicans then still held more than one-third of the seats. The budget tempo was set by what was called the Gang of Five: the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Assembly and state Senate, plus the governor.
That commonly meant wrangling going on long after the constitutional deadline of June 15 to pass a budget, especially under Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and the Democratic-majority legislature….