Super Fail
by digby
Anyone who doesn’t think it’s a good idea to end the filibuster in this era of hyperpartisanship should read this essay about how well the “supermajority” concept has worked in California:
You don’t need to know anything about electricity to understand what’s wrong with Proposition 16, the initiative sponsored by the parent company of the Northern California utility PG&E, on the June 8 ballot. You only need to know California’s tortured history with supermajorities.
Proposition 16 would establish a new supermajority requirement in the state Constitution by mandating that local governments get approval from two-thirds of their voters before starting or expanding a public power agency. Proposition 16’s text, and the website of its sponsors, embraces the conventional wisdom that supermajorities are essential to preventing government from taking on debt, ensuring local control and promoting democracy and the rights of voters.
Of course, Californians, if they so choose next month, may approve Proposition 16’s supermajority with a simple majority. This is depressingly familiar. For more than 30 years, powerful interests have sought supermajority protections for themselves in majority vote elections. In the process, these interests, with the assent of a self-destructive electorate, have created a supermajority-saturated state Constitution that makes California virtually impossible to govern.
As California goes …
.