Repeal of Trigger if Prop 30 Fails: Don’t Count on It

Various reports are floating around in the newspapers today about plans in the legislature to kill the trigger cuts that are part of the current budget and that will occur if Prop 30 – the governor’s tax initiative – initiative.  Included in the trigger is a cut of $250 million for UC.  

In theory, anything can be changed in the budget.  In theory, the governor could go along with voiding the trigger and not veto such a measure.  In theory, the legislature could come up with a two-thirds vote to override such a veto, if it occurred.  But it is all theory.  While undoubtedly there would be proposals and attempts to change the trigger, all we have to go on is past history.  As a prior post on this blog noted, back in 1978 when Gov. Brown was in his first iteration as governor, he first was against Prop 13, the initiative that drastically cut local property taxes.  But when it passed, he said he would make it work: the voters had spoken, etc.  Is there any reason to believe this time that he would do something else?  A little bit of marginal change in the trigger. Maybe.   But it would be risky even to count on that.