Poll: Cal. Voters skeptical of state reform proposals

Of those surveyed, 54% want to keep the two-thirds majority required to pass a budget, 65% reject a new sales tax for service providers and 62% oppose changing Prop. 13's property-tax restrictions.

By Evan Halper
LA Times
November 9, 2009

Reporting from Sacramento

Backers of an overhaul of California's government, who hope to leverage disgust with Sacramento into support for changing how the state raises taxes and spends money, have a difficult path ahead, according to a new poll of California voters.

Major segments of the electorate see the state's problems as the product of unrestrained lawmakers driven by special interests to waste taxpayer money, and reject arguments that structural issues with the state's Constitution and government institutions are to blame.

Voters don't want the tax code overhauled in the ways that many fiscal experts promise would tamp down the wild revenue swings that have led to a constant state of budget crisis in California. They don't want the Constitution changed to allow a simple majority of lawmakers to push a budget onto the governor's desk, as most other large states allow. And they don't want the state to touch Proposition 13 property tax restrictions, even if residential property taxes would remain strictly limited.

The poll results come at a time when large numbers of Californians report significant economic stress as a result of the recession.

(More here.)