California legislators recently passed the state’s 2010-2011 budget—101 days past the June 15 deadline, when lawmakers are supposed to present the governor with a working model for the coming fiscal year. If this sounds outrageous, take into account the fact that since 1980, the legislature has only made that deadline five times. The FY2011 budget is the latest yet.

As is so common of today’s political wrangling, Democratic and Republican lawmakers held a mock-bake sale outside of the Capitol, each highlighting the other’s “half-baked” ideas for California’s budget. Governor Schwarzenegger, no stranger to the tardiness of the state’s legislative bodies and their responsibilities, installed a clock outside his office to count off the days without a budget and track the state’s growing deficit, which has reached $16 billion and continues to rise as the governor prepares for his January exit.

Gimmicks and antics aside, voters should be concerned with Sacramento’s perennial dysfunction in addressing the state’s financial woes. Under current law, the state budget requires a two-thirds majority to be passed, making California one of three states (Rhode Island and Arkansas are the other two) that don’t use a simple majority of 51 percent to craft a working plan for state finances.

Proposition 25, the Majority Vote for the Legislature to Pass the Budget Act, aims to change this. Supporters of the bill say its passing will eliminate the partisan wrangling and horse-trading that has kept California’s lawmakers from delivering the budget in a punctual fashion. Moreover, they assert that the minority party would no longer be able to hold the budget hostage by constantly voting down the majority party’s plan.

The current supermajority requirement causes gridlock mainly because attaining a two-thirds majority is virtually impossible in today’s partisan times. The simple majority proposed by Prop. 25, and practiced by 47 other states, can help smooth out the process, preventing state funded institutions, and vendors that supply the state and public works projects, from shutting down due to delinquent payment for their services and goods.

Opponents of Prop. 25 say its passing will effectively silence the minority voice, enabling a tyranny-by-majority to foist its policies on the electorate at will. Following this misguided logic, the bill’s opponents claim that by affording a 51 percent majority the power to pass the state’s budget unchecked by the minority, Democrats would be able to tax and spend at their hearts’ content.

We could not disagree more with these dubious claims. For far too long, California’s majority has had its voice drowned out by a minority that remains content to withhold votes along partisan lines and consequently lay the blame on an allegedly “uncompromising” majority.

Fifty-one percent is a majority—and politics is a winner-take-all game. While we’re all about fair representation, the challenge remains for the minority (Republicans, in this case) to develop policies that Californians will support that will get them elected to office.

Never mind that California is regarded a perennial “blue” state. We’re confident that Californians will elect the leaders they feel confident in, regardless of their politics—our state’s self-interest should not be viewed as two different color schemes. And if, like Prop. 25’s opponents are so fond of claiming, Democrats decide to run wild with fees and taxes, they have only to keep in mind that voters will hold them accountable in the next election cycle.

And as for the argument that the Dems will be able to resort to blatant, unchecked “revenue enhancement,” this is blatantly false—a supermajority is still required to raise taxes.

We’re not saying Proposition 25 is a panacea to the state’s budget woes—indeed, delinquents budgets are only part of the problem. However, three decades of dysfunction by our esteemed lawmakers cannot be remedied by following the same course year after year. If insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, what does that say about our condition if we allow ourselves to be held hostage by partisan bickering? Prop. 25 should be passed—because it’s a step in the right direction.