Vote “”no”” on Proposition 53, which seeks to earmark 3 percent of the state budget toward infrastructure development. Although California¹s decaying infrastructure does need upkeep, forcing the legislature to spend almost $3 billion a year is not the way to do it.

The ostensible goal of Proposition 53 is to bypass partisan bickering to ensure that the state¹s infrastructure gets funded, budget crisis or not.

Since Proposition 53 was proposed by the legislature, it would seem that the legislature would be perfectly willing to spend this money on infrastructure, so the initiative is not needed. The legislature is simply trying to make less work for itself by ceding its discretionary spending power to this constitutional provision.

If infrastructure needs more money, the legislature can go ahead and fund infrastructure. Locking 3 percent of the budget only makes it more difficult to adapt to changes in the future when the state¹s infrastructure may more or less require 3 percent of the budget.

Furthermore, certain provisions of Proposition 53 create different standards for K-12 schools, community colleges and university construction, ensuring that some schools are funded at the expense of others. The necessity for building educational facitilies shouldn¹t come at the cost of depriving other schools.

The legislature needs to do its job and work on the budget without relying on a constitutional lock-in provision to tell them how to spend our tax dollars. It is that kind of inflexibility that generated the budget deficit in the first place.