Gov. Deukmejian, Legislators End Budget Impasse

With reference to your editorial on the state budget (“There Has to Be a Better Way,” July 28):

1. The governor must bear a larger share of the blame for the impasse. He needs only to make up his mind to establish a position. Legislators, on the other hand, need to achieve a consensus in two houses. In achieving the necessary legislative consensus--which the Senate did with relative ease--legislators do not control each other; their only real power is to persuade each other. Not so easy.

2. Republican Assembly members must bear a larger portion of the blame as well. California is virtually the only state requiring a two-thirds vote of each house for approval of the budget (and indeed appropriations). Hard-core ideologues view that as an invitation to cause an impasse, particularly when their right-wing philosophy is consistent with an interruption of services to the needy and helpless.

There is a better way: electing governors who will lead and eliminating from the state Constitution the two-thirds vote requirement. With these changes--in fact either of them--California will have its budgets on time. I guarantee it.

BARRY KEENE

Senate Majority Leader

D-Benicia