When Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature fashioned the 2012-13 budget, their evident goal was to persuade voters to finance it by enacting new sales and incomes taxes at the Nov. 6 election.
Toward that end, they decreed that should the tax measure be rejected by voters, automatic triggers would cut spending by $6 billion, all but a fraction of it from education.
Ever since, Brown and other advocates have beseeched voters to pass Proposition 30 to save schools from those cutbacks, including a sharp reduction in the school year.