State High Court Pulls Initiative Off March Ballot

In a highly unusual move, the California Supreme Court decided Monday to pull from the March 7 primary ballot an initiative that would slash state legislators’ pay and transfer reapportionment responsibility from the Legislature to the state high court.

In a 5-2 ruling written by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, the court said Proposition 24 violates a state constitutional rule that limits initiatives to a single subject.

The ruling marked only the sixth time in state history that the court has removed an initiative from the ballot; the last time was in 1984 on a balanced-budget measure. It was the first time the court has invalidated a measure on the grounds that it violated the single-subject rule.

Usually, the court waits for voter approval before deciding an initiative’s constitutionality, and it traditionally has interpreted the single-subject rule leniently.

The decision is expected to make drafters of initiatives more cautious about limiting measures to a single theme. The number of preelection legal challenges also may grow, given the success of Democratic leaders in stopping the Republican-backed Proposition 24.

Republican leaders complained that the ruling all but ensures that Democrats will draw districts in a way that keeps Republicans the minority party in Sacramento and threatens to whittle away their majority-party status in Congress. The California congressional delegation is currently composed of 28 Democrats and 24 Republicans.

The measure would have transferred redistricting authority to the high court, six of whose seven members are Republicans.

Proposition 24 had been financed by congressional Republicans who wanted to take election redistricting out of the hands of Democrats in Sacramento. To entice voters into approving the reapportionment transfer, the measure also would have cut state legislators’ salaries from about $99,000 to $75,000 a year and reduced their allotted expenses, a provision that some state Republican legislators grumbled about.

In its ruling, the state high court said Proposition 24 undermined the “integrity” of the political process by combining the “widely disparate” issues of state legislators’ pay and election redistricting in a single measure.

“In enforcing the command of the single-subject rule in this case, we safeguard the people’s precious right of initiative from the very risks of confusion and manipulation that the rule was intended to eliminate,” George wrote.

Justices Joyce L. Kennard and Janice Rogers Brown dissented. “The court’s rush to decision has been extraordinary,” Kennard complained. “ . . . Never before has this court decided such complex issues so quickly with so little justification for haste.”

The court had only about a month to consider the case because the initiative was to have been printed Monday. Normally, the court takes about a year to decide cases.

Secretary of State Bill Jones, whose office defended the measure, said the court’s ruling will lead to rash of legal challenges about future measures because the single-subject rule is vague.

“I am concerned that now we may see a pre-vote analysis by the court on a host of initiatives,” Jones said in an interview.

Proposed Changes

Under Proposition 24, the high court would have appointed retired judges to draw up districts. After adopting them, the court would have submitted the plan to voters.

Currently, the majority party in the Legislature controls the reapportionment process after each new census. The state high court has taken over the redistricting job in the past only when the Legislature and the governor have deadlocked. The court can also hear legal challenges of plans that have been approved.

The state Senate currently has 24 Democrats, 15 Republicans and one vacancy. In the Assembly, Democrats outnumber Republicans 47 to 32, with one independent. With Democrat Gray Davis in the governor’s office, the Democrats will have clear control over the redistricting process.

Monday’s ruling “virtually guarantees a highly partisan gerrymander,” said Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Granada Hills), a Proposition 24 backer. “You have Democrats in charge of both houses and a Democratic governor--which guarantees that the next reapportionment will have absolutely no bipartisan restraint whatsoever.”

The state Senate, Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) and State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin filed the petition with the court Oct. 28 to remove the initiative.

The state high court held that courts should resolve challenges to initiatives prior to elections if there is a “strong likelihood” that the proposals violate the single-subject rule.

Waiting until after an election to block a measure “may contribute to an increasing cynicism on the part of the electorate with respect to the efficacy of the initiative process,” George wrote for the court.

An initiative’s subjects must be “reasonably germane to a common theme or purpose,” the court held. “Unrelated proposals always may be placed before the voters through separate initiative measures, which may be circulated contemporaneously,” the court said.

Joseph Remcho, an attorney for the Democrats, praised the court for coming down “on the side of the voters rather than the side of opportunists.”

“It’s really very good for the initiative process,” Remcho said. “A lot of people who thought it was open season on initiatives--that they could throw whatever they wanted into this little stew--are now going to back off.”

He said voters will now be allowed to cast their ballots separately for separate matters “rather than this all-or-nothing, take-it-or-leave-it amendment process.”

Ted Costa, a taxpayer activist who sponsored Proposition 24, complained that proponents had spent $2.1 million to gather signatures and qualify the measure only to have the Supreme Court “change the rules” in the “ninth inning.”

He said the court had inappropriately stepped “into the political arena” and described Chief Justice George as “the ringleader.”

“He needs to decide whether he wants to be Chief Justice George or King George, and if he wants to be King George, we have to treat him the way the Boston patriots treated the king,” Costa said.

Costa said he probably will try to qualify separate initiatives on legislators’ pay and reapportionment for the November ballot. But Republican leaders said Monday they doubted a reapportionment initiative could be qualified in time.

Rep. William M. Thomas (R-Bakersfield), a key promoter of the initiative, pledged Monday to try again for redistricting reform.

“The court’s ruling demonstrates they are willing to usurp the will of 1 million voters who helped qualify an initiative giving voters final say over the terms and conditions of a legislator’s employment, including redistricting and legislative pay raises,” Thomas said.

Reaction Along Party Lines

Sen. Ray Haynes (R-Riverside), another Proposition 24 supporter, said the ruling probably will help George, as head of the state judiciary, push a pay raise for judges through the Legislature.

The Legislature establishes the pay of state judges. George, as chairman of the California Judicial Council, the policymaking arm of the courts, has backed an 8.5% salary hike for judges and additional money for new judgeships.

“I am sure it will help them a lot,” Haynes said. “Am I a cynic? I know the justices have been trying to get some stuff out of the Legislature. This may be a way of doing it.”

Sen. Burton, for his part, praised the court for rejecting “the ultimate in political cynicism” and hinted that the ruling might be in the court’s best interest.

If the court had allowed dual-subject initiatives, a future measure of “limited popularity” could have been sweetened by including a cut in judicial pay, Burton noted.

“So I think the court did the right thing constitutionally and I think they really did the right thing morally,” he said.

In the past, the court’s rulings have affected relations between the Legislature and the judiciary. After the state high court upheld term limits for legislators in 1991, relations between the two branches cooled noticeably.

The Legislature stopped inviting then-Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas to Sacramento to give his annual state-of-the-judiciary address, and many legislators decided to support a proposed constitutional amendment that would have stripped the high court of its power to order monetary appropriations to keep courts functioning. The amendment ultimately failed.

McGeorge School of Law professor J. Clark Kelso said Monday’s ruling represents a “more stringent requirement” that provisions of an initiative be genuinely related.

Kelso also said he doubted that the ruling was influenced by political concerns. “I really do believe judges can put aside those considerations,” he said.

The case was Senate vs Bill Jones (SO83194).

Times staff writer Carl Ingram contributed to this story. Dolan reported from San Francisco, Ingram and Gladstone from Sacramento.