Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/3d/38/784.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 14:13:14+00:00

Document:
Terry J. Hatter Jr., Peter D. Roos, Philip L. Goar, Joel I. Edelman and Ronald L. Sievers for Plaintiffs and Appellants.
Evelle J. Younger, Attorney General, Iver E. Skjeie, Assistant Attorney General, Henry G. Ullerich, Deputy Attorney General, John D. Maharg, County Counsel, Edward H. Gaylord and Joe Ben Hudgens, Deputy County Counsel, for Defendants and Respondents.
Appellants brought an action in the superior court in which they sought a declaratory judgment that California's requirement of United States citizenship as a prerequisite for voting is, as applied to them, a denial of the equal protection of the law. The trial court sustained respondents' demurrers without leave to amend on the ground that appellants' complaint failed to state a cause of action. Appellants appeal from the order of dismissal.
 As posed by appellants, "The only issue on this appeal is whether the appellants' complaint states sufficient facts which would, if true, entitle appellants to a declaratory judgment that Article II, Section 1, of the California Constitution, insofar as it makes United States citizenship a prerequisite for voting, denies appellants' rights guaranteed them by the Constitution of the United States." Respondent registrar-recorder "prefers a more direct and substantive statement [of the issue]: 'Does any provision of the Constitution of the United States prohibit the State of California, in its Constitution, from requiring California voters to be United States Citizens?'"
The issues as posed by both parties have recently been determined in People v. Rodriguez, 35 Cal. App. 3d 900 [111 Cal. Rptr. 238].
Appellants predicate their contentions upon the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, but, as was recently stated by the Supreme Court in the case of Sugarman v. Dougall, 413 U.S. 634, 648-649 [37 L. Ed. 2d 853, 863-864, 93 S.Ct. 2842]: fn. 2 "This Court has never held that aliens have a constitutional right to vote ... under the Equal Protection Clause." fn. 3 Congress, not the state, has the sole power to prescribe limitations and qualifications which it may deem necessary in the field of nationality legislation. (Takahashi v. Fish Comm'n, 334 U.S. 410 [92 L. Ed. 1478, 68 S. Ct. 1138]; Terrace v. Thompson, 263 U.S. 197, 220 [68 L. Ed. 255, 276, 44 S. Ct. 15]; Purdy & Fitzpatrick v. State of California, [38 Cal. App. 3d 787] 71 Cal. 2d 566, 572-576 [79 Cal. Rptr. 77, 456 P.2d 645, 38 A.L.R.3d 1194].) Clearly, the state could not deny the franchise to naturalized citizens or to those who acquire their citizenship derivatively, and at the same time allow native-born citizens to vote. (Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163 [12 L. Ed. 2d 218, 84 S. Ct. 1187].) fn. 4 Thus, the provisions of the Election Code which extend the franchise to naturalized citizens and to those who obtain their citizenship derivatively merely express the Legislature's determination that all citizens of the United States who satisfy the California residency requirements may vote.
As we specifically held in Rodriguez, we perceive no reason to require the state to grant the voting franchise to a class of persons who are not required to be enfranchised under the Fourteenth Amendment. Since the Legislature is not required to enfranchise aliens, the prerequisites for federal citizenship, which are solely of federal concern, cannot be said to invalidate a state legislative determination that aliens not be allowed to vote. Just as an alien does not have a constitutional right to become a citizen (Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815, 830-831 [28 L. Ed. 2d 499, 509-510, 91 S. Ct. 1060]; cf. Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 762 [33 L. Ed. 2d 683, 691, 92 S.Ct. 2576]), so too do the aliens here lack a constitutional right to participate in the political process.
Kaus, P. J., and Ashby, J., concurred.

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