Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-supreme-court/1303436.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 07:14:45+00:00

Document:
AGUA CALIENTE BAND OF CAHUILLA INDIANS v. Fair Political Practices Commission, Real Party in Interest.
AGUA CALIENTE BAND OF CAHUILLA INDIANS, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Sacramento County, Respondent; Fair Political Practices Commission, Real Party in Interest.
Reed Smith Crosby Heafey,Reed Smith, Bernard P. Simons, James C. Martin, Kathy M. Banke, George P. Schiavelli, Denise M. Howell, Los Angeles; Law Offices of Art Bunce, Art Bunce, Kathryn Clenney, Escondido; Reed & Davidson, Dana W. Reed and Darryl R. Wold, Irvine, for Petitioner. Roxborough, Pomerance & Nye, Nicholas P. Roxborough, Woodland Hills, and Vincent S. Gannuscio, for Blue Lake Rancheria and Mainstay Business Solutions as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioners. Holland & Knight, Jerome L. Levine, Frank R. Lawrence and Zehava Zevit, Los Angeles, for Robert Anderson, Carole Goldberg, John LaVelle, Nell Jessup Newton, Judith Royster, Joseph Singer and Rennard Strickland as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioners. Carole Goldberg and Jay Shapiro for UCLA Native American Law Students Association as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Petitioners. Daniel F. Decker; Lang, Richert & Patch, Fresno, Val W. Saldãna, Laurie L. Quigley and David T. Richards, Arroyo Grande, for Santa Rosa Indian Community of the Santa Rosa Rancheria as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioners. No appearance for Respondent. John M. Appelbaum, Steven Benito Russo, Placerville, Luisa Menchaca, Sacramento, William L. Williams, Jr., C. Scott Tocher, Holly B. Armstrong; Riegels Campos & Kenyon and Charity Kenyon, Sacramento, for Real Party in Interest. Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe, Heller Ehrman, John C. Ulin, D. Eric Shapland, Los Angeles, and Gary Ostrick, for California Common Cause as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Real Party in Interest. Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Manuel M. Mederios, State Solicitor General, Andrea Lyn Hoch, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Louis R. Mauro and Robert L. Mukai, Assistant Attorneys General, Kenneth R. Williams, Robert C. Nash, Sara J. Drake and Marc A. Le Forestier, Deputy Attorneys General, as Amici Curiae on behalf of Real Party in Interest.
The question we address is whether the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) can file a lawsuit in superior court against the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians (the Tribe), a federally recognized Indian tribe,1 for the Tribe's alleged failure to comply with the reporting requirements for campaign contributions under the Political Reform Act (PRA) (Gov.Code, § 81000 et seq.),2 an initiative measure that regulates numerous aspects of the election process on the state and local level. We conclude that the FPPC may file the lawsuit and affirm the Court of Appeal's judgment denying the Tribe's petition for writ of mandate.
Real party in interest, the FPPC, sued the Tribe, seeking civil penalties and injunctive relief for the Tribe's alleged violations of the PRA's reporting requirements after the Tribe made substantial campaign contributions to California political campaigns. The FPPC's complaint alleged that the Tribe was subject to PRA reporting requirements for its political campaign contributions totaling more than $7,500,000 in 1998, $175,250 in the first half of 2001, and $426,000 in the first half of 2002. The complaint also alleged numerous violations of the PRA, including the Tribe's failure to report lobbying interests (§ 86116), late contributions (§ 84203) of more than $1 million, and failure to file required semi-annual campaign statements (§ 84200). One of the unreported contributions alleged to have been made by the Tribe in March 2002 went to a committee supporting Proposition 51, a statewide ballot initiative. Although Proposition 51 failed, it would have authorized $15 million per fiscal year for eight years to fund several projects, including a passenger rail line from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, where the Tribe operates a casino. The complaint sought monetary penalties (§§ 91004, 91005.5) and an injunction ordering the Tribe to file the PRA's required disclosure statements.
The Tribe, specially appearing, filed a motion to quash service of summons for lack of personal jurisdiction. It claimed that, as a federally recognized Indian tribe, it was immune from suit under the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity. The trial court denied the Tribe's motion to quash in a written ruling. The court believed that to apply tribal sovereign immunity from suit in this case would (1) intrude upon the state's exercise of its reserved power under the federal Constitution's Tenth Amendment to regulate its electoral and legislative processes and (2) would interfere with the republican form of government guaranteed to the state under article IV, section 4 of the United States Constitution (sometimes referred to as the guarantee clause). Following the trial court's decision, the Tribe petitioned the Court of Appeal to issue a peremptory writ of mandate directing the trial court to vacate its ruling denying its motion to quash service of summons for lack of personal jurisdiction and enter a new order granting the motion.
After the Court of Appeal denied the Tribe's petition for writ of mandate seeking reversal of the trial court's order denying the motion to quash, this court granted the Tribe's petition for review and transferred the matter to the Court of Appeal “with directions to vacate the order denying mandate and to issue an order directing respondent to show cause why the relief sought should not be granted.” Following this court's order, the Court of Appeal issued the order to show cause, and the FPPC filed a return to the petition. The Court of Appeal also allowed the Attorney General of California and California Common Cause to file amicus curiae briefs in the FPPC's support. As we discuss, the Court of Appeal denied the Tribe's motion for a writ of mandate. We then granted the Tribe's petition for review on the important tribal sovereign immunity question.
The Court of Appeal agreed with the trial court that the state's efforts to preserve its republican form of government-the very essence of its political process-from corruption implicated both the guarantee clause and its reserved right under the Tenth Amendment. This interest, the court held, outweighed the Tribe's claim to sovereign immunity from suit.
The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” The Court of Appeal reasoned that “surely” one of the powers reserved to the states is the “power and duty to maintain a republican form of government,” accorded it under the guarantee clause, which provides, in pertinent part, “[t]he United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government․” (U.S. Const., art. IV, § 4.) The Court of Appeal continued, noting that this guarantee “necessarily includes the right ․ to protect against corruption of the political process.” The Court of Appeal concluded that the PRA served to vindicate the state's constitutional interest.
The court agreed with the FPPC that “resort to a judicial remedy” is necessary to enforce the PRA against the Tribe in order to uphold the state's constitutional right to guarantee a republican form of government free of corruption. The court observed that rules or procedures required to protect constitutional rights may themselves be given “constitutional stature.” (See, e.g., Dickerson v. United States (2000) 530 U.S. 428, 120 S.Ct. 2326, 147 L.Ed.2d 405 [Miranda warnings are required by federal Constitution and cannot be overruled by an act of Congress]; Mapp v. Ohio (1961) 367 U.S. 643, 657, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 [rule requiring exclusion at trial of unlawfully obtained evidence “an essential part of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments”].) The state's right to preserve its republican form of government would be “ephemeral” without the right to bring suit to enforce the PRA.
The FPPC, by contrast, asserts that the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity is a federal common law doctrine that does not give the Tribe the power to interfere with state sovereign power over state elections. The FPPC contends that the origins and application of the doctrine indicate that we should not extend it to a case involving the state's constitutional authority to regulate its elections or state legislative processes. We review the competing arguments below.
The Tribe asserts that sovereign immunity from suit has a constitutional basis because the federal Constitution provides Congress with plenary power over Indian affairs. The Tribe, however, fails to cite any authority that specifically states that tribal immunity from suit is a constitutional imperative. Indeed, the federal Constitution is silent regarding state action into sovereign immunity questions.
As the Court of Appeal observed, the Indian commerce clause of article I, section 8, of the federal Constitution “cannot support tribal immunity in this case because (1) it grants a power to Congress, and Congress has not granted the tribe immunity from this suit, and (2) it concerns the regulation of commerce, and this case concerns not commerce but rather the political process.” The United States Supreme Court has described the commerce clause as a potential barrier to the exercise of state authority if the state authority interferes with “commercial activity on an Indian reservation.” (Ramah Navajo School Bd. v. Bureau of Revenue (1982) 458 U.S. 832, 837, 102 S.Ct. 3394, 73 L.Ed.2d 1174 [federal law may preempt state authority if it interferes with tribe's ability to exercise its sovereign functions].) Here, the PRA involves no interference with activity, commercial or otherwise, or sovereign functions, on or near the Tribe's reservation. Indeed, this case presents a state interest that is beyond the commercial and regulatory interests involved in the Indian commerce clause cases.
Writing for the Kiowa Tribe majority, while doubting “the wisdom of perpetuating the [sovereign immunity] doctrine,” Justice Kennedy observed that “[t]o date, our cases have sustained tribal immunity from suit without drawing a distinction based on where the tribal activities occurred.” (Kiowa Tribe, supra, 523 U.S. at p. 754, 118 S.Ct. 1700.) Kiowa Tribe made several observations, however, about the doctrine of sovereign immunity that provide the foundation for our departure from the doctrine within the context of the present action.
Kiowa Tribe discussed several “reasons to doubt the wisdom of perpetuating the doctrine.” (Kiowa Tribe, supra, 523 U.S. at p. 758, 118 S.Ct. 1700.) The court noted that once the doctrine “might have been thought necessary to protect nascent tribal governments from encroachments by States. In our interdependent and mobile society, however, tribal immunity extends beyond what is needed to safeguard tribal self-governance. This is evident when tribes take part in the Nation's commerce. Tribal enterprises now include ski resorts, gambling, and sales of cigarettes to non-Indians. See Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U.S. 145[, 93 S.Ct. 1267, 36 L.Ed.2d 114] (1973); Potawatomi [Tribe], supra [, 498 U.S. 505, 111 S.Ct. 905]; Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44[, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252] (1996). In this economic context, immunity can harm those who are unaware that they are dealing with a tribe, who do not know of tribal immunity, or who have no choice in the matter, as in the case of tort victims.
Like the Court of Appeal, the FPPC distinguishes high court precedent from the present case. This case, it asserts, falls outside the realm of congressional plenary power because it implicates the state's right to preserve its republican form of government under the guarantee clause (art. IV, § 4) of the United States Constitution together with its reserved right under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.4 The FPPC contends that because the present action concerns the state's political process, the state's enforcement of the PRA is an exercise of constitutionally protected powers. Additionally, it contends, the state's activities do not involve the regulation of commerce and do not encroach on the authority of treaty or congressional legislation. As the FPPC observes, several of the United States Supreme Court's recent decisions have recognized that the federal Constitution's article IV, section 4 guarantee to the states and the reserved powers granted to the states under the Tenth Amendment present constitutional limitations on Congress' plenary powers under the commerce clause of article I, section 8, clause 3 of the federal Constitution.
The Tribe does not dispute the power of the state to regulate political campaigns under the PRA, nor does the Tribe dispute that it is generally subject to those regulations. (See generally Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones (1973) 411 U.S. 145, 148-149, 93 S.Ct. 1267, 36 L.Ed.2d 114 [tribal members beyond reservation boundaries are subject to nondiscriminatory state law applicable to all state citizens].) Rather, the Tribe asserts that the state cannot sue to enforce those regulations. In opposing the FPPC's Tenth Amendment and guarantee clause contentions, the Tribe relies in particular on City of Roseville v. Norton, supra, 219 F.Supp.2d at pages 153-154, and Carcieri v. Norton (D.R.I.2003) 290 F.Supp.2d 167, in which the federal district court held that the federal Department of the Interior's placing a parcel of land into a trust for an Indian tribe did not violate the Tenth Amendment.
However, Roseville and Carcieri involved challenges to federal legislation aimed at the Indian tribes' activity occurring on or near the reservation. (See also Matter of Guardianship of D.L.L. (S.D.1980) 291 N.W.2d 278, 280-281 [Indian Child Welfare Act does not infringe on state's Tenth Amendment powers over domestic relations cases].) As such, those cases have at best minimal bearing on the matter before us.
The Tribe correctly notes that the high court has not applied the Tenth Amendment or the guarantee clause to uphold a state's enforcement of a state election provision against a sovereign tribe. But neither has the court held that the federal common law doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity trumps state authority when a state acts in political “ ‘matters resting firmly within [its] constitutional prerogatives. [Sugarman v. Dougall, supra, 413 U.S.] at [p.] 648[, 93 S.Ct. 2842].’ ” (Gregory, supra, 501 U.S. at p. 462, 111 S.Ct. 2395.) Tribal members, as citizens of the United States, are allowed to participate in state elections. Allowing the Tribe immunity from suit in this context would allow tribal members to participate in elections and make campaign contributions (using the tribal organization) unfettered by regulations designed to ensure the system's integrity. Allowing tribal members to participate in our state electoral process while leaving the state powerless to effectively guard against political corruption puts the state in an untenable and indefensible position without recourse. Given the unique facts here, we agree with the Court of Appeal and conclude that the guarantee clause, together with the rights reserved under the Tenth Amendment, provide the FPPC authority under the federal Constitution to bring suit against the Tribe in its enforcement of the PRA.
The Tribe asserts that if we allow the FPPC to file suit against it, we will undermine the foundation of the Tribe's sovereign immunity and open the floodgates to future suits against it. Conversely, the Tribe contends that if we do not allow the suit to proceed, we will not significantly impair the state's right to regulate the electoral process and preserve its republican form of government. In other words, the Tribe, and the Court of Appeal dissent, assert that depriving the state of one of its “tools” under the PRA does not seriously compromise the state's right to regulate its electoral processes. According to both, recourse to suit is largely unnecessary here because the PRA also requires recipients of campaign donations to report the donations.
In light of evolving United States Supreme Court precedent and the constitutionally significant importance of the state's ability to provide a transparent election process with rules that apply equally to all parties who enter the electoral fray, we find the FPPC states the better case. Although concepts of tribal immunity have long-standing application under federal law, the state's exercise of state sovereignty in the form of regulating its electoral process is protected under the Tenth Amendment and the guarantee clause. We therefore find that the Tribe lacks immunity from suit for its alleged failure to follow the PRA's mandated reporting requirements. In so holding, we recognize that our abrogation of the sovereign immunity doctrine under these facts is narrow and carefully circumscribed to apply only in cases where California, through its Fair Political Practices Commission, sues an Indian tribe for violations of state fair political practice laws. We thus affirm the Court of Appeal judgment and remand for proceedings consistent with our ruling.
I dissent. The majority attempts to carve out an exception to the well-established rule that Indian tribes are immune from suit absent congressional authorization. As explained below, United States Supreme Court precedent does not support the creation of this exception. Although the enforcement of the Political Reform Act (PRA) (Gov.Code, § 81000 et seq.) 1 is a highly desirable objective, the means approved by the majority to accomplish that objective unjustifiably circumvents well-established Indian sovereignty principles and cannot be reconciled with controlling federal precedent.
As recounted in the majority opinion, the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) filed a lawsuit against the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians (the Tribe), a federally recognized Indian tribe, alleging a failure to comply with the reporting requirements for campaign contributions under the PRA. The complaint alleged failure to report lobbying interests (§ 86116), late contributions of more than $1 million (§ 84203), and failure to file semiannual campaign statements (§ 84200). The Tribe, specially appearing, filed a motion to quash service of summons for lack of personal jurisdiction on the grounds that it was immune from suit under the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity. The majority affirms the decision of the Court of Appeal, which in turn affirmed the decision of the trial court, that the application of tribal sovereign immunity in this case would violate the state's ability to order its own electoral processes, a power the majority contends is reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as well as the guarantee clause, article IV, section 4.
The United States Supreme Court has thus far rejected all attempts to limit Indian lawsuit immunity that have not originated with Congress. In Three Affiliated Tribes v. Wold Engineering (1986) 476 U.S. 877, 890-891, 106 S.Ct. 2305, 90 L.Ed.2d 881 (Three Affiliated Tribes ), the court invalidated a state statute that required Indian tribes to waive their sovereign immunity as a condition for bringing suit in state court, holding, inter alia, that the statute placed an undue burden on Indian sovereignty.
The majority does not controvert the incontrovertible. Rather, it draws the conclusion that “the United States Supreme Court, while consistently affirming the sovereign immunity doctrine, has grown increasingly critical of its continued application in light of the changed status of Indian tribes as viable economic and political nations.” (Maj. opn., ante, 52 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 670, 148 P.3d at p. 1135.) But it is more accurate to say that the Supreme Court has not wavered from the principle that whatever problems arise from the conflict between Indian and state sovereignty are matters for Congress, exercising its plenary power over Indian affairs, to solve.
The majority does not claim that the United States Supreme Court is on the brink of abandoning this well-established doctrine of Indian sovereign immunity. Rather, it contends that federal law will or should recognize a narrow exception to the sovereign immunity doctrine under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article IV, section 4, the guarantee clause. I do not agree that these provisions authorize the state to limit tribal sovereign immunity.
As the majority acknowledges, neither constitutional provision has been interpreted to provide much in the way of limitation on federal power. (See Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Transit Auth. (1985) 469 U.S. 528, 105 S.Ct. 1005, 83 L.Ed.2d 1016.) The only recognized limitation on federal power over the states that has any basis in the Tenth Amendment has been the restriction of congressional legislation that would compel states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program. (See Printz v. United States (1997) 521 U.S. 898, 919, 933, 117 S.Ct. 2365, 138 L.Ed.2d 914.) No such federal commandeering of state government is at issue here.
In making its argument based on these two constitutional provisions, the majority relies a good deal on Gregory v. Ashcroft (1991) 501 U.S. 452, 111 S.Ct. 2395, 115 L.Ed.2d 410 (Gregory ), in which the United States Supreme Court held that the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq.; ADEA) did not apply to invalidate a state constitutional provision establishing mandatory retirement for most judges at age 70. The majority cites passages in Gregory that refer to the Tenth Amendment and the guarantee clause as presupposing that states possess certain “substantial sovereign powers under our constitutional scheme” (id. at p. 461, 111 S.Ct. 2395), including the power “to determine the qualifications of their most important government officials” (id. at p. 463, 111 S.Ct. 2395).
The present case is plainly distinguishable. As stated above, the condition for applying the “plain statement rule” is an alteration of “the ‘usual constitutional balance between the States and the Federal Government.’ ” (Gregory, supra, 501 U.S. at pp. 461, 460, 111 S.Ct. 2395.) In this case, there is no such alteration. Rather, the Tribe asks for application of the usual rule that Congress alone has exclusive authority to place conditions on tribal sovereignty. There is no need for Congress to affirmatively specify that Indian sovereign immunity applies to suits to enforce state political reform legislation, since the long-standing assumption of Congress and the courts is that such immunity does apply absent congressional restriction.
More fundamentally, the Tenth Amendment, which speaks in terms of power “reserved to the states,” gives the states no power to abrogate Indian sovereign immunity, because all such power was ceded to the federal government when the states ratified the Constitution. As noted, the United States Constitution gave Congress plenary authority over Indian affairs. “[B]ecause the power to regulate Indians is one conferred on the federal government, the Tenth Amendment does not reserve such authority to the States.” (Carcieri v. Norton (D.R.I.2003) 290 F.Supp.2d 167, 189; see also City of Roseville v. Norton (D.D.C.2002) 219 F.Supp.2d 130, 153-154.) Although the majority distinguishes these cases on their facts, it does not come to grips with the basic principle to emerge from them: that the Tenth Amendment does not and cannot authorize state control over Indian tribal matters.
Indeed, although Gregory suggests that Congress, with a sufficiently plain statement and substantial rationale, could legislate to prevent age discrimination among state judges, the majority's holding goes much further. According to the logic of the majority opinion, even if Congress legislatively affirmed Indian sovereign immunity from suits involving political reporting of contributions to the states, such legislation would be constitutionally invalid. This conclusion contravenes United States Supreme Court case law pertaining to Indian sovereignty and finds no support in Tenth Amendment or guarantee clause jurisprudence.
There is no basis for asserting that the restriction on the state's ability to enforce political reporting requirements at issue here implicates these kinds of basic minimums of state sovereignty. Indeed, in practical terms, it is far from clear why the impairment of the state's ability to enforce political reporting requirements is a greater burden on state sovereignty than the impairment of its ability to collect lawfully owed tax revenue at issue in Potawatomi Tribe, or its ability to provide a judicial forum for its citizens aggrieved by tribal actions, as in Kiowa Tribe and Three Affiliated Tribes. Affirming the principle that tribes possess sovereign immunity that cannot be diminished by the states means, necessarily, that state sovereignty will in some circumstances be correspondingly diminished. To assert that the loss of state sovereignty implicates the Tenth Amendment is a formula for doing away with tribal immunity, and goes considerably beyond what even the academic champions of the Tenth Amendment have suggested.
Even assuming that the Tenth Amendment and the guarantee clause are particularly focused on preserving aspects of state sovereignty having to do with the most basic attributes of political self-determination, such as the ability of the state to decide the qualifications of its important government officials (Gregory, supra, 501 U.S. at p. 463, 111 S.Ct. 2395), it is difficult to see how those matters are implicated here. The Indian tribes do not and cannot dictate the qualifications of state officials or any other feature of California governance. Moreover, the Tribe concedes that it is subject to the reporting requirements of the PRA. The FPPC and its amici curiae identify the critical state interest advanced by the reporting requirements as one of ensuring that voters know who is supporting and contributing to the various political candidates and propositions, in order to make better informed voting choices. While the state's interest in ensuring an informed electorate is critical, the denial of the right to sue an Indian tribe to enforce the reporting requirement does not put that interest beyond the state's reach. Although “sovereign immunity bars the State from pursuing the most efficient remedy” (Potawatomi Tribe, supra, 498 U.S. at p. 514, 111 S.Ct. 905), the state is not without alternatives. For the most part, the FPPC may obtain the desired information from the campaign contribution reports of those who are the recipients of the Tribe's political contributions or from other public record sources.
Finally, California and other similarly situated states concerned with addressing the growing problem of tribal campaign contributions may petition Congress. (Potawatomi Tribe, supra, 498 U.S. at p. 514, 111 S.Ct. 905.) The same political pressures that provide the Tribes with incentives to negotiate with the states also point toward congressional action if the current problems are not resolved through other means.
I would therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
2. All statutory references are to the Government Code unless otherwise noted.
5. In a letter brief filed on January 20, 2006, the Tribe cites two California cases it believes support its sovereign immunity claim. (Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians v. Superior Court (2005) 133 Cal.App.4th 1185, 1195-1196, 35 Cal.Rptr.3d 357 [tribe's consent to arbitration is limited waiver of sovereign immunity only and does not waive suit immunity under federal law]; Lamere v. Superior Court (2005) 131 Cal.App.4th 1059, 1065, 31 Cal.Rptr.3d 880 [rejecting argument that Public Law 280, granting state court limited jurisdiction over some tribal actions (mostly criminal), authorized suit involving tribe membership issues].) We find the cases, which rely on traditional notions tribal sovereignty, inapposite to the unique issue raised in the present case.
1. All further undesignated statutory references are to the Government Code.
GEORGE, C.J., BAXTER and CORRIGAN, JJ., concur.

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