Opinion ID: 1264934
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: California's Resolution of the Issue

Text: As the Framers of the Alaska Constitution did not sufficiently define the difference between the two concepts for our purposes, and because Alaska has not before had occasion to address the deceptively simple question of the distinction between revisory and amendatory changes, it is helpful to look to the law of California, a state which has considered the issue carefully over a period of nearly one hundred years. A line of California Supreme Court cases, beginning with Livermore v. Waite, [23] has outlined the parameters of the procedures for constitutional change in that state. The Livermore court described the importance of adhering to strict procedures for revising and amending the California Constitution. Under the first of these methods the entire sovereignty of the people is represented in the convention. The character and extent of a constitution that may be framed by that body is freed from any limitations other than those contained in the constitution of the United States. If, upon its submission to the people, it is adopted, it becomes the measure of authority for all the departments of government,the organic law of the state,to which every citizen must yield an acquiescent obedience.... The legislature is not authorized to assume the function of a constitutional convention, and propose for adoption by the people a revision of the entire constitution under the form of an amendment.... The very term constitution implies an instrument of a permanent and abiding nature, and the provisions contained therein for its revision indicated the will of the people that the underlying principles upon which it rests, as well as the substantial entirety of the instrument, shall be of a like permanent and abiding nature. On the other hand, the significance of the term amendment implies such an addition or change within the lines of the original instrument as will effect an improvement, or better carry out the purpose for which it was framed.[ [24] ] The California Supreme Court relied heavily on Livermore when it decided McFadden v. Jordan [25] more than a half-century later. McFadden concerned a proposed amendment to the California Constitution. The amendment was designed to add a new article, composed of two hundred and eight subsections, totalling more than twenty-one thousand words. [26] The court rejected the proposed amendment because it was so far reaching and multifarious as to amount to a revision. [27] The proposal is offered as a single amendment but it obviously is multifarious. It does not give the people an opportunity to express approval or disapproval severally as to each major change suggested; rather does it, apparently, have the purpose of aggregating for the measure the favorable votes from electors of many suasions who, wanting strongly enough any one or more propositions offered, might grasp at that which they want, tacitly accepting the remainder. Minorities favoring each proposition severally might, thus aggregated, adopt all. Such an appeal might well be proper in voting on a revised constitution, proposed under the safeguards provided for such a procedure, but it goes beyond the legitimate scope of a single amendatory article. There is in the measure itself no attempt to enumerate the various and many articles and sections of our present Constitution which would be affected, altered, replaced or repealed.[ [28] ] Four cases on the same topic followed McFadden. [29] In three of those cases the California Supreme Court decided that challenged proposals to amend the state constitution were not impermissible revisions. [30] Amador Valley v. State [31] concerned Proposition 13, which proposed a new article, dramatically changing California's system of property taxation. [32] After discussing Livermore and McFadden, the court went on to state that the method for distinguishing between amendments and revisions must be both quantitative and qualitative in nature. [33] For example, an enactment which is so extensive in its provisions as to change directly the substantial entirety of the Constitution by the deletion or alteration of numerous existing provisions may well constitute a revision thereof. However, even a relatively simple enactment may accomplish such far reaching changes in the nature of our basic governmental plan as to amount to a revision also. In illustration,... an enactment which purported to vest all judicial power in the Legislature would amount to a revision without regard either to the length or complexity of the measure or the number of existing articles or sections affected by such change.[ [34] ] The court held that Proposition 13 was neither quantitatively nor qualitatively revisory in nature, despite the fact that it accomplished substantial changes in the tax system. [35] In Brosnahan v. Brown, [36] the California Supreme Court applied this quantitative/qualitative analysis in holding that the proposition known as the Victims' Bill of Rights was not an illegitimate revision. [37] The court concluded that the substantial changes the proposal would accomplish failed to amount to a sufficiently far reaching change[] in the nature of [the] basic governmental plan as to amount to a revision. [38] Finally, in Legislature of the State of California v. Eu , [39] the California Supreme Court addressed a proposed amendment designed to limit the powers of incumbency by providing for term limits and restrictions on legislators' retirement benefits. [40] Although the court recognized that [t]erm and budgetary limitations may affect and alter the particular legislators and staff who participate in the legislative process, it held that the basic and fundamental structure of the Legislature as a representative branch of government is left substantially unchanged and therefore the proposal was not a qualitative revision of the constitution. [41] Less than a year before Eu was decided, the California Supreme Court had applied the quantitative/qualitative analysis to a challenged initiative measure and reached a different result in Raven v. Deukmejian . [42] At issue there was a proposal entitled the Crime Victims Justice Reform Act, designed to limit the rights of criminal defendants to those guaranteed by the federal constitution. [43] To that end, the measure contained a section that provided that certain criminal law rights shall be construed by the courts of [California] in a manner consistent with the Constitution of the United States and that the state constitution shall not be construed to afford greater rights than those afforded by the federal constitution. [44] The Eu court later noted that the proposal in Raven (in contrast to that in Eu ) was one that would have fundamentally changed and subordinated the constitutional role assumed by the judiciary in the governmental process. [45] In other words, the amendment would affect a core function of one of the three branches of government, an outcome expressly forbidden by Amador Valley. [46] The California Supreme Court based its holding in Raven solely on the qualitative effect of the proposed amendment: As a practical matter, ultimate protection of criminal defendants from deprivation of their constitutional rights would be left in the care of the United States Supreme Court. Moreover, the nature and extent of state constitutional guarantees would remain uncertain and undeveloped unless and until the high court had spoken and clarified federal constitutional law. In effect, [the proposed amendment] would substantially alter the substance and integrity of the state Constitution as a document of independent force and effect.[ [47] ] The court specifically stated that the proposed amendment did not have a quantitatively revisory effect, as it delete[d] no existing constitutional language and it affect[ed] only one constitutional article, [48] but concluded that qualitatively it was so far reaching as to amount to a constitutional revision beyond the scope of the initiative process. [49]