Opinion ID: 2607714
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Issues Arising Under the California Constitution

Text: The Balanced Budget Initiative contains three substantive sections. At the core of the initiative is the resolution set out in section 1, which calls upon Congress to submit a balanced budget amendment, and applies to Congress for a constitutional convention to propose such an amendment. Section 1 then mandates the Legislature to adopt this resolution. Section 2 provides that if the Legislature does not comply within 20 legislative days, the legislators' compensation is suspended. Section 3 provides for adoption of the resolution by the people, and directs the Secretary of State to transmit it to Congress if the Legislature fails to adopt it within 40 legislative days. Article IV, section 1 of the California Constitution declares that [t]he legislative power of this State is vested in the California Legislature which consists of the Senate and Assembly, but the people reserve to themselves the powers of initiative and referendum. Article II, section 8, subdivision (a) defines the initiative: The initiative is the power of the electors to propose statutes and amendments to the Constitution and to adopt or reject them. (Italics added.) [17] Article II, section 9 defines the referendum in similar terms; it is the power of the electors to approve or reject statutes.  (Italics added.) Prior to the 1966 revision of the California Constitution, the relevant provision (then part of art. IV, § 1) reserved to the people the power to propose laws (the initiative) or to reject any acts passed by the Legislature (the referendum). The California Constitution Revision Commission selected the term statutes as a simpler statement of the reserved power, without a change in meaning. (Cal. Const. Revision Com., Proposed Revision Const. (1966) p. 43.) The 1966 revision also amended article IV, section 15 (now art. IV, § 8, subd. (b)), which had declared in part that No law shall be passed except by bill; the new version reads The Legislature may make no law except by statute and may enact no statute except by bill. [18] (6a) The question we face is whether the Balanced Budget Initiative proposes to adopt a statute within the meaning of article II of the California Constitution. (7) In resolving this question, we must bear in mind the declared duty of the courts to jealously guard the people's right of initiative and referendum. ( Martin v. Smith (1959) 176 Cal. App.2d 115, 117 [1 Cal. Rptr. 307]; Associated Home Builders, Inc. v. City of Livermore (1976) 18 Cal.3d 582, 591 [135 Cal. Rptr. 41, 557 P.2d 473, 92 A.L.R.3d 1038].) [I]t has long been our judicial policy to apply a liberal construction to this power wherever it is challenged in order that the right be not improperly annulled. ( Mervynne v. Acker, supra, 189 Cal. App.2d 558, 563; Gayle v. Hamm, supra, 25 Cal. App.3d 250, 258; Associated Home Builders, Inc. v. City of Livermore, supra, 18 Cal.3d 582, 591; see Amador Valley Joint Union High Sch. Dist. v. State Bd. of Equalization (1978) 22 Cal.3d 208, 219 [149 Cal. Rptr. 239, 583 P.2d 1281]; San Diego Bldg. Contractors Assn. v. City Council (1974) 13 Cal.3d 205, 210, fn. 3 [118 Cal. Rptr. 146, 529 P.2d 570, 72 A.L.R.3d 973], app. dism. 427 U.S. 901 [49 L.Ed.2d 1195, 96 S.Ct. 3184].) (8) Even under the most liberal interpretation, however, the reserved powers of initiative and referendum do not encompass all possible actions of a legislative body. Those powers are limited, under article II, to the adoption or rejection of statutes. As we shall explain, it does not include a resolution which merely expresses the wishes of the enacting body, whether that expression is purely precatory or serves as one step in a process which may lead to a federal constitutional amendment. (9) A statute declares law; if enacted by the Legislature it must be initiated by a bill (Cal. Const., art. IV, § 8), passed with certain formalities ( id. ), and presented to the Governor for signature (art. IV, § 10). Resolutions serve, among other purposes, to express the views of the resolving body. (See Mason, Legislative Bill Drafting (1926) 14 Cal.L.Rev. 379, 389-391.) A resolution does not require the same formality of enactment, and is not presented to the Governor for approval. [19] It is frequently said that the distinction between bills and resolutions is that resolutions are not law. As a generalization this is probably accurate, if by `law' is meant those legislative actions which operate on all persons in society, and must be enforced by the executive department, and sustained by the judiciary. (1A Sutherland, Statutory Construction (Sands rev. ed. 1972) p. 335.) The writer adds that In Congress and some of the states joint resolutions enacted with all the formalities of bills operate as law ( id. ), but states in a footnote that in most states, including California, specific constitutional provisions prevent a resolution from being treated as a law. (P. 336, fn. 4.) [20] In Hopping v. Council of City of Richmond (1915) 170 Cal. 605 [150 P. 977], the court applied this distinction to a municipal referendum. It first declared that the referendum under state law applied only to acts which must be passed in the form of a statute (p. 609), as distinguished from a joint resolution, and construed the Richmond City Charter to conform to state practice. This language would seem to foreshadow the invalidity of the referendum, but the court then looked more closely at the resolution in question. The city council had resolved to accept a gift of land and money, but that gift was conditioned upon the city using the money (and additional city funds) to build a new city hall on the site donated. Viewing this resolution as the equivalent of an ordinance fixing the site of the city hall and appropriating money for its construction  an exercise of legislative power  the court held the resolution subject to referendum. (See pp. 613-615.) In other words, it is the substance, not the label, that controls, and if a resolution does enact a law, it is subject to referendum. The decisions of other states, involving the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment discussed earlier in this opinion ( ante, pp. 700-701), addressed the specific question whether a resolution ratifying a constitutional amendment falls within the reserved power of initiative and referendum. ( Barlotti v. Lyons, supra, 182 Cal. 575, the California decision concerning the Eighteenth Amendment, noted but did not decide the question whether a resolution ratifying a constitutional amendment was within the reserved power of referendum.) The majority of decisions, construing state constitutional provisions indistinguishable from the California provision, have concluded that such a resolution is not subject to popular vote. Whittemore v. Terral, supra, 140 Ark. 493, held that the word acts in the Arkansas Constitution (the same word as in the pre-1966 Cal. Const.) means an enacted law  a statute. (Pp. 497-498.) The ratification of a proposed constitutional amendment, the court said, is but a step in the enactment of a law; it does not in itself enact a law and is thus not subject to referendum. (P. 499.) The court also construed the word acts in Prior v. Noland, supra, 68 Colo. 263. It is only in the sense of a law, a statute, that the term `act' is used in the initiative and referendum. (P. 267.) Noting that the term is used in connection with bill  as it also was in the pre-1966 California provisions  the court stated that A resolution is not a bill. [Citation.] The distinctions between a bill and a resolution are well defined.... `The concurrent resolution ... cannot be held to be a law of the state.' ( Id. ) In Decher v. Secretary of State, supra, 209 Mich. 565, the court concluded that the framers of the [Michigan] Constitution, by the use of the word `act' ... had in mind a statute or law passed with the formality required by the Constitution and approved by the governor. (Pp. 576-577.) The act of the state legislature in ratifying a federal constitutional amendment is not the making of a law or an `act' as understood in legislative parlance. (P. 577.) The Maine Supreme Court likewise declared that the resolution ratifying the Eighteenth Amendment was not subject to referendum because it was neither a public act, a private act nor a resolve having the force of law. It was in no sense legislation. ( Opinion of the Justices, supra, 118 Me. 544, 550.) Finally, the Oregon Supreme Court, in Herbring v. Brown, supra, 92 Ore. 176, concluded that these sections [establishing the initiative and referendum] apply only to proposed laws, and not to legislative resolutions, memorials, and the like. (P. 180.) [21] Eight years after the Eighteenth Amendment took effect, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court considered whether an initiative requesting the state's congressional delegation to support repeal of that amendment constituted a proposed law within the state's initiative power. The word `law', the justices advised, imports a general rule of conduct with appropriate means for its enforcement declared by some authority possessing sovereign power over the subject; it implies command and not entreaty; it is something different from an ineffectual expression of opinion possessing no sanction to compel observance of the views announced. The text of the proposed law accompanying this initiative petition does not prescribe a general rule of conduct. It merely invites a declaration of opinion by voters on a subject over which the people of the Commonwealth possess no part of the sovereign power. (262 Mass. at p. 605.) The court concluded that the proposal was not within the reserved initiative power. [22] Thus as of the 1920's, the majority view was that under constitutional provisions such as that in California, the reserved power of initiative and referendum was limited to such measures as constituted the exercise of legislative power to create binding law  the kind of measure that would be introduced by bill, duly passed by both houses of the legislature, and presented to the governor for signature. That reserved power did not extend to the ratification of constitutional amendments, since a state in ratifying an amendment was not asserting legislative power under its own constitution, but exercising a power delegated to the state legislatures by article V of the federal Constitution. (See Leser v. Garnett, supra, 258 U.S. 130, 137 [66 L.Ed. 505, 511].) Neither did that power extend to resolutions which merely declared policy or entreated action, since such enactments did not constitute the exercise of legislative power to create statutory law. [23] Real party in interest, however, contends that current California practice and decisions permit an initiative which merely declares public policy. He points to Proposition 12 at the 1982 General Election, which endorsed a bilateral freeze on the construction of nuclear weapons and required the Governor to transmit that endorsement to the President and other federal officials. No judicial decision discussed the validity of the Nuclear Freeze Initiative, but real party suggests that policy initiative was justified by two earlier decisions, Farley v. Healey (1967) 67 Cal.2d 325 [62 Cal. Rptr. 26, 431 P.2d 650], and Santa Barbara Sch. Dist. v. Superior Court (1975) 13 Cal.3d 315 [118 Cal. Rptr. 637, 530 P.2d 605]. Farley v. Healey, supra , involved a San Francisco city initiative which declared city policy favoring an immediate ceasefire in Vietnam and withdrawal of American troops from that country. The San Francisco City Charter defined the right of initiative with unusual breadth: it included the power to adopt any ordinance, act or other measure which is within the power conferred upon the board of supervisors to enact, and provided that [a]ny declaration of policy may be submitted to the electors in the manner provided for the submission of ordinances.... (P. 328, quoting S.F. City Charter, § 179.) Consequently, the court rejected the argument that the initiative was invalid because it did not concern a municipal affair. [B]oards of supervisors and city councils have traditionally made declarations of policy on matters of concern to the community whether or not they had power to effectuate such declarations by binding legislation. (P. 328.) Thus the proposed declaration of policy, being within the power of the board of supervisors, could be enacted by initiative under the terms of the city charter. Two later opinions of the California Attorney General indicated that Farley v. Healey did not state legal principles applicable to California initiatives generally, but was based on the specific language of the San Francisco Charter. In 1973 the voters in Humboldt County proposed to direct the Board of Supervisors to notify the Congress and the President ... of our desire to see a terminal date set for the withdrawal of all United States equipment and personnel from South East Asia.... The Attorney General, responding to a request from the Humboldt County Counsel, advised that [s]uch a measure is not a proper subject for an initiative by the people of a county under the [California] Constitution and general laws for county government (56 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 61, 62 (1973)) because it did not constitute legislation but instead requests the adoption of an nonlegislative resolution ... relating to matters outside the purview of the county government. ( Id., at p. 63.) He distinguished Farley v. Healey on the ground that under the San Francisco Charter an initiative measure did not have to be a legislative act. (P. 64.) Two years later the Attorney General referred to his earlier opinion. In that opinion, he said, this office distinguished the language of the San Francisco charter from the definition of `initiative' in the California Constitution. [Citation.] In determining that local initiatives in general law counties cannot be used for policy declarations, inferentially we indicated that the statewide initiative is not available for such purposes either. (58 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 830, 831, fn. 2 (1975).) The second case on which proponents rely is Santa Barbara Sch. Dist. v. Superior Court, supra, 13 Cal.3d 315. A state initiative, Proposition 21, repealed Education Code sections 5002 and 5003, which directed school districts to eliminate racial imbalance, and added section 1009.6 to prohibit mandatory busing. In upholding the portion of the initiative repealing sections 5002 and 5003, we stated that the people of California through the initiative process ... have the power to declare state policy. The repealing provisions of Proposition 21 can conceivably be interpreted as an expression by the people of ... their preference for a `neighborhood school policy.' (P. 330.) The specific provisions upheld, however, did not declare policy except by inference; they simply repealed two specific sections of the Education Code. Whatever policies motivated that repeal, it is clear that Proposition 21 took statutory form. The cited cases, thus, are consistent with the conclusion we drew earlier  that the function of the initiative under the California Constitution is to enact (or repeal) statutes. The statute may declare policy as well as provide for its implementation. Indeed it is common for statutes, including initiative statutes, to contain a section which declares policy and provides a guide to the implementation of the substantive provisions of the measure. [24] But an initiative which seeks to do something other than enact a statute  which seeks to render an administrative decision, adjudicate a dispute, or declare by resolution the views of the resolving body  is not within the initiative power reserved by the people. We now turn to apply this analysis to the Balanced Budget Initiative. Section 1 of the initiative mandates the Legislature to adopt a resolution calling upon Congress to propose a balanced budget amendment, and applying for a constitutional convention to propose such an amendment. This section is in form neither a statute nor a resolution, but a cross between the indirect initiative repealed in 1966 (see fn. 20, ante ) and a writ of mandamus. The distinction between an initiative which enacts a statute and one which commands the Legislature to do so is a narrow one, but may be constitutionally significant. If the people have the power to enact a measure by initiative, they should do so directly; if the people lack a power entrusted solely to the Legislature, they should not be permitted to circumvent that limitation. In any event, section 1 does not mandate the Legislature to enact a statute, but to adopt a resolution. That resolution is in part a simple declaration of policy, without statutory implementation, and in part a step in a federal process which may eventually lead to amendment of the federal Constitution. It does not create law and thus, under the authorities and analysis we have examined, does not adopt a statute within the meaning of article II of the California Constitution. Section 2 of the initiative proposes to amend sections 8901 through 8903 and section 9320 of the Government Code relating to the payment of legislators' salaries. This section takes the form of a statutory enactment and, standing alone, could not be criticized on the ground that it fails to adopt a statute within the scope of article II. [25] Section 2, however, simply provides a sanction, suspension of legislators' compensation, which goes into effect only if the Legislature fails to comply with section 1 within 20 legislative days. Consequently if section 1 is invalid, section 2 falls with it; it cannot be severed to obtain independent life. Finally, section 3, the remaining substantive provision of the initiative, adopts a resolution calling upon Congress to propose a balanced budget amendment, and directs the Secretary of State to apply for a constitutional convention. We previously held that this application is invalid under article V of the federal Constitution. (See ante at pp. 703-704.) We now observe, in addition, that the adoption of this resolution under section 3 of the initiative does not constitute the adoption of a statute, and thus does not fall within the scope of the initiative power under article II. (6b) We therefore conclude that the Balanced Budget Initiative is invalid as a whole because it fails to adopt a statute, and thus does not fall within the reserved initiative power as set out in article II of the California Constitution. We acknowledge the arguments of the proponents that there may be value to permitting the people by direct vote not only to adopt statutes, but also to adopt resolutions, declare policy, and make known their views upon matters of statewide, national, or even international concern. Such initiatives, while not having the force of law, could nevertheless guide the lawmakers in future decisions. Indeed it may well be that the declaration of broad statements of policy is a more suitable use for the initiative than the enactment of detailed and technical statutes. Under the terms of the California Constitutution, however, the initiative does not serve those hortatory objectives; it functions instead as a reserved legislative power, a method of enacting statutory law. The present initiative does not conform to that model. Even if we could uphold a portion of section 3 on the theory that the term statute in article II could be liberally construed to include a policy resolution, we would still be impelled to exclude the initiative from the ballot. The most important parts of the initiative, the provisions in section 1 mandating legislative action and the part of section 3 applying for a constitutional convention, would still be invalid. Section 2 would be inoperative, since the invalidity of the legislative mandate necessarily implies the invalidity of a salary suspension intended to coerce compliance with that mandate. Under such circumstances, to submit the measure to the voters without redrafting would confuse the electorate and mislead many voters into casting their ballot on the basis of provisions which had already been found invalid. As the court explained in People's Lobby Inc. v. Board of Supervisors (1973) 30 Cal. App.3d 869, 874 [106 Cal. Rptr. 666], [26] to order the proposal to be placed on the ballot when only a small part of it could be valid would be using the writ of mandate for the purpose of misleading the voters. (See also Alexander v. Mitchell (1953) 119 Cal. App.2d 816, 829-830 [260 P.2d 261]; Bennett v. Drullard (1915) 27 Cal. App. 180, 186-187 [149 P. 368].) [27] Let a peremptory writ of mandate issue commanding respondents not to take any action, including the expenditure of public funds, to place the proposed Balanced Budget Initiative on the November 6, 1984, General Election ballot. We reserve jurisdiction for the purpose of considering petitioners' request for an award of attorney's fees.