Opinion ID: 1378366
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the referendum stay provision

Text: Next, the court must decide whether the referendum provisions of the state Constitution apply to reapportionment statutes passed by both houses of the Legislature and signed by the Governor. Article II, section 9, subdivision (a) provides: The referendum is the power of the electors to approve or reject statutes or parts of statutes except urgency statutes, statutes calling elections, and statutes providing for tax levies or appropriations for usual current expenses of the State. Subdivision (b) sets forth the manner in which a referendum may be proposed. A referendum measure may be proposed by presenting to the Secretary of State, within 90 days after the enactment date of the statute, a petition certified to have been signed by electors equal in number to 5 percent of the votes for all candidates for Governor at the last gubernatorial election, asking that the statute or part of it be submitted to the electors. Subdivision (c) sets forth the procedure to be followed by the Secretary of State on receipt of a referendum measure which has been duly qualified. The Secretary of State shall then submit the measure at the next general election held at least 31 days after it qualifies or at a special statewide election held prior to that general election ... if the Governor calls such a special election. Petitioners do not seriously contend that reapportionment statutes are exempt from the referendum power. In passing, they observe that reapportionment statutes might be deemed statutes calling elections and, therefore, exempted from the referendum process under article II, section 9, subdivision (a). While it is obvious that a reapportionment statute relates to elections, it is equally clear that such statutes do not call elections. ( Boggs v. Jordan (1928) 204 Cal. 207, 220 [267 P. 696]; Ortiz v. Board of Supervisors (1980) 107 Cal. App.3d 866, 872 [166 Cal. Rptr. 100].) (5) Petitioners do, however, seriously contend that the filing of a referendum against a reapportionment or any other statute does not stay the effective date of the statute. The focus of the controversy thus centers initially on the interpretation of article II, section 10, subdivision (a) of the Constitution. Subdivision (a) provides: An initiative statute or referendum approved by a majority of votes thereon takes effect the day after the election unless the measure provides otherwise. If a referendum petition is filed against a part of a statute the remainder shall not be delayed from going into effect. (Italics added.) Petitioners acknowledge that the negative implication of the italicized language is that a referendum filed against the entirety of a statute stays that statute pending voter approval. An explicit stay provision was set forth in a predecessor to article II, section 10. Former article IV, section 1, which was repealed in 1966, read in pertinent part, Upon presentation to the Secretary of State within 90 days after the final adjournment of the Legislature of a [qualified and certified referendum] asking that any act or section or part of any act of the Legislature be submitted to the electors for their approval or rejection, the Secretary of State shall submit to the electors for their approval or rejection, such act [or part thereof] ... and no such act [ or part thereof ] shall go into effect until and unless approved by a majority of the qualified electors voting thereon; but if a referendum petition is filed against any section or part of any act the remainder of such act shall not be delayed from going into effect. (Italics added.) Petitioners concede that while this predecessor article was in effect, this court assumed that the filing of a properly qualified referendum asking that a reapportionment statute be put to a popular vote stayed the effective date of such a statute. (See Silver v. Brown (1965) 63 Cal.2d 270, 277-278 [46 Cal. Rptr. 308, 405 P.2d 132] [dictum]; Boggs v. Jordan, supra, 204 Cal. 207, 211.) Petitioners point out, however, that the referendum provisions of article IV of the California Constitution were revised in 1966, and in 1976 were placed in sections 9 and 10 of article II. One result of the 1966 revision was the elimination of the express stay provision of former article IV. Petitioners attach substantive significance to this omission. They argue that the filing of a referendum no longer stays the challenged statute, despite the clear negative implication to the contrary which remains in the current constitutional provision. Petitioners ask too much of this court. The 1966 revision of article IV was intended to shorten and simplify the Constitution, deleting unnecessary provisions.... ( Associated Home Builders etc., Inc. v. City of Livermore, supra, 18 Cal.3d 582, 595, fn. 12.) In commenting on the referendum provisions of former article IV, section 1, the Constitution Revision Commission declared that the proposed revision would effect only one substantive change  the effective date of a statute challenged by a referendum but subsequently approved by the voters. [11] Otherwise, the commission declared, no change in meaning has been effected by the proposed revision. (Cal. Const. Revision Com., Proposed Revision (1966) at pp. 46-47.) There remains in the current provision, article II, section 10, subdivision (a), a clear negative implication that a statute challenged in its entirety by a duly qualified referendum is stayed from taking effect until it has been approved by the voters at the required election. This interpretation is consistent with the nature of a referendum. The referendum is the power of the electors to approve or reject statutes.... (Cal. Const., art. II, § 9, subd. (a).) As the Secretary of State has pointed out, In a REFERENDUM, VOTERS are asked to APPROVE the BILL which the Legislature has enacted (`YES' VOTE) or to DISAPPROVE (`NO' VOTE).... The question which is put to the voters is `SHALL (the bill) BECOME LAW? (YES or NO).' (Memo. from Sect. of State's office to county clerks and registrars of voters (Sept. 24, 1981).) Approval of the referendum is approval of the bill. Thus, to declare, as does the first sentence of subdivision (a) of article II, section 10, that a referendum approved by a majority of votes thereon takes effect the day after the election unless the measure provides otherwise ... is to say that the challenged bill takes effect the day after the election. Obviously, there would be no need to define the date on which the challenged law becomes effective if it were already in effect. (Compare, Walters v. Cease (Alaska 1964) 388 P.2d 263.) Therefore, under the mandate of article II of the state Constitution, the filing of a valid referendum challenging a statute normally stays the implementation of that statute until after the vote of the electorate. The statute takes effect only if approved by the voters. No express provision in article II excludes reapportionment statutes from the reach of the referendum process or from application of the stay. [12]