Opinion ID: 1177478
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Reapportionment Once Every Decade

Text: Initially, it should be noted that my colleagues obviously err in claiming that, in some way, California has a constitutionally mandated rule that redistricting may occur only once within the decade. ( Ante, p. 663.) One can read the California Constitution from beginning to end without finding a trace or hint of an expression mandating any such limitation on the people's initiative power. The majority cites no provision of the Constitution, no article, no section. There is none. The Constitutional provisions vesting in the people all political power and  the right to alter or reform  their government (art. II, § 1, italics added), are entirely inconsistent with the majority's restriction upon initiative reapportionment. Former article IV, section 6, on which the majority relies for an historical understanding did not deny the people the right to adopt their own reapportionment. Indeed, the article was adopted more than 30 years before the people placed their initiative right in their Constitution. Lacking any express inhibition on the people's initiative power, the majority bases its technical argument upon an expanded interpretation of article XXI of the state Constitution, a very shaky platform. That provision directs the Legislature In the year following the year in which the national census is taken ... to adjust the voting boundaries. It refers to the Legislature, not the people. This article may, as discussed below, limit the power of the Legislature to adopt multiple reapportionment plans during a single census period, but it contains no language placing a similar restriction upon the people's initiative power. Undaunted, my colleagues reason that because the people in enacting new political boundaries are exercising legislative power, and because the Legislature also exercises legislative power, therefore the limitation constitutionally imposed upon the Legislature must restrict the people as well. By interpretation, my colleagues insert the language or the people through the initiative after the words the Legislature in article XXI. But this judicial redrafting of the article will not do, for the majority misconceives the true constitutional origin of the people's power to reapportion. The right to redistrict the state by initiative derives not from any grant of power originating in article XXI, but rather from the broad reservation to the people of all political and legislative power contained in article II, sections 1 and 8, and article IV, section 1, as previously discussed. It is also interesting to note that although the majority relies on article XXI to uphold Plan II, the plan itself does not comply with the article which requires that the boundaries be adjusted in the year following the census. Plan II was enacted in the third year following the census. Indeed, in the 1970's the plan formulated by this court was adopted in the fourth year after the census. The cases relied upon by the majority do not suggest such a restriction as my colleagues wish to engraft upon reapportionment by initiative. Two older cases ( Wheeler v. Herbert (1907) 152 Cal. 224, 237 [92 P. 353]; Dowell v. McLees (1926) 199 Cal. 144, 146 [248 P. 511]) involved statutory changes in county boundary lines, changes which also would have altered the preexisting legislative districts, accomplishing an unintended de facto reapportionment. We held that the Legislature's power to form legislative districts may be exercised only once during the period between one national census and the succeeding one. Wheeler, of course, could not have contemplated any once-a-decade limitation upon initiatives because it was decided before the initiative existed in California. Dowell concerned the Legislature's power and, as the majority acknowledges, relied wholly on former article IV, section 6, which is confined exclusively to the Legislature's authority. A subsequent case ( Yorty v. Anderson (1963) 60 Cal.2d 312, 316-317 [33 Cal. Rptr. 97, 384 P.2d 417]) does not help the majority at all. Yorty made it abundantly clear that the once-every-decade principle is not absolute even as to the Legislature, and that the Legislature has the power to adopt a second reapportionment plan within a single census period if the courts, or the people by referendum (p. 317), have nullified the initial plan. Thus, even the Legislature is free from the restraints which the majority without constitutional authority has now imposed upon the people themselves. At this point, I put these simple but relevant questions to my esteemed colleagues: If the people can, as here, indirectly through referendum, mandate the Legislature to adopt a second reapportionment plan within the same decennial census period, why may not the same people, directly through the initiative achieve the same result? How is it that the public's servants, the Legislature, may place a reapportionment plan beyond the reach of their masters, the people? Put another way, in constitutional analysis how is it that the servants of the people are elevated above the sovereign people who are vested with  all political power? If the people wanted to impose upon themselves a once-a-decade limitation, why have they not expressly done so, having had ample opportunity as recently as 1980 when article XXI was substituted for former article IV, section 6? Why, contrary to the rules which direct us to interpret the initiative favorably, do my colleagues (1) read into a constitutional section language which the people omitted, and (2) decline to resolve any reasonable doubts in support of the initiative? As we stated in Fair Political Practices Com. v. Superior Court, supra, 25 Cal.3d 33, at p. 42, The people having reserved the legislative power to themselves as well as having granted it to the Legislature, there is no reason to hold that the people's power is more limited than that of the Legislature.... Surely, if contrary to article II, section 1, the constitutional power of the people is not paramount, it cannot be less than that of their own creation, the Legislature. The Legislature, acting pursuant to article XXI, may reapportion the state once every 10 years. The people, acting pursuant to article II, section 1, may reject the Legislature's effort as they may other legislative acts or indeed rulings of this court through referendum ( Yorty, supra, 60 Cal.2d 312, 316-317) and may replace that effort with the people's own plan. The Legislature's role in reapportionment cannot rise to a higher level than that of its source, the people, nor can it, a creation of the people, constitutionally preempt the people. This is a fundamental, constitutional principle with which my colleagues do not choose to grapple. The Oklahoma Supreme Court last year in In re Initiative Petition No. 317, etc., supra, 648 P.2d at page 1212, applied supportive analysis in squarely upholding the people's exercise of their initiative power to adopt a reapportionment plan despite the Oklahoma Legislature's prior adoption of a plan within the same decennial census period. In Oklahoma, as in California, the Constitution in no way restricts the initiative against a legislative congressional enactment. ( Ibid. ) Moreover, in Oklahoma, as in California, There is no express prohibition contained in the constitutional [reapportionment] provision, nor in the statute, which would prohibit a second valid congressional redistricting within the ten-year period following a decennial census. ( Ibid. ; see Exon v. Tiemann (D.C.Neb. 1967) 279 F. Supp. 603, 608.) The Oklahoma Supreme Court concluded that We hold that the electorate of Oklahoma are entitled to invoke the initiative against a legislative congressional redistricting act even though the initiative and the legislative enactment occur during the same ten (10) year period and are based upon the same federal census. (648 P.2d at p. 1213.) The people of California retain no lesser political authority than the people of Oklahoma. (See also Lucas v. Colorado Gen. Assembly (1964) 377 U.S. 713, 732 [12 L.Ed.2d 632, 84 S.Ct. 1459] [in Colorado, the initiative device provides a practicable political remedy to obtain relief against alleged legislative malapportionment ...].) As noted, petitioners herein concede that, following the people's invalidation of Plan I, if a qualified reapportionment initiative had been approved by the people it might have been valid. But, petitioners reason (with the apparent concurrence of the majority) that the Legislature beat the people to it. The lawmakers acted first and thereby instantly and for the balance of the decade preempted for themselves the whole reapportionment power. This rationale contemplates that the people and the Legislature engage in a foot race to the reapportionment drawing board to draft the first plan after the invalidation by a successful referendum within a current decennial census period. Given the procedural and financial hurdles inevitably placed in the path of all initiative proponents in the circulation, qualification and election process, can there be any reasonable doubt that the Legislature will win the race? When the people have been denied their right to vote, they will gain small comfort from being told, in effect, come back again in 10 years and maybe we'll talk about it, for in 1990 the same unending cycle will be repeated, continuing in perpetuity. What kind of a responsive democracy is that? Such an implied surrender of their political power cannot have been within the reasonable contemplation of the voters when they adopted the Constitution or its initiative or reapportionment provisions. Warning against a premature interposition of the judiciary in cases of this kind, one appellate court made these cogent observations: We take judicial notice of the fact that a large cross-section of the citizenry entertains an opinion that the government is no longer representative of the people. It takes outlandish financial resources to mount a campaign for office, lobbyists play no small part in controlling the destiny of legislative measures, and in election years our elected representatives procrastinate taking action even on urgent matters. One counter-balance to this trend is to give vitality to the initiative power.  ( Gayle v. Hamm, supra, 25 Cal. App.3d 250, 257-258, italics added.) Regrettably, my colleagues vote today for less democracy in California. This is doubly sad for it occurs at a time when there is a growing feeling of detachment and separation of the citizen-voters from the handles, controls and direction of their affairs. The people's representatives often seem quite distant from the voter separated by a large, faceless bureaucracy. There are numerous signs these days of voter apathy and the decline in voter participation and interest in public policy matters. The surest way to promote this decline is to cut off the opportunities for citizen participation. The most effective way to increase public interest in political issues is to assure that the people have the widest practical opportunity to share in making the public decisions which directly affect them. In the New England town meeting the people's voice was heard in its purest form. The use of this method is not feasible in a large state with 23 million people. It is all the more important to preserve for our citizens those few remaining alternatives by which the people's voice may be heard and their will expressed and implemented. This, to my mind, is the very essence of democracy. The majority insists that invalidation of the initiative is required in order to insure repose  which promotes stability in districts and minimizes political battles.... ( Ante, p. 675.) Tranquility has its place, but, with respect, I suggest that, purchased at the cost of the people's power to decide the boundaries of their own legislative districts, the price is far too high. The greater danger of instability lies in muffling the people's voice. In my view, the initiative process and the ballot constitute the people's only weapons to dislodge entrenched political dynasties created and sustained primarily by virtue of their own use and misuse of the reapportionment device. Using the referendum in 1982, the people spoke to the Legislature very loudly in rejecting Plan I. In 1983 the people might have shouted if they had been given the opportunity to vote on Plan II. In a democratic society so heavily dependent upon a system of interlocking governmental checks and balances, surely we cannot sacrifice the salutary protection of the initiative. If the people are denied any right to approve or disapprove a blatantly gerrymandered reapportionment plan, then there is absolutely no check on the Legislature's abuse of power. The concept of a Legislature perpetuating its tenure by devising a reapportionment plan wholly immune from review or revision by the people themselves is dangerous and repugnant to constitutional principles. Several years ago, one observer of the California political scene made these pertinent observations regarding the initiative and referendum: As the periodic assaults on the initiative and referendum arise and fade, it is hoped that the courts will resist urgings to use judicial powers to circumscribe these institutions. While the initiative and referendum may not fit into a given philosopher's democratic model, and while these powers may, like any others, be misused from time to time, one would hope the courts will not fall prey to the elitist argument that the people do not know what is best for them and therefore need someone else to tell them. Pragmatically, the institutions work; like their representatives, the people may sometimes approve mischievous or unconstitutional measures, but by and large, as studies show, they are good legislators. In a society where government moves further and further from the people, these institutions can help keep it near. If an occasional `bad' measure is passed, let those who urge less democracy instead use the tools of democracy to convince the people of the `rightness' of their view. While the courts have the duty to maintain these institutions within their proper boundaries, they should not be the vehicle for any constriction of those boundaries. (Greenberg, The Scope of the Initiative and Referendum in California (1966) 54 Cal.L.Rev. 1717, 1747-1748, fn. omitted.) The people can make mistakes, so can legislatures, and so can courts, but mistakes can be corrected. History has demonstrated repeatedly that in the long run, the people's judgment is ultimately to be trusted. If not, then whose? I do not know whether the particular initiative measure before us is good, bad or indifferent, or whether the people would have voted it up or down if permitted to do so. What I do know is that the reapportionment initiative, signed by over half a million voters, has legally qualified for the ballot. The initiative involves a matter of compelling public interest. I see no legal or constitutional impediment to a public vote. The people should be heard on this issue. I would deny the peremptory writ.