Opinion ID: 2611911
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Constitutionality of Section 25123, Subdivision (e)

Text: In order to consider the merits of VFRR's constitutional contention, we first review the constitutional sources of authority both of the people's right to referendum, and the Legislature's prerogative to restrict that right. Article II, section 9 of the California Constitution is the source of the state electorate's power to exercise the referendum. Subdivision (a) of that section 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. (Cal. Const., art. II, § 9, subd. (a).) We have interpreted article II, section 11, which, as noted above, is the source for the initiative and referendum power of city and county electors, to incorporate the same exceptions to the referendum power as are set forth in article II, section 9. ( Geiger v. Board of Supervisors (1957) 48 Cal.2d 832, 836 [313 P.2d 545].) Section 25123, subdivisions (a), (c), and (d) in turn incorporate the constitutional exceptions to the referendum power found in article II, section 9, providing that county ordinances relating to elections and taxation, and urgency ordinances, respectively, are to go into effect immediately  and, as discussed above, are therefore not subject to referendum. Section 25123, subdivision (b) provides an unspecified catch-all exception to the 30-day effective date rule for ordinances required by law to take effect immediately. But in subdivision (e) the Legislature has apparently created a new category of exemptions to the local referendum power  one not found in the Constitution  for ordinances approving and implementing MOU's. VFRR contends that, in doing so, the Legislature has exceeded its constitutional authority. In evaluating this contention, we first observe that the Legislature's power to restrict local referendum derives not only from the exceptions found implicitly in article II, section 11, but also from its power to enact general laws of statewide importance that override local legislation. (5) In matters of statewide concern, the state may if it chooses preempt the entire field to the exclusion of all local control. If the state chooses instead to grant some measure of local control and autonomy, it has authority to impose procedural restrictions on the exercise of the power granted, including the authority to bar the exercise of the initiative and referendum. ( Committee of Seven Thousand v. Superior Court, supra, 45 Cal.3d 491, 511 [hereafter COST ].) Although, as this court explained in COST, the courts of this state have sometimes resorted to the distinction between local legislative acts that are subject to initiative and referendum and administrative acts of the local governing body that are not, such a distinction does not capture the full extent of the state's authority to restrict the local initiative and referendum power. The state's plenary power over matters of statewide concern is sufficient authorization for legislation barring local exercise of initiative and referendum as to matters which have been specifically and exclusively delegated to a local legislative body. ( Id. at pp. 511-512.) Thus, the Legislature may restrict the right of referendum if this is done as part of the exercise of its plenary power to legislate in matters of statewide concern. (3c) In the present case, section 25123, subdivision (e), on its face, does not appear to be embedded in any statutory scheme from which a statewide purpose can be inferred. [3] Moreover, section 25123, subdivision (e) involves agreements regarding matters of local employee compensation and other conditions of employment  generally a matter of local rather than statewide concern. (See Sonoma County Organization of Public Employees v. County of Sonoma (1979) 23 Cal.3d 296, 317 [152 Cal. Rptr. 903, 591 P.2d 1].) How, then, can section 25123, subdivision (e) be constitutionally justified? (6) In answering that question, we are mindful that `[A]ll presumptions and intendments favor the validity of a statute and mere doubt does not afford sufficient reason for a judicial declaration of invalidity. Statutes must be upheld unless their unconstitutionality clearly, positively, and unmistakably appears.' ( Calfarm Ins. Co. v. Deukmejian (1989) 48 Cal.3d 805, 814 [258 Cal. Rptr. 161, 771 P.2d 1247].) (3d) In this case we will uphold section 25123, subdivision (e)'s constitutionality if its referendum restriction  considered together with statutes of related subject matter  advances legislative goals that are a matter of statewide concern. ( COST, supra, 45 Cal.3d at pp. 511-512.) In other words, we will uphold section 25123, subdivision (e) if we can infer that the subdivision's implied delegation of exclusive decisionmaking authority to the boards of supervisors to adopt and implement memoranda of understanding between counties and their employee associations fulfills some legislative purpose of statewide import. Because section 25123, subdivision (e) concerns the approval of memoranda of understanding between public employers and employees, we naturally turn to an examination of the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act (MMBA) (§ 3500 et seq.), the legislation governing the collective bargaining process between local government agencies and employee organizations from which these memoranda of understanding emerge. As will appear below, we find that the MMBA embodies a statutory scheme in an area of statewide concern that justifies the referendum restriction inherent in section 25123, subdivision (e).
The MMBA is intended to promote full communication between public employers and their employees by providing a reasonable method of resolving disputes regarding wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment between public employers and public employee organizations. (§ 3500.) The centerpiece of the MMBA is section 3505, which requires the governing body of a local public agency, or its designated representative, to meet and confer in good faith regarding wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment with representatives of such recognized employee organizations. As we recounted in the Glendale City Employees' Assn., Inc. v. City of Glendale (1975) 15 Cal.3d 328, 335 [124 Cal. Rptr. 513, 540 P.2d 609]), the MMBA represented an evolution from the earlier George Brown Act, which provided only that management representatives should listen to and discuss the demands of the unions. In its present form, the MMBA mandates that the governing body undertake negotiations with employee representatives not merely to listen to their grievances, but also with the objective of reaching `agreement on matters within the scope of representation prior to the adoption by the public agency of its final budget for the ensuing year.' ( Id. at p. 336, quoting § 3505, italics omitted.) The culmination of this meet and confer process is set forth in section 3505.1: If agreement is reached by the representatives of the public agency and a recognized employee organization or recognized employee organizations, they shall jointly prepare a written memorandum of such understanding, which shall not be binding, and present it to the governing body or its statutory representative for determination. Once the governing body approves the memorandum of understanding, it then becomes binding on both parties. ( Glendale City Employees' Assn., Inc. v. City of Glendale, supra, 15 Cal.3d at p. 336.) It is indisputable that the procedures set forth in the MMBA are a matter of statewide concern, and are preemptive of contradictory local labor-management procedures. ( International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers v. City of Gridley (1983) 34 Cal.3d 191, 202 [193 Cal. Rptr. 518, 666 P.2d 960].) As we further clarified in People ex rel. Seal Beach Police Officers Assn. v. City of Seal Beach (1984) 36 Cal.3d 591, 600-601, footnote 11 [205 Cal. Rptr. 794, 685 P.2d 1145], there is a clear distinction between the substance of a public employee labor issue and the procedure by which it is resolved. Thus there is no question that `salaries of local employees of a charter city constitute municipal affairs and are not subject to general laws.' [Citation.] Nevertheless, the process by which salaries are fixed is obviously a matter of statewide concern.... We have had no occasion to consider how a referendum might fit into the collective bargaining regime contemplated by the MMBA. The one court to do so held that a charter provision requiring that all increases in employee benefits be subject to voter approval was compatible with the MMBA. ( United Public Employees v. City and County of San Francisco (1987) 190 Cal. App.3d 419, 426 [235 Cal. Rptr. 477] [hereafter United Public Employees ].) The court rejected the argument that voter approval requirements could render the negotiating process mandated by the MMBA meaningless and unproductive. The court reasoned that since the purpose of the MMBA is to `promote full communication between public employers and their employees' (190 Cal. App.3d at p. 425, quoting § 3500), the purposes of the statute is served even though the governing body participating in the meet and confer process does not have the final authority to approve the agreement resulting from that process. ( United Public Employees, supra, 190 Cal. App.3d at pp. 425-426.) While we do not determine whether the result in United Public Employees was correct, [4] we observe that the decision understated the problematic nature of the relationship between the MMBA and the local referendum power. As we have noted, the purpose of the MMBA is more than promoting communication between employees and employers. Its aim is also to resolve disputes regarding wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment between public employers and public employee organizations (§ 3500) through the negotiation of binding agreements. If the bargaining process and ultimate ratification of the fruits of this dispute resolution procedure by the governing agency is to have its purpose fulfilled, then the decision of the governing body to approve the MOU must be binding and not subject to the uncertainty of referendum. The question posed by Justice Tobriner in Glendale City Employees' Assn., Inc. v. City of Glendale, supra, 15 Cal.3d 328, 336, is equally relevant to whether a MOU to which a governing body has agreed may be subjected to referendum: Why negotiate an agreement if either party can disregard its provisions? ... Why submit the agreement to the governing body for determination, if its approval were without significance? ... The procedure established by the [MMBA] would be meaningless if the end-product, a labor-management agreement ratified by the governing body of the agency, were a document that was itself meaningless. Stated differently, the effectiveness of the collective bargaining process under the MMBA rests in large part upon the fact that the public body that approves the MOU under section 3505.1  i.e., the governing body  is the same entity that, under section 3505, is mandated to conduct or supervise the negotiations from which the MOU emerges. If the referendum were interjected into this process, then the power to negotiate an agreement and the ultimate power to approve an agreement would be wholly divorced from each other, with the result that the bargaining process established by the MMBA could be undermined. This kind of bifurcation of authority between negotiators and decisionmakers would not be considered lawful were it to occur in the realm of private sector labor relations. ( N.L.R.B. v. Alterman Transport Lines, Inc. (5th Cir.1979) 587 F.2d 212, 226-227.) As that case held, a company had engaged in bad faith bargaining when the president of the company  who had reserved to himself the right to bind the company to the agreement  failed to at least brief his negotiators respecting his position and maintain some supervision over the proposals made and agreements reached. ( Id. at p. 227; see also Vainio dba Professional Eye Care (1988) 289 NLRB 1376, 1391-1392; Penntech Papers (1982) 263 NLRB 264, 275, enforced 706 F.2d 18, cert. den. 464 U.S. 892 [78 L.Ed.2d 228, 104 S.Ct. 237].) Similarly, section 3505.1 provides, in the language of private sector bargaining, a reservation of rights to the governing body to approve or disapprove any agreement emerging from the meet and confer process. On the other hand section 3505 mandates that the same governing body conduct or supervise the meet and confer process leading up to the agreement. [5] If the power of referendum existed, then the Legislature would in effect be sanctioning a kind of bad faith bargaining process in which those who possess the ultimate reservation of rights to approve the collective bargaining agreement  i.e., the electorate  are completely absent from the negotiating table. We presume that the Legislature did not intend to compel local governmental entities to engage in a bargaining process that, unless the voters agreed, could not lead to a binding agreement even if the employer and employees desired to do so. Section 25123, subdivision (e)'s restriction of the local referendum right for ordinances adopting or implementing employer-employee MOU's is therefore wholly consistent with the overall purpose of the MMBA in promoting definitive resolution of labor-management disputes through the collective bargaining process. For purposes of resolving this case, we need not decide whether section 25123, subdivision (e) itself originates the restriction of the referendum power for the applicable ordinances in order to advance the statewide legislative purposes of the MMBA discussed above, or merely embodies the legislative recognition that the MMBA already implicitly contains such a restriction. (See fn. 3, ante. ) In either case, the Legislature has made explicit its intent to restrict the referendum right for these ordinances, and such restriction is constitutionally justified: the Legislature's exercise of its preemptive power to prescribe labor relations procedures in public employment includes the power to exclusively delegate negotiating authority to the boards of supervisors, and therefore the power to curtail the local right of referendum. [6]