Opinion ID: 1236953
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Analysis of Charter Section 313 Under the City's Plenary Authority to Regulate the Manner by Which Municipal Officers Are Elected Subdivision (b)(4) of Article XI, Section 5

Text: In Mackey v. Thiel (1968) 262 Cal. App.2d 362 [68 Cal. Rptr. 717] ( Mackey ), the court addressed article XI, former section 8 1/2, which, like its successor, article XI, section 5, subdivision (b)(4), granted charter cities plenary authority over the manner by which municipal officers are elected. At issue in Mackey was Elections Code, former section 10012.5 (presently § 10012), which provides that if a candidate for local office so requests, the county clerk shall send to voters, in the sample ballot package, a written statement of the candidate's qualifications, prepared by the candidate. The petitioner submitted his statement to the county clerk, but the clerk refused to comply with the statute, on the ground the statute does not apply to charter cities, and the city's election code made no provision for mailing of candidate qualification statements. The trial court eventually issued a peremptory writ of mandate ordering the clerk to comply with the statute. On review, the Court of Appeal reversed. The court noted that the city's election code established a comprehensive set of rules governing all phases of city elections and that it provides for certain information of a substantive nature respecting issues to be included with the mailing of sample ballots but not candidate qualification booklets as provided in [Elections Code, former] section 10012.5. ( Mackey, supra, 262 Cal. App.2d at p. 364, italics in original.) It also noted that article XI, former section 8 1/2 of the Constitution granted plenary authority to the city over the manner by which municipal officers are elected, and characterized the petitioner's argument as follows: Such `plenary authority' having been given to the City, ... it is contended that [City's] code ... should prevail over the provisions of [Election Code, former] section 10012.5.... ( Mackey, supra, 262 Cal. App.2d at p. 364.) The court proceeded to impliedly accept the petitioner's argument. In doing so, it acknowledged the respondent's assertion that Elections Code, former section 10012.5 reflected a concern for the creation of an informed and educated electorate on a statewide basis ( Mackey, supra, 262 Cal. App.2d at p. 365), and it conceded the plausibility of the respondent's claim that the statute reflected a statewide concern that the qualifications of elected officials be made known to voters. ( Ibid. ) Nevertheless, it concluded the state was precluded from enforcing the provision in charter city elections because California courts have already determined that the conduct of municipal elections is a municipal affair and subject to municipal control. ( Socialist Party v. Uhl [(1909)] 155 Cal. 776, 788 [103 P. 181].) [13] ( Mackey, supra, 262 Cal. App.2d at p. 365.) Petitioners assert Mackey and the cases on which it relies (e.g., Uhl, supra, 155 Cal. 776; City of Redwood City v. Moore (1965) 231 Cal. App.2d 563 [42 Cal. Rptr. 72] [disapproved on other grounds in Bishop v. City of San Jose (1969) 1 Cal.3d 56, 63, fn. 6 (81 Cal. Rptr. 465, 460 P.2d 137)]) are distinguishable because they involved local election procedures, and not the integrity of the political or electoral process itself. The latter matter, petitioners assert, is a statewide concern and hence the exclusive province of the state under the Political Reform Act of 1974, and the amendments thereto (§§ 81000-91015). [14] They further claim charter section 313 does in fact aim at regulating the integrity of the political or electoral process, not simply the manner of electing municipal officers, and hence the city's regulation is not a municipal affair under article XI, section 5, subdivision (b)(4). In essence, petitioners ask us to interpret narrowly the word manner, as used in the constitutional provision, to exclude all local election regulations except those that may be labeled procedural. But as the court in Mackey, supra, 262 Cal. App.2d 362, acknowledged, and as the respondent in that case argued, the conflict in Mackey could not fairly be described as procedural: the question was a substantive one, i.e., whether information about candidates' qualifications should be mailed to voters. It thus appears that the election provisions at issue in Mackey implicated concerns similar to what petitioners describe as the integrity of the political or electoral process, which is concededly an issue of statewide concern. Yet the Mackey court upheld a charter city's right to adopt a different course and decline to follow the state statute. This holding suggests that the constitutional provision granting charter cities plenary authority over the manner of electing municipal officers has a broader scope than envisioned by petitioners. We conclude petitioners offer no persuasive justification to question the reasoning or result in Mackey, and we are reluctant to endorse the narrow scope of the word manner advocated by petitioners. We are hesitant, however, to embrace the expansive view of article XI, section 5, subdivision (b)(4), advanced by respondents and their amici curiae. They assert, with some force, that partial public financing of municipal election campaigns is one way to elect municipal officials, although it is certainly... not the only `manner' in which to do so. They reason that under the plain words of article XI, section 5, subdivision (b)(4), partial public funding of local campaigns, being a manner of municipal elections, is a subject within the city's plenary regulatory authority that falls within the core definition of a municipal affair under that constitutional provision. [15] Although we believe charter section 313 clearly implicates a municipal affair (see CalFed, supra, 54 Cal.3d 1, 17), we need not, and do not, determine whether charter section 313 is by definition a core municipal affair under article XI, section 5, subdivision (b)(4), because we conclude that in any event, the charter section is enforceable as a municipal affair under article XI, section 5, subdivision (a), as that provision was recently construed in CalFed, supra.