Court Opinion

ID: 9790202
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:48:47.110358+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:27.350374
License: Public Domain

SCHAUER, J.
I concur. Under the theory advocated by respondents and interveners, a group of persons, relatively small in the total population of the state, could settle in one county, register as electors, sign sections of the petition, file it in that county, then move on to another county, register there, sign and file new sections of the petition there, and repeat the process in as many counties of the state and over such a period of time as might be necessary to reach the goal of the number of qualified signatures equal to 8 per cent of the number of votes cast for governor at some election many years subsequent to the presentation of the first section of the petition.
Although the constitutional- provision is unfortunately ambiguous, this court could not justify giving it a construction which would not only admit of, but would commit us to permit, such an absurd application of the law as that suggested above. Furthermore, to uphold respondents’ and interveners’ contentions that the constitutional provision contains no limitation upon the time within which petitions must be qualified would be tantamount to holding that the pertinent 1943 act of the Legislature (Elec. Code, sec. 1407; Stats. 1943, p. 1127) is unconstitutional.