Court Opinion

ID: 9722737
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:48:21.238065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:39.549185
License: Public Domain

PUGLIA, P. J.
I concur in the judgment.
The recent enactment of Government Code section 8246 (Stats. 1982, ch. 1118, § 1) is clearly a legislative response to the trial court’s judgment and was plainly intended to supersede the trial court’s more narrow interpretation of the commission’s authority. The judgment below prohibits the commission “from expressing to the Legislature or the public any opinion of its own on any issues of ‘[w]omen’s educational and employment problems, needs, and opportunities.’” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 697.) Giving effect to newly added Government Code section 8246,1 agree the judgment cannot stand.
In Miller v. Miller (1978) 87 Cal.App.3d 762 [151 Cal.Rptr. 197] (Miller I), we held that plaintiff’s showing that the commission had spent public funds to promote the Equal Rights Amendment was adequate to defeat the commission’s motion for summary judgment, because such conduct would constitute unlawful election campaigning in the absence of “clear and explicit” legislative authorization for such activity. (Id., pp. 771-772.) Summary judgment was therefore reversed. After plenary trial the court made findings and rendered the judgment from which this appeal is taken. In its findings and judgment, the trial court did not expressly address the issue of expenditure of public funds for election campaigning considered by this court in Miller I. It did find that “some of the activities of the Commission and its members . . . have been in excess of the statutory authority and purposes for which the Commission was established” and that “such activities have involved the expenditure of public funds . . . .” The court further found, however, “that evidence as to the extent of the expenditure of public funds is insufficient upon which to base a judgment. . . .” Plaintiff’s cross-appeal does not challenge the latter finding.
The decision in Miller I affords no basis to deny full effect to the subsequent legislative clarification of the commission’s authority. Conversely, *704this appeal does not provide the occasion either to question or denigrate our holding in Miller /. The question of whether newly added Government Code section 8246 provides the commission “clear and explicit legislative authorization” to “expend public funds to promote a partisan position in an election campaign” (Miller I, supra, 87 Cal.App.3d at p. 764, quoting Stanson v. Mott (1976) 17 Cal.3d 206, 209-210 [130 Cal.Rptr. 697, 551 P.2d 1]) simply is not tendered by the record before us.
A petition for a rehearing was denied February 28, 1984.