Court Opinion

ID: 9544160
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:52:46.363939+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:12:13.679498
License: Public Domain

CLARK, J.
I dissent.
As the majority concedes, a fixed term of office may be inferred from the statute creating the appointment. (Boyd v. Huntington (1932) 215 Cal. 473, 479 [11 P.2d 383].) The histoiy, purpose, and language of the Coastal Zone Conservation Act of 1972 clearly show that the public commissioners serve for the brief term of the act rather than for the shorter-termed pleasure of the sovereign.
The people could have chosen “to establish a commission . . . composed of politically responsive members subject to removal by elected officials.” (Ante, at p. 56.) But the citizenry was understandably reluctant to entrust this planning project to their elected representatives, inasmuch as similar legislation repeatedly had failed to make safe passage through the legislative rapids. (Ballot Pamphlet, Gen. Election (Nov. 7, 1972) p. 53.) Consequently, the act provided that fully half the commission’s members come from outside government, that three agencies equally appoint them, and that the Senate confirm the Governor’s nominees. Although those serving must be “exceptionally well qualified to analyze and interpret environmental trends and information, to appraise resource uses in light of the policies [of the act], [and] to be responsive to the scientific, social, esthetic, recreational, and cultural needs of the state” (Pub. Resources Code, § 27220), long-term decisions were deferred until the commission could hear from individual citizens at special public meetings. As Judge Wetter put it, the people desired that the commission “make an entirely independent, wholly independent investigation and report of a specific scheme to the Legislature....”
Manifestly neither the proponents of the initiative nor the people adopting it wanted the Governor, the Senate Rules Committee, or the Speaker of the Assembly to control the commission’s important work.1 The commission’s public members were intended to be both highly *59qualified and independent of the political cross-currents of Sacramento, serving continuously throughout the short life of the commission.2
In Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935) 295 U.S. 602 [79 L.Ed. 1611, 55 S.Ct. 869], the Supreme Court was confronted with the question whether the President had the authority to remove members of the Federal Trade Commission at his whim. The court rejected the contention, enunciating the principles which are controlling here: “The Commission is to be non-partisan; and it must, from the very nature of its duties, act with entire impartiality. It is charged with the enforcement of no policy except the policy of the law. Its duties are neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.. . . [T]he language of the act, the legislative reports, and the general purposes of the legislation ... all combine to demonstrate the congressional intent to create a body of experts who shall gain experience by length of service—a body which shall be independent of executive authority, except in its selection, and free to exercise its judgment without the leave or hindrance of any other official or any department of the government.” (Id., at pp. 624, 625-626, [79 L.Ed. at pp. 1617, 1618], original italics.)
Were our new commissioners only to implement an established policy, the majority holding would be unfortunate enough, since it necessarily imports that all 45 public members serve merely at the pleasure of those appointing them. But since the commissioners themselves must formulate future policy, the possibility of their wholesale replacement without notice or cause becomes even more disturbing. By transforming the apolitical into the political, this court creates an ominous potential for mischief.
McComb, J., concurred.

The Governor with the approval of the Senate, the Speaker, and the committee each appoint roughly one-third of the 45 public members.

The limited duration, single purpose nature of the act differentiates this case from those involving the typical governmental agency and employee. As Judge Wetter accurately observed: “In the enactment ... I see a single short sort of deal; in other words, here is a specific thing to be done, and let’s be at it. . . . This was a single-shot thing.” The commission’s coastal zone plan must be adopted and submitted to the Legislature by 1 December 1975. (Pub. Resources Code, § 27320, subd. (c).)