Overview The key takeaway from the California Supreme Court’s recent decision in Castellanos v. State of California (S279622) is less about the initiative power or workers’ compensation and more about framing: how a court or advocate can control a case and direct its outcome by carefully defining the question to be answered. Here, by limiting the question presented to a narrow issue, the court set itself up to give a clear answer. This limited approach contrasts with the court’s comprehensive treatment of the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act in Legislature v. Weber (S281977). This contrast is explained by the...

Overview The California Supreme Court’s decision in Legislature v. Weber (S281977) is about power, in three ways: the scope of the initiative’s ability to alter branch powers, the distribution of power among the branches and the judiciary’s role in maintaining that balance, and how the amendment–revision analysis now incorporates what we would view as core powers questions. In this article we explain why the court’s decision to invalidate the Taxpayer Protection Act is best viewed through the core powers lens because the court first identified a core power, found that it was materially impaired or defeated, and employed the judiciary’s...

Overview During the oral argument in Castellanos v. State of California (S279622), the justices several times posed this question to counsel: could the voters by initiative abolish workers’ compensation? We would have answered that question: “Certainly not, your honor, because the electorate cannot defeat or materially impair the constitutional power of a branch with a statutory initiative.” That simple answer flows, as we explain below, from our view that California’s core powers analysis should apply to the voters when they act against another branch. Analysis Review: the core powers analysis should apply to the electorate To briefly recap our previous...