Author: California Constitution Center

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...

Overview By granting review in Legislature v. Weber (S281977) the California Supreme Court may have committed itself to resolving one of the most difficult questions in California constitutional law: distinguishing between an impermissible constitutional revision and a permitted constitutional amendment. The California Constitution Center recently argued that this question is best avoided until after the election. That’s partly because engaging in preelection review likely requires the court to confront the constitutional conundrum presented by an initiative amendment that attacks a core branch power. If resolving that question is truly necessary, we argue here that the best approach is to apply...

Overview Our word to describe the California Supreme Court in 2023 is coalescence. It makes no difference how long a justice has served, who appointed the justice, what political party they vote for, or what kind of toast they like — the metrics we track for this court all show collapsing trends with few divergences. The three-way split between the appointing governor blocs remains: three Browns (Liu, Kruger, Groban), three Newsoms (Guerrero, Jenkins, Evans), and one Schwarzenegger (Corrigan). But those looking for polarized voting blocs or even a lone dissenter will be disappointed: this court most often operates as a...

Overview Experienced California appellate practitioners sometimes rely on two rules of thumb. One posits that when the California Supreme Court grants a petition for review, the court reverses about 60% of the time and affirms the other 40% of reviewed cases; call this the “60–40 rule.” The other bit of conventional wisdom (call it the “rule of thirds”) holds that the court’s docket is divided roughly into thirds: about one-third each of automatic capital appeals, general criminal, and general civil cases. In this article we evaluate these hypotheses. We found that the rule of thirds is inaccurate: at least 40%...