California Constitution

From Ballotpedia

The California Constitution is the document that establishes and describes the duties, powers, structure and function of the government of California. The state's first constitution was adopted in November 1849 in advance of California attaining U.S. statehood in 1850. That constitution was superseded by the current constitution, which was ratified on May 7, 1879.^[1]

California's constitution can be amended through statewide votes of the electorate on legislatively-referred constitutional amendments and initiated constitutional amendments. It can also be amended through a process beginning with a constitutional convention.

Preamble

The full preamble is 27 words: "We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure and perpetuate its blessings, do establish this Constitution."

Article I

Main article: Article I, California Constitution

Article I is labelled as the "Declaration of Rights". It contains 32 sections, numbered Sections 1-31 with an additional Section 14.1. The first section declares "All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy."^[2]

Article II

Main article: Article II, California Constitution

Article II is labelled, Voting, Initiative and Referendum, and Recall. It has twenty sections, many of which are short and even one-sentence declarations such as Section 7 which says "Voting shall be secret".

Sections 8, Section 10, Section 11 and Section 12 govern ballot initiatives, including defining the signature requirements for initiatives, the single-subject rule, a provision that says that initiatives must apply equally to all subdivisions (added in 1998), when initiatives that have been approved take effect, what to do in the case of conflicting initiatives and the California Attorney General's ballot title authorities.

Amendments and revisions

Main article: History of Initiative and Referendum in California

In response to widespread public disgust with the powerful railroads which controlled California's politics and economy at the start of the 20th century, progressive politicians pioneered the concept of aggressively amending the state constitution by initiative in order to remedy perceived evils.^[3] From 1911, the height of the U.S. Progressive Era, to 1986, the California Constitution was amended over 500 times.^[4] The constitution gradually became increasingly bloated, leading to unsuccessful efforts towards a third constitutional convention in 1897, 1914, 1919, 1930, 1934, and 1947.^[5] By 1962 the constitution had grown to 75,000 words, which at that time was longer than any other state constitution but Louisiana.^[6] That year, the electorate approved the creation of a California Constitution Revision Commission, which worked on a comprehensive revision of the constitution from 1964 to 1976. The electorate ratified the Commission's revisions in 1966, 1970, 1972, and 1974, but rejected the 1968 revision, whose primary substantive effect would have been to make the state's superintendent of schools into an appointed rather than an elected official.^[7] In the end, the Commission managed to remove about 40,000 words from the constitution.^[8]

Differences from other constitutions

Unlike most state constitutions, the California Constitution is quite long at 110 and 1/2 pages. The length has been attributed to a variety of factors, such as lack of faith in elected officials and the fact that most initiatives take the form of a constitutional amendment.^[9] Several amendments involved the authorization of the creation of state government agencies, including the State Compensation Insurance Fund and the State Bar of California; the purpose of such amendments was to insulate the agencies from being attacked as an unconstitutionally broad exercise of police power.

Unlike other state constitutions, the California Constitution strongly protects the corporate existence of cities and counties and grants them broad plenary home rule powers.^[10] By specifically enabling cities to pay counties to perform governmental functions for them, Section 8 of Article XI resulted in the rise of the contract city.^[11]

Many of the individual rights clauses in the state constitution have been construed as providing rights broader than the Bill of Rights in the federal constitution.^[12] Two excellent examples are the Pruneyard Shopping Center case, and the first decision in America in 1972 finding the death penalty unconstitutional, California v. Anderson, 6 Cal. 3d 628, which also noted that under the state constitution, a stronger protection applies than the U.S. Constition's 8th Amendment, which prohibits punishments which are cruel and unusual, the state constitution prohibits punishments which are cruel or unusual.

External links

Wikipedia has an article on:

California Constitution

• Search State Constitution searchable index
• California State Archives - 1849 State Constitution (text)

References

^ Joseph R. Grodin, Calvin R. Massey, and Richard B. Cunningham, The California State Constitution: A Reference Guide (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993)

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