But Assemblyman Evan Low (pictured), D-San Jose, wants to go in a different direction on voting. He has introduced Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8, which would lower the voting age from 18 to 17. First it needs to get two-thirds support in both the Assembly and the Senate, then approval of a majority of state voters.

Twenty-three states allow 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections if they will be 18 on the day of the general election. Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, D-San Mateo, has introduced Assembly Constitutional Amendment 4 to allow such voting in California.

But according to a San Francisco Chronicle analysis, no state allows voting at age 17 in general elections.

“Lowering the voting age will give a voice to young people and provide a tool to hold politicians accountable to the issues they care about. Young people are our future, and when we ignore that we do so at our own peril,” Low said in a statement provided to the Sacramento Bee.

Last year, Low’s similar proposal got 46 votes in the Senate – eight shy of the two-thirds threshold. He believes with Democrats now holding 61 of the Assembly’s 80 seats and 29 of the Senate’s 40 seats, his chances of making the ballot are much improved.

Republicans have been generally opposed to Low’s measure at least partly for partisan reasons. Polls in recent years have shown younger voters lean strongly to the left – to the point where a Gallup survey from last August found more of those aged 18 to 29 had a favorable view of socialism (51 percent) than capitalism (45 percent).

San Francisco nixed 2016 measure lowering voter age

But it’s not clear if Democrats will see the change as a way to gain a political advantage or are even enthusiastic about the idea. In May 2016, in San Francisco – where Democrats outnumber Republicans by 8 to 1 – the Board of Supervisors put Measure F on the November ballot, which would have lowered the voting age to 16 for local elections. But voters rejected it 52.1 percent to 47.9 percent, a 15,000-vote spread.

The debate over the measure likely foreshadowed the debate to come in the Legislature over Low’s bill.

Supporters said 16- and 17-year-olds were as capable as adults of making smart, informed election choices. They also said the voting change would promote awareness of civics at a time when polls show many young people are unfamiliar with basics about democracy.

Critics questioned why the measure had such a different view of young people’s maturity when it came to voting than with other adult privileges.

The close election may have been swung by a critical Chronicle editorial in September 2016.

“Young people must wait until the age of 21 to drink alcohol and, in California, smoke tobacco. They must wait until the age of 18 to serve their country,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote. “It makes no sense for San Francisco to send the message that voting is a responsibility any less serious than these are.”

The reason is his Republican opponent last November, Neel Kashkari, wasn’t much of a challenge, Brown spent less than $6 million on his re-election campaign, largely for ads backing Proposition 1 and Proposition 2.

That was different from in 2010, when he faced billionaire Meg Whitman, who spent $180 million.

Which means that, in the future if a Democrat for governor faces a Republican in the November election, a similar war chest will be built up, giving the new governor enormous financial clout. The only exception would be if another wealth Republican wanted to blow $180 million — or, perhaps, is a Hollywood celebrity, like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Brown now will be using his war chest to back statewide initiatives in 2016. So he’s going to be courted. And legislators, even those in his party, will be wary of opposing him lest he fund their opponents.

What about if he runs for president? The Federal Elections Commission told me, “No, he can’t use that money for a federal campaign. Only for state campaigns.”

So if he makes a run at Hillary, he’ll be starting from zero.

Less than a third of California’s eligible voters cast ballots on Nov. 4….

Of those who registered to vote, little better than four in every 10 – about 42 percent – actually voted, either in person or by mail, the secretary of state reported in its Statement of the Vote….

In Los Angeles County, the most populace county with more than 5,000 voting precincts and eight million eligible voters, about 31 percent of registered voters cast ballots, the lowest participation level of any of the 58 counties. Of the L.A. voters who were eligible to cast ballots, less than a fourth went to the polls.

Part of this, I think, was due to California now being a one-party state dominated by Democrats. Gov. Jerry Brown hardly even campaigned for re-election; and even for that, he mainly talked about passing his initiatives, Proposition 1, the water bonds, and Proposition 2, the rainy-day fund. If he didn’t care about his own re-election, why should anybody else?

Democrats easily swept all statewide elections for lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer, etc. The six ballot measures generated little controversy. Three won easily and three lost easily.

Turnout certainly will be higher in Nov. 2016, for the presidential election. But even there, nowadays the Democratic nominee easily wins with a 3 million-plus vote margin. The presidential candidates from both parties campaign here only troll for campaign cash.

However, numerous ballot measures are expected to be put before voters. The government-employee unions will be rallying their membership to pass several measures to gouge taxpayers even more. Taxpayers’ rights groups will be campaigning to keep taxes here slightly less preposterously unreasonable.

Otherwise, for most voters democracy in the Golden State seems about as appealing as one of First Lady Michelle Obama’s school lunches.

Entering the California Democratic Party’s spring convention, Board of Equalization member Yee’s campaign faced a juggernaut.

With more money, power and influence over convention delegates, Perez, then the Speaker of the Assembly, seemed the inevitable Democratic nominee for state controller.

“With an army of paid interns, volunteers and campaign aides — and endorsements by most of his Democratic colleagues in the Assembly — John Perez made a major push for the party’s endorsement this year,” wrote Damien Luzzo, a convention delegate and member of the Yolo County Democratic Central Committee.

Perez had a substantial advantage in delegate appointments, in part because members of the Assembly are entitled to make five appointments to the state party convention. All but six of his Democratic colleagues in the Assembly backed Perez’s campaign. Under party rules, all endorsement votes are public in order to make delegates more accountable to their appointing official or committee. That meant that, for Yee to block an endorsement, she needed state convention delegates to risk their own appointments.

Shrewdly, Yee’s campaign turned it into an advantage. While not specifically naming Perez, Yee told delegates that hardball tactics, political intimidation and a 3-to-1 financial advantage for one candidate were how Republicans won.

It also helped that Yee, who has earned a reputation as a mild-mannered numbers-cruncher on the state’s tax board, gave the best speech of her career.

“Democrats, we are just as guilty of getting sucked into the influence of money and power about which we criticize Republicans,” Yee said shortly after successfully blocking the party from endorsing in the race. “It is time we have politics shaped by our values, rather than our values shaped by politics. If not, I believe Democrats will continue to lose ground with respect to the electorate.”

The thinly-veiled criticism of Perez exposed the fault lines within the state’s supermajority party and made Perez vs. Yee about more than two candidates.

Recount?

With all the provisional and late absentee votes tabulated, Yee has taken second place in the race for state controller, besting her fellow Democrat by just 484 votes. Ashley Swearengin, the Republican mayor of Fresno, already easily secured the other spot in the run-off with more than a million votes in the June 3 primary.

The difference between second and third place, just one hundredth of one percent, is so close that a recount still remains a possibility. But now the tables have turned: Perez must face the Democratic Party’s power brokers, who no doubt would prefer to avoid a costly and divisive recount.

The controller’s race, the closest candidate race and second closest statewide election in California’s history, has remained too close to call in the month since Election Day. The day after the election, Yee lingered in fourth place behind Perez and unknown Republican David Evans.

Evans, who was largely ignored by the mainstream media and did not spend enough money to file a campaign finance report, was just 2,436 votes behind Perez, the top fundraiser in the race. As county registrars of voters worked their way through more than a million late absentee and provisional ballots, Evans temporarily claimed second place, even as Yee narrowed her gap with Perez.

In the ensuing weeks, Yee and Perez swapped insignificant leads in a race that would come down to the last votes in the last county. Yee held an 861-vote lead — before Lake County’s final 6,000 ballots were counted on Monday.

“I want to thank the voters of California for their trust and support,” Yee said in a written statement declaring victory with no votes left to count. “I look forward to bringing my extensive finance experience into the office of controller.”

Yee claims victory, but Perez hasn’t conceded

While Yee has declared victory, Perez’s campaign, as of Tuesday morning, was unwilling to concede defeat.

“There are still votes to be counted,” Pérez’s political consultant, Doug Herman, told KQED’s John Myers by email. “We look forward to the final vote count.”

Officially, Lake County held the only outstanding ballots in the race. However, Perez’s campaign may have been alluding to a possible recount that could target disqualified ballots.

“One of the goals of any recount would be to get more of your supporter ballots counted,” said Paul Mitchell, vice-president of Political Data, Inc., a company that specializes in election data. “So, this could mean going into counties where there is a large potential for ballots that were disqualified because of signature problems, and digging through those to find any that can be challenged.”

He added, “This can be particularly fruitful among older voters and foreign language voters who have specific issues with signature verification.”

Expensive recount “crap shoot”

CalWatchdog.com, the first outlet to raise the possiblity of a recount in the race, has spoken to election experts who say that a recount is essentially a “crap shoot.” Within five days of the Secretary of State’s official results, any voter can request a full or partial recount. California’s recount rules, which require the requester to pay, grant tremendous leeway for a recount to be started and then immediately stopped.

“It’s completely unfair unless they do a re-canvass of the whole state,” Jimmy Camp, a Republican political consultant and expert on ballot counting, told CalWatchdog.com last week.

Consequently, if Perez requests a recount in one of his counties, it could trigger Yee to request a recount in one of her strongholds, as a defensive maneuver.

Financial and political cost of a recount

A bitter recount would further exacerbate the divide between the two Democratic camps and allow Swearengin to gain ground. The direct financial cost could also prove to be a major hurdle. Last month, in the 31st Congressional District, third place GOP candidate Lesli Gooch, who was just 209 votes behind Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar, requested a recount. Gooch picked up a single vote in a recount that cost her campaign $6,330. If applied to the state controller’s race, it would cost Perez $3.06 million potentially to gain the 484 votes that he is currently down.

As of the last campaign finance report, Perez had $1.8 million in cash on hand.

“Relying on grassroots and personal integrity, Yee, once again, showed that grassroots activism and her genuine personality can easily trump the onslaught of big money,” Democratic convention delegate Luzzo wrote back in March.

But if Perez mounts a serious recount effort, Yee will need to overcome “the onslaught of big money” one more time.

California State Controller: Election Results as of July 1, 2014

That’s because, under state law, ballots must be received by the local registrar of voters by Election Day, not postmarked that day or en route to an elections office.

“California doesn’t have the infamous hanging-chad or butterfly ballot,” Paul Mitchell, vice-president of Political Data Inc., wrote in a recent op-ed piece in the Sacramento Bee. “Piles of ballots are marked ‘too late’ because the mail arrived after Election Day.”

Sacramento County Registrar of Voters Jill Levine, who has been tracking the number of “too late to count ballots” statewide, estimates that as many as 20,000 otherwise valid ballots in the June 3 primary were received too late. With more than 4 million ballots counted so far, these “too late to count” ballots make up less than half a percent of total votes cast statewide.

“The only thing worse than not voting is people trying to vote and having their ballots go uncounted,” Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation, told the Associated Press.

Controller’s race could be decided by few hundred votes

Most races, especially at the statewide level, are decided by a margin of hundreds of thousands of ballots. But this year’s “too close to call” race for state controller could come down to just a few thousand, maybe even a few hundred, votes statewide.

“In some cases we are seeing one to one-and-a-half percent of the ballots being late,” Mitchell told KPCC. “And we’re looking at a controller’s race that right now is separated by eight-one-thousandth of a percent.”

As of Monday, June 23, Republican Ashley Swearengin has secured the top spot in the November run-off, in which only two candidates will be on the ballot. So that spot is not at issue.

For the second spot on the ballot, Board of Equalization member Betty Yee leads Assemblyman John A. Perez by 843 votes, a margin of two hundredths of one percent (0.02 percent). Both are Democrats.

The outcome is likely to decided by Lake County, which holds 83 percent of the state’s unprocessed ballots from the June 3 primary.

But does it matter?

But for all the legitimate concerns about the principle of any valid votes being discounted, could the “too late to count” ballots decide the outcome of an election? The current race for state controller, which is projected to be the second closest race in California history, is the perfect test case.

KPCC assembled a list of the ten counties with the most “too late to count” ballots. These counties account for roughly three-quarters of all late ballots in the state, according to the preliminary figures. With the overall election results for each county, CalWatchdog.com can project how those votes would have gone. To be sure, this is an imperfect projection.

The Top 10 counties are split right down the middle — Perez beat Yee in five, Yee beat Perez in five. The chart below shows how many votes Perez or Yee would have gained over their opponent in each county.

The overall projected vote difference: Perez would have gained another 76 votes, if those late ballots were counted. But as of the current statewide count, that still would not be enough to overcome Yee’s current 843-vote margin.

Again, that’s an inexact estimation based solely on geography. There are other factors to consider, such as race, age and political party, all of which could produce a more accurate projection and show that the late ballots disproportionately affected one of the state controller candidates more than the others.

Postal system

Mitchell’s firm, which conducted an analysis of the “too late to count” ballots from the 2013 Los Angeles city election, found late votes were tied to the postal routing system. San Fernando Valley voters, whose mail is processed in Santa Clarita, had a greater chance of seeing their vote arrive later than those in downtown.

In its analysis of the 2012 election, the state’s leading election data firm found that more than 30,000 voters statewide had their ballots invalidated because they were too late to count. Half of these voters were under the age of 30, according to Political Data Inc.

You can expect another analysis of this election’s late ballots, which could shed some light on whether John Perez or Betty Yee would have been helped by those ballots. That’s after Lake County finishes its count, Secretary of State Debra Bowen certifies the final election tally, and we go through a grueling recount.

Until then, just like the results itself, it’s just too soon to know whether those projected extra 76 votes would have made the difference.

This is part 2 of a series on the ALRB. Part 1 is here.

Genevieve Shiroma, chair of California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board, which oversees the relationship between farms and farm workers, grew up the daughter of a farm worker in San Joaquin County.

Staying close to her farm roots, according to AllGov California she earned her “associate of arts degree in math and science from San Joaquin Delta College in 1974.” After which she trekked only 70 miles away and in 1978 earned her bachelor of science degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Davis, one of the state’s premier agricultural schools. She then joined CARB “as an air quality engineer. She worked there for 21 years, eventually becoming chief of the Air Quality Measures Branch.”

It was a natural step for her to chair the board itself, a post Gov. Gray Davis appointed her to in 1999. That position expired in 2005. In 2006, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed her as a regular board member. And in 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown again appointed her as chair, making her the longest-serving current member of the ALRB.

ALRB

The five-member board was created in 1975 to implement the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which Brown signed into law that year. The board’s authority is divided between the five board members and a General Counsel, all appointed by the governor. The ALRA stipulates: 

“It is hereby stated to be the policy of the State of California to encourage and protect the right of agricultural employees to full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment, and to be free from the interference, restraint, or coercion of employers of labor….”

According to its website, the ALRB is:

1. “[R]esponsible for the prevention of those practices which the Act declares to be impediments to the free exercise of employee rights…”

2. “[R]esponsible for conducting elections to determine whether a majority of the employees of an agricultural employer wishes to be represented by a labor organization, whether they wish to continue to be represented by that labor organization, a rival labor organization or no labor organization at all.”

SMUD

In 1998, voters first elected Shiroma to the board of the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District, where she currently is vice president. The board elected her its president in 2002, 2006 and 2010. Currently she serves as its vice president.

Someone in a political position not surprisingly gets involved in politics. In local Sacramento politics, even more than in California, the Democratic Party dominates. She is a sponsor of the Harry S. Truman Democratic Club.

In 2006, as president of the board Shiroma led the battle for Measure L, which would have allowed the public utility to annex some of Pacific Gas & Electric’s private property in Yolo County. It lost, 61 percent to 39 percent.

Electric Utility Week reported on Nov. 13, 2006:

“SMUD’s initiative on the November 7 ballot would have allowed the muni to annex about 70,000 PG&E customers in Yolo County in Northern California. PG&E spent more than $10 million to defeat the annexation, while the pro-annexation campaign spent about $1 million.”

The pro-annexation campaign was called SMUD Customers Say YES to Low Rates, and was led by Shiroma and other SMUD board members. The Sacramento Bee reported on Jan. 2, 2006:

“The group has hired political consultant Richie Ross, Shiroma said Friday.”

Ross is one of the most influential strategists in Sacramento. A strike organizer for United Farm Workers longtime President Cesar Chavez, Ross now is a registered lobbyist for the UFW, whose cases go before the ALRB.

(The Electric Utility Week and Bee articles no longer are online, but copies of them are in this document.)

Looking into the ALRB

One case involving the UFW now before the board concerns the farm employees of Gerawan Farming, one of the Central Valley’s largest growers of peaches, plums, nectarines and grapes. As I have reported in a series of articles, the workers have been fighting off unionization by the UFW.

Briefly, the Gerawan Farming workers have spent months protesting the UFW takeover attempt. The UFW has maintained that a unionization vote by the workers more than 20 years ago still is binding, and the workers must begin paying union dues.

The farm workers, led by farm worker Silvia Lopez, have insisted that the union has done nothing at all for more than two decades. Lopez personally led a petition drive for a decertification vote.

In response, the ALRB charged the company, Gerawan Farming, with circulating the petition among its employees. However, Lopez and other employees insist that they, not Gerawan, circulated the petitions. Based in part on the publicity from my articles, the ALRB conceded and granted the farm workers the right to vote on the union contract.

Considering Shiroma’s background and the controversies before the ALRB, I emailed her some questions. She graciously replied.

Q & A

Here is my inquiry to Shiroma, with the verbatim questions and answers:

“I am submitting the following questions and will follow up with a phone call.

“This Los Angeles Times article (below) mentions that Fresno area farming owner Dan Gerawan filed a complaint against the Board for members having accepted outside income when the law prohibits ALRB board members from receiving outside income.

“http://articles.latimes.com/2004/nov/11/local/me-boards11/2

“Though the primary target of the complaint appeared to be Board Member Daniel Zingale, the article mentions that you were also receiving outside income.

“The LATimes said: ‘Gerawan said he has his own attorney general’s opinion affirming the constitutionality of a ban on board members working at outside jobs. He is using that opinion in pursuing his case against Zingale. Zingale is not the only Agricultural Labor Relations Board member with outside employment. Bustamante works as a public relations consultant, and Shiroma is an elected member of the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District.’

“I have these questions:

Q 1: “Were you in fact receiving income outside of your ALRB position at that time? If so, please describe the type and amount of income.
”

Shiroma: “No, I have not and do not receive outside income since first being appointed to the Board in 1999.”

Q 2: “If so, did you stop receiving that income? ”

Shiroma: “See response to 1. above.”

Q 3: “And, if so, did you stop receiving that income subsequent to Dan Gerawan’s complaint?
”

Shiroma: “See response to 1. above.”

Q 4: “Finally, do you feel that Gerawan’s complaint, and its impact on ALRB board members, could in any way prejudice a member about matters related to Gerawan or its employees?

Shiroma: “No.”

Q 5: “Also, in these Board minutes

http://www.alrb.ca.gov/content/pdfs/meetings/minutes/2005/minutes050405.pdf

you and current board member Cathryn Rivera-Hernande voted to allow up to $50,000 to be spent for the legal defense of Board Member Zingale for having accepted outside income, in violation of state law (which both he, the Attorney General, and the governor admitted he was doing).

“In hindsight, as the Chairwoman of ALRB, then and currently, do you feel this was a proper expenditure of public funds?”

Shiroma: “Yes. Government Code 995 provides that, upon the request of an employee or former employee, a public entity shall(emphasis added) provide for the defense of any civil action or proceeding brought against him, in his official or individual capacity or both, on account of an act or omission in the scope of his employment as an employee of the public entity.”

Q 6: “Shouldn’t Zingale have paid for this himself?”

Shiroma: “See above.”

Q 7: “Finally, given that Dan Gerawan indirectly caused this expenditure approved by you and Board Member Rivera-Hernandez, do you still feel that the ALRB of Directors can act without bias in matters related to Gerawan?”

Shiroma: “Yes.”

————-

Update: Shiroma’s positions on AB 32 and Proposition 23 are reported here.

Two election bills caused a stir in the Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee last week. The first, SB 27, I covered in Part 1 of this series.

Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo

A second bill concerns the use of taxpayer funds for political campaigns, which already is banned by law. But SB 594 is clearly aimed at certain quasi-government organizations which may have found ways to slip around the law by using nonprofit organizations to do their campaigning for them.

The bill, by Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, now seeks to limit nonprofits’ use of public funds to support ballot measures. But the bill language has not been updated online.

At the Elections Committee hearing Aug. 13, Mike McGowan, currently a Yolo County Supervisor, pointed out Hill’s bill specifically exempted the education community from lobbying activities under scrutiny. He also is the former head of the California State Association of Counties, one of the bill’s targeted organizations.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks, said he appreciated the spirit of the bill, but was concerned with the educational exemption, even with Hill’s assurance of an amendment.

Sen. Hill was quick to acknowledge this exemption and assured the committee he would accept amendments to the bill to include in the ban the politically active educational community, including the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers.

Whom is the bill targeting?

The other major target of the bill is the League of California Cities, whose mission is to expand and protect local control for cities through education and advocacy. So it opposes SB 594. Since taking office in 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown has already taken a significant amount of local tax money for his budget, claiming it was needed to shore up the state’s budget deficit.

The league challenged the state legally over the dismantling of redevelopment agencies, which shifted $1.5 billion a year from the cities to the state. But the league lost in court. And the league has raised money to support ballot measures to protect municipal funds from another state take-away.

Through CITIPAC, the league’s political action committee, the league actively campaigns for ballot measures and other issues relevant to the interest of California cities.

Dan Carrigg, legislative director for the league, sent a letter to Hill expressing the League’s displeasure with SB 594. “According to the analysis … you allege that nonprofit organizations such as ours are co-mingling public and private resources and ‘using the co-mingled funds for campaign activity.’ … the analysis asserts you indicate there is a ‘credible reason to believe that nonprofit organizations are making campaign expenditures from accounts that are financed in whole or in part with public dollars. We completely reject this allegation.”

At the hearing, Carrigg said the league “has scrupulously adhered to all legal requirements associated with ballot campaign activity” and that it “regularly advises its members on the scope of the existing use of public funds prohibition.”

On its website, the League said, “The bill’s author, Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo), claims SB 594 seeks transparency, when in reality it is an end-run effort to target organizations from expressing their policy positions on statewide ballot measures.

“SB 594 creates a new mechanism to punish local government organizations for representing its members in the political process. SB 594 is based on unfounded allegations that nonprofit organizations are ‘co-mingling’ public and private resources.”

Donnelly said, “For SB 594 by Jerry Hill, the only attempt to curtail the illegal use of public funds for campaigning, ironically exempted the use of schools and school personnel. That is until he agreed to take my amendment to include them in Assembly elections committee this week.”

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, California Common Cause, Alliance for Justice and Californians for Clean Campaigns support SB 594.

By Katy Grimes

Anyone who still believes that there isn’t monkey business in politics needs only to look at the most recent election and a significant legal ruling handed down on Friday regarding Proposition 30. While it may seem too little, too late, this ruling does matter.

The California State Court of Appeals found that Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Legislature manipulated the ballot process, maneuvering Prop. 30 to land at the top of the ballot, above all of the other ballot measures. Prop. 30 increased taxes $6 billion a year.

I talked with Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association about this decision, and what impacts it will have on the legislative process, as well as budget bills.

Last July, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of AB 1499, a bill rammed through the Legislature at warp speed under the protective cover of a “budget bill.”

AB 1499 cleared the way for Brown’s tax increase initiative, Prop. 30, to receive the number one placement on the November ballot. The bill altered the California statute regarding how ballot measures are placed on the ballot.

Brown was not only desperate to get his tax increase measure on the ballot, he needed it to stand out in the crowded field of ballot initiatives.

Because the budget now only needs a simple majority vote to pass, Democrats created the bill language, and then dropped it into a “spot” budget bill. If the bill had any language about tax increases, it would have needed a two-thirds majority vote by the Legislature.

The “spot” bill, an empty bill awaiting language, was shoved through the Legislature with such force, it passed in only two days. There were no committee hearings or public vetting.

And that was the crux of the Court of Appeals ruling.

According to Coupal, “The second issue in the case has huge significance for taxpayers because of the potential for the tax-and-spend politicians to bypass other constitutional restraints related to the budget process.”

In 2010 Proposition 25 was passed, after being sold to voters as a way to end the annual budget deadlock. It changed the historical two-thirds vote requirement to only a simple majority vote to pass a budget.

“Seeking to use the language of Prop. 25, the Legislature slapped a token $1,000 appropriation in AB 1499 and then subsequently argued that bill only needed a simple majority vote,” Coupal wrote in the Flash Report Tuesday. “Without this scheme, AB 1499 would not have become effective until January 1, 2013, way too late to give Gov. Brown the political advantage he was seeking.”

But the Legislature’s ruse of a spot bill was easily spotted by the appeals court, which declared it illegal:

“The narrow, but potentially recurring and important, question we address in these writ proceedings is whether the California Constitution, as amended by the voters in 2010, allows the Legislature to identify blank bills with an assigned number but no substance (so-called “spot bills”) in the budget bill, pass the budget, and thereafter add content to the placeholder and approve it by a majority vote as urgency legislation. (Cal. Const., art. IV, § 12, subds. (d) & (e).) We conclude that spot bills which remain empty of content at the time the budget is passed are not bills that can be identified within the meaning of article IV, section 12, subdivision (e)(2) of the California Constitution and enacted as urgency legislation by a mere majority vote.” (emphasis added).

In its ruling, the Court held that the legislation which put Prop. 30 on the top of the ballot was unconstitutional.

“It doesn’t matter now, with the election over,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported. But it does matter.

According to Coupal, the next bill that lawmakers try to ramrod through the Legislature under the auspices of a “budget bill,” and without proper vetting, will be taken right back to court. “We will wait until they do a gut-and-amend, and take them back to court,” Coupal said. “This may not resolve Prop. 30. But the Legislature cannot simply add content to an empty ‘spot bill’ as a means to avoid the two-thirds vote requirement.”

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association v. Bowen and the Court’s decision can be found here: http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/C071506.PDF.