The California Supreme Court is considering limiting the voting process

The California Supreme Court Building in San Francisco. The court has until June 27 to determine whether the dissolution of the Business Council will appear on the ballot.

Seven years ago, the California Supreme Court declared broad support for voters’ historic right to legislate through initiative.

Ruling in the “Upland” case, the court said that while governments are subject to voter-approved constitutional limits on raising taxes, tax increases proposed under an initiative require only a simple majority vote to pass. However, this decision was about much more than just taxes.

Citing other cases involving the initiative process in the 5-2 decision, Associate Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar wrote: “Whether the context involves taxes or not, all of these cases highlight how courts preserve and liberally interpret statewide and local the power of public initiative. Indeed, wherever possible, we dispel doubts as to the scope of the power of initiative in its favor and narrowly interpret provisions that would burden or limit the exercise of that power.”

Since the 2017 Upland ruling, California has seen a flurry of tax increases placed on initiative ballots, many of them sponsored by public employee unions. Requiring only the approval of a simple majority, the overwhelming majority passed. In 2020, the Supreme Court clearly upheld their validity, refusing to consider appeals against them.

Inevitably, there was a backlash. The California Business Council and anti-tax groups such as the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association are sponsoring a November ballot measure that would impose or restore state constitutional restrictions on taxation. Among other things, it would overturn the Upland decision by requiring local taxes to receive two-thirds voter approval even if proposed on an initiative basis.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders are leading the opposition, asking the Supreme Court to declare the measure a constitutional revision rather than a constitutional amendment, and therefore legally cannot be proposed through the initiative process.

Essentially, the case raises the same fundamental issue as the Upland case: What, if any, limits should be placed on the use of the initiative process to make changes to the law – even the state constitution?

This issue has been raised repeatedly in various forms, most notably by Justice Goodwin Liu during oral arguments earlier this month. At one point, Liu wondered whether giving voters more power over state taxes would create a fourth branch of government.

“Doesn’t this measure essentially move us away from a republican form of government much more toward direct democracy, given how fundamental the power to tax is?” Liu asked.

The Supreme Court has until June 27 to rule whether the dissolution of the Business Council will appear on the ballot or whether it is a constitutional revision that cannot be proposed on the initiative.

However, this is not the only ongoing Supreme Court case regarding the application of the initiative procedure. Last week, the court heard oral arguments on Proposition 22, a 2020 ballot measure sponsored by Uber, Lyft and other companies intended to exempt them from Assembly Bill 5, a highly controversial 2019 state law that aimed is to strictly limit or prohibit the use of employee contracts.