CONSTITUTION REVISION HISTORY AND PERSPECTIVE The California Constitution Revision Commission 1996 The California Constitution Revision Commission is no longer in existence. Further information on the report of the commission can be found on the world wide web on the California Home Page at www.ca.gov. For future activity on the commission's recommendations, contact the Forum on Government Reform, P.O. Box 22550, Sacramento, CA 95822. The cover includes a representation of the first California Constitution, adopted in 1849. The back of the report are the signatures of some of those who signed the Constitution at the first constitution convention. CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION REVISION COMMISSION CONSTITUTION REVISION HISTORY AND PERSPECTIVE The purpose of this report is to provide historical perspective to the work and recommendations of the Commission. In most cases the issues studied by the Commission are identified and historical analysis is provided. The primary contributors to this work were Pat Ooley, graduate student of Public History at the University of California at Santa Barbara and Amanda Meeker, graduate student at California State University, Sacramento. As archive researchers for the Secretary of State's California State Archives, they made a substantial contribution to the understanding of the history of the many issues faced by the Commission. Their work was greatly appreciated. Two additional papers have been included: one deals with the fiscal system and the major changes that took place in 1933 and the other deals with the troubled history of the place of cities in California government structure. 1996 Page iii THE CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION REVISION COMMISSION MEMBERSHIP * William Hauck, Chairman Donald Benninghoven, Vice Chairman Larry Arnn Kamala Harris George Babikian Alan Heslop Anne Bakar Elizabeth Hill Andrew Baron Gary Hunt Craig Brown Assemblyman Phil Isenberg Elizabeth Cabraser Senator Lucy Killea Patricia Castillo Senator Bill Leonard Betty Tom Chu Jane Pisano Lewis Coleman Richard Rider Edward Erler Judge Ronald Robie Joel Fox Dr. Chui Tsang Steve Frates Judge Roger Warren Russell Gould Leon Williams COMMISSION STAFF Fred Silva Ellen Moratti Executive Secretary Deputy Executive Secretary Executive Assistants Student Assistant Kelly Zavis Kirk Clark Dede Lind Office Assistant Cindy Dominguiz * The membership list includes all members who served on the Commission. Page v Table of Contents Page State Governance An Overview of the History of Constitutional Provisions Dealing with State Governance ............................................................................................................................... 3 Executive Branch ....................................................................................................................................... 11 Legislative Branch ..................................................................................................................................... 21 The Initiative Process ................................................................................................................................ 35 State Budget and Fiscal Provisions An Overview of the Early Years of the Budget Process ..................................................................... 47 Reform During Crisis: The Transformation of California's Fiscal System During the Great Depression .......................................................................................................... 57 K±12 Education An Overview of the History of Constitutional Provisions Dealing with K±12 Education ................................................................................................................................ 79 Local Government An Overview of the History of Constitutional Provisions Dealing with Local Government ............................................................................................................................. 87 Creatures of State...Children of Trade: The Legal Origins of California Cities ................................................................................................................................. 97 Page vii ∆ STATE GOVERNANCE An Overview of the History of Constitutional Provisions Dealing with State Governance Executive Branch Legislative Branch The Initiative Process ∆ STATE GOVERNANCE by Pat Ooley An Overview of the History of Constitutional Provisions Dealing with State Governance Although California's constitution has established laws of an acquired province must undergone wholesale revision and amendment remain in force until superseded by a formally since its inception in 1849, the work of the enacted state government. The time-tested original framers remains imprinted in the systems of locally governing alcaldes and organic law of the state. Responding to the out-of-court arbitration of disputes had been urgencies of their time, the elected delegates successfully applied in Alta California since the who revised the constitution in 1879 expanded Spanish administration. But what had the document, adding nine new articles and functioned as government for a sparsely some 8,000 words. Between 1966 and 1974, populated territory of Mexico's far northern California voters authorized significant frontier amounted to anarchy for the litigious, constitutional revisions recommended by the land-hungry Americans who were continuously Constitution Revision Commission and arriving in gold-rush California. By the summer proposed by the legislature. Since the of 1849, the situation had become critical.2 introduction of the popular initiative in 1911, California voters have approved over 425 President of the United States Zachary Taylor amendments to the 1879 constitution. After suggested a solution for California: frame a significant revision and substantial amendment, constitution and petition Congress directly for and notwithstanding the inclusion of popular immediate statehood when it next convened. legislation, the fundamental organization of That is what California did. In just nine months state government provided for in (June 1849 to March 1850), Californians elected 1849Ðexecutive, legislative, and judicial delegates to a constitutional convention; framed, division of powersÐremains intact. The distributed, and ratified a constitution; and purpose of this essay is to trace the elected a first legislature, which then elected development of sections of the Executive, two Senators to Congress. With constitutions in Legislative and Initiative articles of the state hand, Senators William M. Gwin and John C. constitution to their historic beginnings in Fremont, along with two popularly elected California, hopefully revealing in the process Representatives, petitioned Congress for the intent of both framers and revisionists.1 statehood.3 The forty-eight men who met in Monterey in Although the Congressional debate over September of 1849 framed a constitution for California's entrance as a free state edged the California in just forty-three days. They were in country closer to civil war and secured a hurry. Congress, embroiled and divided over statehood only through sectionalist compromise slave versus free soil, had repeatedly failed to (Compromise of September 9, 1850), California grant California territorial status. Californians, had at last acquired a constitutional unable to organize a constitutional government government. As provided in Section Six of without such authorization, were living under Article XIII, the constitution would become the the laws existing in California at the time of the organic law of the state when popularly ratified. American annexationÐa frontier application of By November 13, 1849, California voters had Mexican civil law. International law, and the ratified the constitution and installed their first United States Supreme Court, held that the elected Governor, Lieutenant Governor, State Governance Ð Page 3 ∆ Legislature, and members of the House of capitalists, such as the ``Big Four'' owners of the Representatives.4 Southern Pacific Railroad in California, determined economic policy. A new corporate Aware of the urgency to get the ratified order had emerged for America, with significant document before Congress in time for its next social and political implications. Capitalist and session, but equally aware of the significance of industrialist expansion produced a large their responsibility to their constituents and to laboring class concurrently with a class of posterity, the 1849 framers worked rapidly and opulent wealth. The depression of 1873±78 diligently. Their principal reference, besides reduced many laborers to poverty. 7 their individual political and legal expertise, was a ``book of constitutions'' containing the Holding to the doctrine that governments ruled constitutions of the thirty United States and the by the consent of the governed, and that people federal constitution. Drawing primarily from the instituted governments for their own benefit, constitutions of Iowa and New York, and citizens looked to government for remedy. But secondarily from the constitutions of Louisiana, people increasingly perceived both federal and Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas, and Mississippi, the local government as corrupt and indecisiveÐthe delegates assembled a new treatise that reflected pawn of corporations and private interests both contemporary political thought and the whose unchecked speculations had triggered the proven practices of other states with similar financial crash