This oped of mine ran in today’s Los Angeles Times. Here is the subhead: “The courts shouldn’t stop voters from deciding if they want City Hall ethics reform tied to easing term limits.”
The oped argues that the courts should not remove the Los Angeles Measure R from the ballot on single subject grounds. Most of the oped argues against single subject rules generally on policy grounds. But I also make the claim that the legal argument for applying the single subject rule against Measure R is “convoluted.”
For those who want more detail on my claim that the single subject argument against Measure R is convoluted, let me give a brief explanation. The LA City Charter does not impose a single subject requirement either on measures put before voters initiated by voters or measures put on by the city council. The charter does say that the rules in the state constitution are incorporated into the city charter. The constitution has some rules for city ballot measure elections, but no single subject rule. The constitution also has a no single subject rule for state initiatives (but the opponents of Measure R concede that voter initiatives in the city of Los Angeles are not subject to a single subject rule). So best as I can tell from the legal arguments, the claims relies on the provision of the California Constitution expressly prohibiting the state legislature from proposing to voters more than one constitutional amendment in a single ballot measure. This is the so-called “separate vote requirement” applicable to state constitutional amendments proposed by the legislature. In the recent Open Primary case [disclosure: I was a consultant for the winning party in that case], the California Supreme Court ruled that this so-called “separate vote” requirement is the same as a single subject requirement. The opponents of Measure R appear to argue that this “separate vote” requirement applies by implication to measures proposed by the LA City Council to LA voters.
There are two problems with this argument. First the “separate vote” requirement by its terms applies only to the state legislature, not to city councils. Second, Measure R proposes only one amendment to the city charter. The rest are city ordinances. The opponents rely on some dicta in a Court of Appeal case, and that’s about all they have. That’s why I say the single subject argument against the measure is convoluted.
A judge will hear the single subject challenge on Wednesday.