Rick Hasen's web log
July 21, 2005
Breaking News: Judge Orders California Redistricting Initiative Removed from the Ballot
The judge's written order is here. A snippet:
- The procedures in question are clear and well known and easily followed. There is no good reason to put the courts in the position of having to decide what is good enough for qualifying an initiative measure for the ballot when actual compliance is easily attainable. The initiative process is to important to so broadly apply the doctrine of substantial compliance as RPI has requested. To rule otherwise would run the risk of the court inappropriately interjecting itself into the "political thicket." The court finds the purposes of the constitutional and statutory requirements at issue would be frustrated if the court were to apply the substantial compliance doctrine to excuse the clear defects in this situation.
What happens next? I expect an immediate appeal and stay, and for this to ultimately get to the California Supreme Court. This presents a pure question of law, so there won't be any deference to the decision of the lower court.
But I think the lower court has it about right, as I've indicated in this earlier post. At the very least, this blunts the earlier attack on me by the proponents' lawyers. Responding to my analysis, James Sweeney wrote: "“Come on, Rick, you cannot be serious! Surely, you know that the reapportionment initiative and its preparation will ultimately be found to satisfy the 'substantial compliance' doctrine, and the voters will have their opportunity to decide whether the initiative will succeed." UPDATE: A.P.'s story is here.
Update 2: I think I was a bit hasty in writing that the appellate review will be de novo. In fact, the court did make some factual findings about what the initiative proponents' knew and when they knew it that could be potentially relevant on appeal. For more on this see this post by Dan Lowenstein (who is involved with the case on the side of the measure's opponents) and this post at the Southern California law blog. Factual findings are subject to a more deferential standard of review, making it even more likely that the judge's ruling gets upheld on appeal.