Bowen Supports Lockyer Suit to Nix Prop 77

Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed suit today seeking to remove Proposition 77, Governor Schwarzenegger’s initiative to change how redistricting is done in California, from the November ballot, arguing the signatures on the initiative petitions are invalid.

The Attorney General reached that conclusion based on the fact the text of the initiative the backers used to gather signatures from voters was different from the text of the initiative his office reviewed, composed the title and summary for, and approved for circulation.

Under current law, before an initiative proposal can be circulated among voters for their signatures, the text of the proposal has to be submitted to the Attorney General, who then prepares an official “title and summary” of the measure up to 100 words. The Attorney General, after receiving the final version of the initiative proposal and preparing the title and summary, has 15 days to submit it to the Secretary of State. During that 15-day period, the initiative proponents are free to submit amendments to the Attorney General for incorporation into the initiative. If those amendments are significant, then the 15-day clock is restarted, but all amendments – without exception – must be submitted to the Attorney General before any initiative proposal can be circulated to the voters. County elections officials – who are responsible for verifying the signatures on initiative petitions – aren’t allowed to accept any petitions that don’t comply with this law. The full text of those relevant laws can be found below.

Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach), the chairwoman of the Senate Elections, Reapportionment & Constitutional Amendments Committee, made the following statements in support of Lockyer's decision:

• “The law on this is crystal clear and ‘close’ just doesn’t cut it. The law requires the initiative petition that’s circulated for voters to sign to be identical to – not close to, not almost the same as, but identical to – the petition the Attorney General approved for circulation.
  
  
• “There are substantive differences between the two versions, but whether the differences are substantive or whether voters would have signed the petition even if the proponents used the one approved by the Attorney General is irrelevant. The law requires them to be identical, but here, there are at least a dozen differences between the two petitions, so I don’t see how a judge can allow it to go on the ballot.
  
  
• “The Secretary of State is correct that he has a duty to put qualified measures before the voters on November 8th, but the point here is this initiative isn’t qualified to be on the ballot. The proponents didn’t gather a single signature on the initiative the Attorney General approved for circulation, and the initiative they did gather signatures on was never approved for circulation by the Attorney General.
  
  
• (In response to the argument that the two version of the initiative are substantively the same and voters would have signed the petition anyway had the approved version been placed before them). “That’s a Pandora’s box I don’t think anyone wants to open because it’s an invitation for every initiative proponent to abuse the process. If you think the initiative process is out of control now, just wait and see what happens if the courts start allowing initiative proponents to unilaterally make changes to their measure after the Attorney General has reviewed and approved it.
  
  
  
• “This isn’t a mom-and-pop outfit being run on a shoe string budget we’re talking about here; it’s a multi-million dollar operation with a full time professional staff. If they can afford to spend millions of dollars to pay people to gather signatures, it shouldn’t be too much to ask that they follow the law and circulate for signature the same measure approved for circulation by the Attorney General.”
  
  

The following information about the California Elections Code was provided by Bowen's office:

Elections Code Section 9002. Prior to the circulation of any initiative or referendum petition for signatures, a draft of the proposed measure shall be submitted to the Attorney General with a written request that a title and summary of the chief purpose and points of the proposed measure be prepared. The title and summary shall not exceed a total of 100 words.

Elections Code Section 9004. Upon receipt of a draft of a petition, the Attorney General shall prepare a summary of the chief purposes and points of the proposed measure. The summary shall be prepared in the manner provided for the preparation of ballot titles in Article 5 (commencing with Section 9050), the provisions of which in regard to the preparation, filing, and settlement of titles and summaries are hereby made applicable to the summary. The Attorney General shall provide a copy of the title and summary to the Secretary of State within 15 days after receipt of the final version of a proposed initiative measure, or if a fiscal estimate or opinion is to be included, within 15 days after receipt of the fiscal estimate or opinion prepared by the Department of Finance and the Joint Legislative Budget Committee pursuant to Section 9005. If during the 15-day period, the proponents of the proposed initiative measure submit amendments, other than technical, nonsubstantive amendments, to the final version of the measure, the Attorney General shall provide a copy of the title and summary to the Secretary of State within 15 days after receipt of the amendments. The proponents of any initiative measure, at the time of submitting the draft of the measure to the Attorney General, shall pay a fee of two hundred dollars ($200), which shall be placed in a trust fund in the office of the Treasurer and refunded to the proponents if the measure qualifies for the ballot within two years from the date the summary is furnished to the proponents. If the measure does not qualify within that period, the fee shall be immediately paid into the General Fund of the state.

Elections Code Section 9012. Officers required by law to receive or file in their offices any initiative or referendum petition shall not receive or file any initiative or referendum petition not in conformity with this article.