Prop 49 off the November ballot list

Voters+won%E2%80%99t+get+a+chance+to+vote+on+Prop+49.

Flickr | Danny Howard

Voters won’t get a chance to vote on Prop 49.

Tyler Dragoni,
Politics Editor

The California State Supreme Court has ruled that the ballot box is not an appropriate venue for suggestions or declarative comments from California voters.

Proposition 49, which would have appeared in the coming Nov. 2 election, sought to ask voters whether the United States Congress and the California State Legislature should ratify a U.S. Constitutional amendment that would overturn the controversial 2010 United States Supreme Court Citizens United ruling.

The 2010 Citizens United ruling states that restrictions on political advertising and campaign donations are unconstitutional. “When government seeks…power… to command where a person may get his or her information…it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful.” The raling read, “The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.”

Since the 2010 ruling, 16 state legislatures around the country have passed resolutions “supporting to amend the U.S. Constitution,” according to the organization Free Speech for People.

According to the LA Times, Proposition 49 was ordered off the California November ballot. On Sept. 10 the high court justices scheduled a hearing to further examine the merits of a lawsuit brought against Debra Bowen, California’s Secretary of State, by the Howard Jarvis Tax Payers Association.

Sen. Ted Lieu, who authored the text of the state legislature-sponsored initiative, said he believes the proposition will make the 2016 ballot, but not this year.

California, among 15 other states, has already passed a resolution calling for the overturning of the Citizens United ruling through their state legislatures, but only two other states, Montana and Colorado, have been successful in opting to use the process of direct democracy in urging the U.S. Congress to overturn Citizens united, according to Free Speech for People.

“I think the CA Supreme Court was correct in their decision, the initiative process is just that – for state initiatives,” said Elizabeth Bergman, Ph.D., who specializes in voting and California politics at California State University, East Bay’s political science department. “The initiative process is not for gathering public opinion. The rule of law and governing are not about popular opinion, and whether we like things or not.”

Bergman explained that the citizens of California must elect lawmakers, or go through the initiative process, to change something they don’t like within the state, but California voters have no sway nationally. “Citizens United is about federal campaign finance law, and we in [California] can’t do anything about federal law. As such, even if it was on the ballot and it passed, it’s a non-binding measure, which means it’s useless.”

The “non-binding” aspect of Proposition 49 could be its fatal flaw as the California Constitution does not give California citizens the right to demand national politicians to act on a certain issue but conversely gives people the right to construct their own laws for the state through direct democracy.

The initiative process was instituted in California in 1911 during the Progressive Era at a time when state politics was thought by many to be controlled by large corporations, most namely,the railroads.

Although the ‘non binding’ aspect has not stopped Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose or Santa Cruz’s city councils from passing local ordinances calling for an amendment to the US Constitution, according to website United For The People.

“What a silly initiative!…What kind of sense does that make? States cannot censure or chastise the Federal government or the Supreme Court, that’s just patently unconstitutional,” judged Bergman on the issue.