Since 1879, California’s Constitution has required candidates for the legislature to have lived in their district for at least one year before the election. Yet the California Secretary of State and Attorney General have not enforced this Constitutional provision since the mid-1970’s. They say the California Constitution violates the U.S. Constitution.
However, case law does not support the idea that duration of residency requirements for candidates (for office other than Congress) as short as one year violate the U.S. Constitution. Heidi Fuller, a candidate for the California legislature in 2010, filed a lawsuit a year ago to enforce the California Constitution. She had an opponent in the Republican primary for State Senate, Tom Berryhill, who unambiguously did not fulfill the requirement. A Superior Court Judge agreed that she had standing, and that the court had jurisdiction to hear her case, but he ruled that the California Constitutional requirement violates the U.S. Constitution. For almost a year, the California press has ignored the Fuller lawsuit. However, on January 27, Capitol Weekly carried this story about her lawsuit. The article points out that in all the pleadings filed in the Rahm Emanuel lawsuit over whether he meets the Chicago one-year duration of residency requirement, no one on either side has even hinted that the Chicago one-year rule violates the U.S. Constitution. That’s because the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that duration of residency requirements for candidates do not violate the U.S. Constitution, something that California officials have refused to acknowledge. The Fuller lawsuit is pending in the State Court of Appeals in Sacramento. It is Fuller v Bowen, C065237. Briefs are being filed.
When the California Supreme Court made their rulings with respect to durational residency requirements for municipal offices, they were aware of the New Hampshire case, and said that their decision only applied to municipal elections.
And in an earlier case that had dealt with whether a candidate had met the residency requirement for the legislature, they had vacated the lower court proceedings, saying that the qualifications of members was solely for the respective house of the legislature to determine – and even if the legislature wanted to delegate that authority through statute to the judiciary or the executive, they could not.
The AG/SOS ruling is based on two parts: (1) That they don’t have the authority to enforce legislative qualifications; and (2) that they violate the US Constitution.
The Superior Court in effect overruled the first part of the opinion, and ignored a California Supreme Court decision in the matter; and then made a determination that the 2nd part of the opinion was valid, despite no backing by the California Supreme Court.
Hopefully, the California Supreme Court will eventually get the case and rule that the superior court did not have jurisdiction to consider the case. Fuller should take her case to the California Senate.
Gee – Candidate / incumbent Qualifications — one more weapon in the gerrymander WARS to control each regime — esp. the bankrupt CA regime.
Where do New Age judges get their legal training – out of a New Age Ipod or similiar device — or an empty New Age Cracker Jack box ???
Who is Blackstone, who is Kent, who is Cooley ? — beats me.
Quick — do a google search.
Add Story — as in Justice Story to the big 3 list.
The case is in Sacramento (3rd Court of Appeals), not Fresno. The Superior Court was in Sacramento as well.
Fuller is suing the Secretary of State (either to stop her from distributing the candidate’s names, or keep her from printing Berryhill’s name in the voter’s pamphlet.
#4, Thank you, Jim. I’ll fix the post.
Jim Riley
Is not the State Printer a necessary party?
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg,
Vice Chairman, American Independent Party
#6 I think the California Senate is a necessary party.