On February 21, the California Appeals Court, 3rd district, will hear oral arguments in Fuller v Bowen, in Sacramento. This is the case over whether the California Constitutional provision, requiring candidates for legislature to have lived in their district for a year before running, should be enforced. The one-year residency requirement has been in the California Constitution since 1879. However, in 1975, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State decided not to enforce it, because, as they said, they believed that provision violates the U.S. Constitution.
However, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1975 summarily affirmed a decision of a 3-judge court, upholding a 7-year residency within the state of New Hampshire for candidates for State Senate. Also, last year, the Third Circuit removed Carl Lewis, the Democratic nominee for State Senate in New Jersey, from the general election ballot because he had not lived in New Jersey for four years. And in 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that candidacy is not a fundamental right, in a Texas case called Clements v Fashing.
Fuller v Bowen was filed by a Republican legislative candidate, Heidi Fuller. She met the residency requirement and she had filed the lawsuit to force the Secretary of State to remove one of her opponents, who, everyone agreed, had not met the residency requirement. Although the 2010 election is over, lawsuits like this are not moot.
Again – each State is a sovereign NATION-STATE with ITS political stuff — as long as it has an Art. IV, Sec. 4 Republican Form of Government.
Check your 1787 politics dictionaries.
The California Constitution says that each House of the legislature “shall judge the qualifications and elections of its Members”.
When the California Supreme Court considered the issue of legislative residency (within the state, not a district) they slapped down a lower court for interfering with the authority of the legislature.
And when they eliminate residency requirements for local elections, they were quite aware of the New Hampshire case; but noted that local residency requirements were not part of the California Constitution, but mere statutes.
The AG and SOS (Jerry Brown) said (1) that district residency qualifications for the legislative were not a matter for the SOS to determine; and even if they were, (2) they were not constitutional.
The goofy district court ruled that they were wrong about (1), that the legislature had implicitly delegated the authority to rule on the qualifications of primary candidates by requiring the voter’s pamphlet to contain accurate information. There is no authority for the legislature to delegate that authority to the SOS.
In effect, the district court said the SOS can’t determine the qualifications of candidates, but the SOS may not print information that would imply that a candidate is qualified if you know they aren’t.
#2, the lower court in this lawsuit disagrees with you. The Superior Court ruled that the Court, not the legislature, has jurisdiction on qualifications for candidates running in a primary. Furthermore, the state did not appeal that part of the Superior Court’s ruling.
Legislative bodies ruling on qualifications of their members dates from the attempts of the EVIL Brit monarchs to control who got elected to the Brit House of Commons — esp. in about 1400 to about 1700.
One more LONG struggle in the Brit Dark Age regime.
Any impeachments for the CA Courts involved ???
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USA Const Art. I, Sec. 5 part —
Each House [of the Congress] shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members ***
An EXCEPTION to Art. III, Sec. 2.