On March 1, the California State Court of Appeal issued a ruling in Fuller v Bowen, C065237. The decision refuses to decide if the California Constitutional provision, requiring candidates for the legislature to have lived in their district for at least one year before running, violates the U.S. Constitution.
The decision says the court will not reach that issue, because courts don’t have jurisdiction to determine if legislative candidates meet the constitutional requirements. Only the legislature can do that. The decision does not mention the recent decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court that held courts do have jurisdiction in such cases. See this news story about the decision.
See the long struggle in England to make the Parliament independent of the monarchy – and the appointed robot party hack judges of the monarchy.
HOWEVER – with *modern* separation of powers thinking, the robot party hacks in a legislature should NOT be ruling on qualifications of winners — i.e. obvious party hack incentive to pack the body with more robots of the gang in control.
The New Jersey Supreme Court does not have authority to interpret the California Constitution, nor vice versa. Moreover, a California Court of Appeal must have pretty strong reason to overturn previous related opinions by the California Supreme Court.
The Court of Appeal did reject the specious argument that Berryhill was not a “member” of the Senate for purposes of determining if he was qualified.
One wonders why someone who doesn’t appear to believe in separation of powers would want to become a member of the legislature.
#2, under the logic of the decision, the California residency requirement (not duration of residency requirement, but the requirement that a candidate live in the district on the day he or she files) is also wiped out. And the age requirement is wiped out.
The decision says no one but the legislature can say, “hey, you can’t run because you don’t meet the qualfications.” Neither a court, nor an executive officer of the government, can judge qualifications. So anyone can run. The Court of Appeals didn’t think this through. Rick Hasen of ElectionLawBlog thinks it is likely the Cal. Supreme Court will take an interest in this case.
#3 Back before there were government-printed ballots, there was no way to screen candidates before the election. The elections officials would count the votes and hand a piece of paper to the apparent winner.
The loser could then go to the legislature and claim that the election results were flawed, or the other candidate was not qualified.
The determination that US representatives don’t have to live in their district; nor in their state until the day of election was made by the House of Representatives after elections were contested.
If Berryhill filed a fraudulent application that he was qualified, he could be prosecuted for that.