The California Supreme Court has unconstitutionally called something they don’t like a “revision,” removing it from the ballot, and preventing California voters from even voting for protection against more money grabs. More
In the face of this tyrannical attack and significant loss, don’t collapse in cynicism. Instead, fight back by sharing this post. Tell others, “If you vote for Democrat Party politicians, you’re voting for tyranny and higher taxes.”
The “Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act” would have amended the California Constitution to define all state and local levies, charges, and fees as taxes. The initiative would have also required new or increased taxes to be passed by a two-thirds legislative vote in each chamber and approved by a simple majority of voters. It would also have increased the vote requirement for local taxes proposed by local government or citizens to a two-thirds vote of the local electorate.
How would you rule on keeping or removing ballot measures already qualified by hundreds of thousands of signatures of registered voters?
See these facts:
CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE II (regarding ballot initiatives)
Section 1: All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their protection, security, and benefit, and they have the right to alter or reform it when the public good may require.
Section 8(a): The initiative is the power of the electors to propose statutes and amendments to the Constitution and to adopt or reject them.
Section 8(d): An initiative measure embracing more than one subject may not be submitted to the electors or have any effect.
Did you catch that? This is freedom for the People to qualify one-subject initiatives!
So where did a prohibition of a “revision” of the California Constitution come from?From the California Supreme Court itself, beginning in 1978. Yet now, the state high court has abandoned its respect for legal definitions and is grabbing more power.
Specifically, this Democrat-Party-dominated, 7-judge court is broadly defining “revision” to be any tough, single-subject reform, such as no money-grabs (tax increases, tax extensions, fee increases, etc.) without a majority vote of the People.
But Newsom’s activist judges are wrong. A “revision” makes changes throughout a written constitution, covering multiple subjects — which is vastly different from a single-subject initiative such as tax relief:
From the introduction of “The Revision of California’s Constitution” by Eugene C. Lee in 1991 (Lee was “a leading scholar of California state and local government and former Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley”):
By explicit language in the constitution concerning initiatives and by court interpretation with respect to measures arising in the legislature, amendments are required to be limited in scope. As far back as 1894, the California supreme court distinguished between a “revision” of the constitution and a mere” amendment” thereof (Livermore v. Waite 102 Cal. 113). As reiterated in 1978, the court held that a “revision” referred to a “substantial alteration of the entire constitution, rather than to a less extensive change in one or more of its provisions” (Amador Valley Joint Union High School District v. State Board of Equalization 22 Cal. 3d 208).
Even a grammar expert with no political reputation knows the broad difference between a revision and an amendment:
“A revision…is a more significant alteration to a document that involves a complete review and reworking of its content. It is a process of making extensive changes to a document, often with the goal of improving its overall quality or effectiveness.”
Under these definitions, The Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act was not a “revision,” but a bona fide amendment that should have been allowed on the ballot in respect for our Constitution and for jealously guarding voter rights.
For the current state constitution has hundreds of sections within 35 articles. Yet The Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act would have only amended the California Constitution in 6 sections of 4 articles (Article XIII): Section 3 of Article XIII A, Section 1 of Article XIII C, Section 2 of Article XIII C, Section 3 of Article XIII D, Sections 1 and 14 of Article XIII.
So it wasn’t a “revision” that was a “substantially alteration of the entire constitution,” but an amendment to the state constitution that only changed “one or more of its provisions.” What’s more, the Act satisfied the long-standing state high court standard of having a single-subject — taxes.
Bottom line, the California Supreme Court, comprised of 6 Democrats and 1 RINO, is unconstitutional for placing itself above the written State Constitution and yanking this constitutionally-valid taxpayer protection initiative from the ballot. They are anti-People tyrants!
The 7-member California Supreme Court has 3 nominees of Democrat Party Gov. Gavin Newsom and 3 nominees of Democrat Party Gov. Jerry Brown. Two of Newsom’s three picks were confirmed by current, corrupt, unconstitutional Attorney General Rob Bonta and two other members of the “Commission on Judicial Appointments,” so those are Bonta’s “picks” too. The sole “Republican” on the state high court is 75-year-old Carol Corrigan, a former Democrat, a self-proclaimed “moderate,” and a likely homosexual.
From the Los Angeles Times 2005: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Court of Appeal Justice Carol A. Corrigan, a moderate Republican, to the California Supreme Court on Friday in a move that is likely to shift the conservative-leaning court toward the center. In an interview before her appointment, Corrigan repeatedly described herself as a moderate and a centrist. She switched her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican in 1995 after then-Gov. Pete Wilson appointed her to the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco. “I think I would probably be a centrist anyplace I found myself,” she said. “I was a moderate Democrat, and now I am a moderate Republican…. I am moderate on virtually all things.”
Can this be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court? A federal lawsuit can be tried, but it is unlikely to succeed. But what each of us can do is tell others that voting for Democrrats = tyranny and higher taxes. Because everything about this is state jurisdiction. The only exceptions might be Article IV, Section 4 “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”) or the Fourteenth Amendment (“nor shall any State deprive any person of…property, without due process of law“). But winning at the U.S. Supreme Court is a bad bet, due to cowardly Republicans on the bench and too much “state jurisdiction” precedent to the contrary.
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So when they begin to lust for power and cannot attain it through themselves or their own good qualities, they ruin their estates, tempting and corrupting the people in every possible way. And hence when by their foolish thirst for reputation they have created among the masses an appetite for gifts and the habit of receiving them, democracy in its turn is abolished and changes into a rule of force and violence. For the people, having grown accustomed to feed at the expense of others, and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others, as soon as they find a leader who is enterprising but is excluded from the honours of office by his penury, institute the rule of violence; and now uniting their forces massacre, banish, and plunder, until they degenerate again into perfect savages and find once more a master and monarch.
Greek historian Polybius (203 BC – 120 BC) in The Histories
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