BILL NUMBER: SB 254 AMENDED
BILL TEXT
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 14, 2016
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MARCH 3, 2016
AMENDED IN SENATE JUNE 2, 2015
AMENDED IN SENATE APRIL 22, 2015
INTRODUCED BY Senators Allen and Leno
(Principal coauthors: Senators Hancock, Jackson, Monning,
and Wieckowski)
( Coauthors: Assembly Members
Bloom and Dababneh )
FEBRUARY 18, 2015
An act to submit an advisory question to the
voters a voter instruction relating to campaign finance,
calling an election, to take effect immediately.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 254, as amended, Allen. Campaign finance: advisory
election. voter instruction.
This bill would call a special election to be consolidated with
the November 8, 2016, statewide general election. The bill would
require the Secretary of State to submit to the voters at the
November 8, 2016, consolidated election an advisory question
asking whether the Congress of the United States should propose, and
the California Legislature should ratify, an amendment or amendments
to the United States Constitution a voter instruction
asking whether California's elected officials should use all of
their constitutional authority, including proposing and
ratifying one or more amendments to the United States
Constitution, to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission (2010) 558 U.S. 310, and other applicable judicial
precedents, as specified. The bill would require the Secretary of
State to communicate the results of this election to the Congress of
the United States. The bill would require the Secretary of
State, if prohibited by court order from submitting the voter
instruction to the voters at the November 8, 2016, statewide general
election, as specified, to submit the voter instruction t
o the voters at the next occurring election.
This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as
an act calling an election.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: no.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. This act shall be known and may be cited as the
Overturn Citizens United Act.
SEC. 2. The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) The United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights are
intended to protect the rights of individual human beings.
(b) Corporations are not mentioned in the United States
Constitution and the people have never granted constitutional rights
to corporations, nor have we decreed that corporations have authority
that exceeds the authority of "We the People."
(c) In Connecticut General Life Insurance Company v. Johnson
(1938) 303 U.S. 77, United States Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black
stated in his dissent, "I do not believe the word 'person' in the
Fourteenth Amendment includes corporations."
(d) In Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) 494 U.S. 652,
the United States Supreme Court recognized the threat to a
republican form of government posed by "the corrosive and distorting
effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with
the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation
to the public's support for the corporation's political ideas."
(e) In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) 558
U.S. 310, the United States Supreme Court struck down limits on
electioneering communications that were upheld in McConnell v.
Federal Election Commission (2003) 540 U.S. 93 and Austin v. Michigan
Chamber of Commerce. This decision presents a serious threat to
self-government by rolling back previous bans on corporate spending
in the electoral process and allows unlimited corporate spending to
influence elections, candidate selection, policy decisions, and
public debate.
(f) In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Justices
John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia
Sotomayor noted in their dissent that corporations have special
advantages not enjoyed by natural persons, such as limited liability,
perpetual life, and favorable treatment of the accumulation and
distribution of assets, that allow them to spend huge sums on
campaign messages that have little or no correlation with the beliefs
held by natural persons.
(g) Corporations have used the artificial rights bestowed on them
by the courts to overturn democratically enacted laws that municipal,
state, and federal governments passed to curb corporate abuses,
thereby impairing local governments' ability to protect their
citizens against corporate harms to the environment, consumers,
workers, independent businesses, and local and regional economies.
(h) In Buckley v. Valeo (1976) 424 U.S. 1, the United States
Supreme Court held that the appearance of corruption justified some
contribution limitations, but it wrongly rejected other fundamental
interests that the citizens of California find compelling, such as
creating a level playing field and ensuring that all citizens,
regardless of wealth, have an opportunity to have their political
views heard.
(i) In First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) 435 U.S.
765 and Citizens Against Rent Control/Coalition for Fair Housing v.
City of Berkeley (1981) 454 U.S. 290, the United States
Supreme Court rejected limits on contributions to ballot measure
campaigns because it concluded that these contributions posed no
threat of candidate corruption.
(j) In Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC (2000) 528 U.S.
377, United States Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens observed
in his concurrence that "money is property; it is not speech."
(k) A February 2010 Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 80
percent of Americans oppose the ruling in Citizens United.
(l) Article V of the United States Constitution empowers and
obligates the people of the United States of America to use the
constitutional amendment process to correct those egregiously wrong
decisions of the United States Supreme Court that go to the heart of
our democracy and the republican form of self-government.
(m) Article I of the California Constitution guarantees the right
of the people to instruct their representatives, petition government
for redress of grievances, and assemble freely to consult for the
common good.
(m)
(n) The people of California and of the United States
have previously used ballot measures as a way of instructing their
elected representatives about the express actions they want to see
them take on their behalf, including provisions to amend the United
States Constitution.
(o) California's United States Senators and Representatives would
benefit from having instructions from California voters about the
United States Supreme Court's ruling in Citizen's United and other
judicial precedents in taking congressional action.
SEC. 3. A special election is hereby called to be held throughout
the state on November 8, 2016. The special election shall be
consolidated with the statewide general election to be held on that
date. The consolidated election shall be held and conducted in all
respects as if there were only one election and only one form of
ballot shall be used.
SEC. 4. (a) Notwithstanding Section 9040 of the Elections Code,
the Secretary of State shall submit the following advisory
question voter instruction to the voters at the
November 8, 2016, consolidated election:
"Shall the Congress of the United States propose, and the
California Legislature ratify, an amendment or amendments to the
United States Constitution California's elected
officials use all of their constitutional authority, including, but
not limited to, proposing and ratifying one or more amendments to the
United States Constitution, to overturn Citizens United v.
Federal Election Commission (2010) 558 U.S. 310, and other applicable
judicial precedents, to allow the full regulation or limitation of
campaign contributions and spending, to ensure that all citizens,
regardless of wealth, may express their views to one another, and to
make clear that the rights protected by the United States
Constitution are the rights of natural persons only?"
corporations should not have the constitutional rights of human
beings? "
(b) Upon certification of the election, the Secretary of State
shall communicate to the Congress of the United States the results of
the election asking the question set forth in subdivision (a).
(c) The provisions of the Elections Code that apply to the
preparation of ballot measures and ballot materials at a statewide
election apply to the measure submitted pursuant to this section.
SEC. 5. (a) Notwithstanding the requirements of Sections 9040,
9043, 9044, 9061, 9082, and 9094 of the Elections Code or any other
law, the Secretary of State shall submit Section 4 of this act to the
voters at the November 8, 2016, statewide general election.
(b) Notwithstanding Section 13115 of the Elections Code, Section 4
of this act and any other measure placed on the ballot by the
Legislature for the November 8, 2016, statewide general election
after the 131-day deadline set forth in Section 9040 of the Elections
Code shall be placed on the ballot, following all other ballot
measures, in the order in which they qualified as determined by
chapter number.
(c) The Secretary of State shall include, in the ballot pamphlets
mailed pursuant to Section 9094 of the Elections Code, the
information specified in Section 9084 of the Elections Code regarding
the ballot measure contained in Section 4 of this act.
SEC. 6. If the Secretary of State is prohibited
from complying with Sections 4 and 5 of this act until after November
8, 2016, by court order pending resolution of an unsuccessful legal
challenge to the validity of this act, then the Secretary of State
shall submit Section 4 of this act to the voters at the next
occurring election.
SEC. 6. SEC. 7. This act calls an
election within the meaning of Article IV of the Constitution and
shall go into immediate effect.