California ballot proposition
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A California ballot proposition is a method of amending either the California Constitution or California statutory law, under the initiative and referendum process.
In the U.S. state of California, state laws may be proposed directly by the public, as well as the state's Constitution may be amended either by public petition or by the legislature submitting a proposed constitutional amendment to the electorate. The process of allowing the public to propose legislation or constitutional amendments is called the Initiative. The process of the state legislature proposing Constitutional amendments is called a Referendum. The process occurs in one of two ways.
- First, the state legislature may pass an act which is signed by the governor, proposing a state constitutional amendment, which is then submitted to the voters as a referendum at the next statewide election. If more than 50% of the voters approve the referendum then the constitutional amendment is approved and goes into effect.
- Second, the general public may propose via the initiative, either amendments to the state constitution or the creation of new statute laws, which is done by writing a proposed constitutional amendment or statute as a petition, and submitting the petition to the state's Attorney General along with a submission fee (in 2004 this was $200), and obtaining signatures on petitions from registered voters amounting to 8% (for a constitutional amendment) or 5% (for a statute) of the number of people who voted in the most recent election for governor. The signed petitions are then sent to the state's Secretary of State for validation of signatures.
Laws already adopted by the state legislature may be overturned by means of a referendum. To qualify a referendum for inclusion on the ballot, a referendum petition must have been signed by at least 10% of active voters.
Due to duplicate signing or invalid signatures, usually at least 50% more than the legal minimum number of signatures are collected to compensate for possible invalidated signatures. If the number of validated signatures is more than the minimum number required, the proposed initiative measure is submitted to the voters, similar to a referendum as noted above. If the proposition is approved by more than 50% of all voters, it becomes a part of the state constitution (if it is a proposed amendment) or the state's statutes (if it is a proposed law) in the same manner and having the same legal effect as if it had been passed by the state legislature and signed by the governor.
Originally, initiative and referendum petitions were given a number starting at 1 each year. This tended to be confusing as often famous initiatives such as Proposition 13 might be confused with another initiative in a later year if there were more than 12 proposals on the ballot in any year. Starting in 1982, the proposition numbers were not reused but would continue to increment until at least a decade had passed from when a particular one had appeared on the ballot, eventually resulting in proposition numbers exceeding 200. Starting with the 1998 ballot, the count was reset back to 1 and will be reset every 10 years.
