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California Proposition 14 was a 1964 ballot proposition that amended the California state constitution, nullifying the Rumford Fair Housing Act. Proposition 14 was declared unconstitutional by the California Supreme Court in 1966. The decision of the California Supreme Court was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967 in Reitman v. Mulkey.
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The Rumford Fair Housing Act was a law passed in 1963 by the state of California to help end racial discrimination by property owners and landlords who refused to rent or sell their property to "colored" customers. It was drafted by William Byron Rumford, the first African American from Northern California to serve in the legislature. The Act provided that landlords could not deny people housing because of ethnicity, religion, sex, marital status, physical handicap, or familial status.
In 1964, the California Real Estate Association sponsored an initiative to counteract the effects of the Act.[1]
The initiative, numbered Proposition 14 when it was certified for the ballot, was to add an amendment to the constitution of California. This amendment would provide, in part, as follows:
Neither the State nor any subdivision or agency thereof shall deny, limit or abridge, directly or indirectly, the right of any person, who is willing or desires to sell, lease or rent any part or all of his real property, to decline to sell, lease or rent such property to such person or persons as he, in his absolute discretion, chooses.
Following much publicity the proposition gained the endorsement of many large conservative political groups, including the John Birch Society and the California Republican Assembly. As these and other groups endorsed the proposal it became increasingly more popular and the petition to have the proposition added to the ballot garnered over one million signatures. This was more than twice the 480,000 signatures that were required. The initiative proved to be overwhelmingly popular, and was passed by a 65% majority vote in the 1964 California elections.[2]
Soon after it was passed, the federal government cut off all housing funds to California. With the support of Governor Edmund G. Brown, the constitutionality of the measure was challenged soon afterward. In 1966, the California Supreme Court held that the proposition was unconstitutional because it violated the equal protection and due process provisions of the California Constitution.[3] Gov. Brown's stance proved controversial; later in 1966, he was defeated in his bid for re-election by Ronald Reagan.
However, the case continued. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the California Supreme Court's decision in the case of Reitman v. Mulkey (1967), holding that the wording of Proposition 14 violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and was therefore invalid.
The Reitman decision established a significant precedent. It established that the Fourteenth Amendment, because it is an element of the federal constitution, trumps any language in a state constitution that allows racial discrimination, including state constitutional provisions enacted by popular initiative. As of 2010, this precedent remains valid case law.