Comment by commoner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by commoner | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The standard is a two-thirds majority, so Proposition 22 (with a seven-eighths majority hurdle) was written to be much harder to amend than most California ballot measures.

> If Proposition 22 passes, could it be changed later?

> It would be very difficult. Proposition 22’s text carries language that aims to block further legislative action targeted at gig companies.

> If passed, amending it would require a seven-eighths supermajority of the Legislature — a daunting hurdle.

> In California, a law created by ballot measure can be changed only by another ballot measure, unless the original measure specifies otherwise. Because it’s a hassle to push through ballot measures, initiatives will frequently waive this protection and provide opportunity for the measure to be amended by the Legislature.

> A two-thirds majority vote is a common benchmark initiatives use. A seven-eighths majority requirement is unheard of.

https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-10-19...

They can also be changed by a voter referendum approved by the legislature.

Many other Californian ballot measures also have no waiver.

Not saying prop 22 has no drawbacks, but there's no reason to make up fake reasons to criticize it.

I'm not sure how this is a fake reason. "It's worse than most but not as bad as it could be" is not a bar that precludes criticism in my mind.

Most propositions are not trying to rein in a 3/4 majority after they already passed a bad bill the voters chose to undo.

It's a fake reason because it's not a flaw in the proposition. For Proposition 22 to be ruled unconstitutional based on its unusually-generous legislative amendment requirement, the ruling would have to state that the California proposition system itself is unconstitutional, because that system specifies a legislative amendment requirement that is much, much stricter.

There's a difference between what one might criticize and what criteria the judge is using to make their ruling. The response was specifically to the claim that that portion of the proposition should not be criticized for the inclusion of a 7/8ths vote for an amendment.

Also, unusually generous? In that very same thread, it was mentioned many propositions include a provision for amendment with a 3/4ths vote.

And this proposition also (unconstitutionally, apparently) limited how the whole thing could be amended.

Unusually generous seems to be a far cry from a reasonable description. It was both harder to amend than many propositions, and included a novel attempt to restrict the ways in which it could be changed. Just because it could have been impossible to amend does not make it unusually generous.

> And this proposition also (unconstitutionally, apparently) limited how the whole thing could be amended.

The judgment explicitly notes that there is no problem with the proposition limiting how the special amendment procedure written in to the proposition can be used.

Rather, you appear to be thinking of the part of the ruling that overruled the part of the proposition defining the extension of collective bargaining rights to app-based drivers as constituting an "amendment" of the proposition.

If the California proposition system results in a passing referendum to torture Bill to death, does a court ruling that the referendum's result is unconstitutional also mean the proposition system is unconstitutional?

No. Just like when Congress passes a law ruled unconstitutional, it doesn't mean that Congress's existence, or the manner in which it drafts law is unconstitutional. It just means that particular law gets to be overturned.

Let's compare what I wrote:

> For Proposition 22 to be ruled unconstitutional based on its unusually-generous legislative amendment requirement

with what you wrote:

> does a court ruling that the referendum's result is unconstitutional

Did you forget something?

Ruling that prop 22 is unconstitutional based on a general feature of all propositions which prop 22 partially shares is ruling that the proposition system is unconstitutional.

If you pass a bill of attainder against Bill as a proposition and it gets overruled because bills of attainder are illegal, that says nothing about other propositions. But if you pass a bill of attainder against Bill as a proposition and it gets overruled because propositions are illegal, that invalidates the entire proposition system.

Prop 22 does not share a general feature with all propositions, it is unique in the bar it sets for overturning it.

At least, a judge seems to think so.

Which judge? As has been repeatedly pointed out elsewhere in the thread, this judge, the one overruling Prop. 22, does not discuss the option to amend Prop. 22 by seven-eighths vote of the legislature except to note that there's no problem with it.

I'm not making anything up. The judge that struck down Prop 22 listed its seven-eighths hurdle as one of the provisions that made Prop 22 unconstitutional.

> In a ruling issued Friday, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch declared that Proposition 22 is “unenforceable,” arguing several sections of the measure are unconstitutional under California state law. They included a section that required a seven-eighths legislative supermajority to amend the measure, which defied the legislature’s amendment power under the state constitution, according to the judge.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/20/uber-ly...

I think people are being confused by this.

My understanding is that it is not the specific supermajority requirement that is the issue, because as others say, propositions are already by default not able to be changed or overturned by the legislature (if they were, propositions would be pointless because any proposition the legislature wants to be law would have already been passed as a normal law, and any proposition the legislature doesn't want would be changed by the majority who didn't want the law.)

The real issue is that the court is ruling that the clause is violating the single subject rule for propositions, and is restricting the legislature from making laws that are outside the scope of what the proposition says it is about. The 7/8th thing would be fine if they were just giving a way for the legislature to amend the actual proposition... instead, it is restricting the legislature from being able to make laws that are not affecting the direct stated single purpose of the proposition.

The tool is fine, it is what the tool is being used on.

But do you understand, that by default, ballot initiatives cannot be overturned by the legislature?

The original commenter said "Prop 22 was intended to be almost impossible to overturn, requiring a higher bar for amendment than even the state constitution, and only permitting the legislature to amend it if the amendment was "consistent with" Prop 22"

I am talking about that being a disingenuous interpretation considering other propositions do not allow the legislature to to amend their measures at all.

That quote from the Post article completely mischaracterizes what the judge actually wrote (https://a.qoid.us/uv6f2a9c1458eb949d.pdf):

> If Section 7465 had not been included, the Legislature could amend Proposition 22 by a simple majority vote according to each house's rules, followed by a popular referendum. With Section 7465 enacted, the Legislature can still amend Proposition 22 by a simple majority vote according to each house's rules, followed by a popular referendum. All Section 7465 provides is another way to amend the initiative statute, albeit one that is difficult to the point of near impossibility.

> To the degree that Section 7465, subdivisions (a) and (b), attempt to apply conditions to amendments proceeding under Article II Section 10, subdivision (c)'s majority-vote-then-referendum procedure, they are unconstitutional. To avoid the constitutional conflict, the Court should narrowly construe the "seven-eighths majority" and "consistency" requirements only to the non-referendum procedures in Section 7465, subdivisions (a) and (b).

> The judge that struck down Prop 22 listed its seven-eighths hurdle as one of the provisions that made Prop 22 unconstitutional.

As comex notes, this is untrue. To the extent the judge considers the seven-eighths hurdle at all (which he does, but not in the significant part of the opinion), it is only to note that there's no problem with it.

The standard is nothing. The people will not let Sacramento override them. If a non-bond non-tax ballot initiative is passing you best believe the legislature fucked up.

Of course Californians will not give the legislature power to modify. That would defeat the point of overriding the legislature since those guys meet way more often than the every two years the voters get.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com