California Supreme Court Rejects Armatta v. Kitzhaber Analysis of Separate Vote Requirement

Tom Christ provided the following summary of the California Supreme Court's decision in Californians for an Open Primary v. McPherson:

On May 25, the California Supreme Court held that the “separate-vote” provision in that state’s constitution, which regulates legislative referrals of constitutional amendments, is no “stricter” than the “single-subject” provision, which regulates initiated amendments. See Californians for an Open Primary v. McPherson, 38 Cal 4^th 735, 43 Cal Rptr 3d 315, 134 P3d 299 (2006). In the process, the court discussed at length – and ultimately rejected – the Oregon Supreme Court’s opinion in Armatta v. Kitzhaber, 327 Or 250 (1998), which held that “separate-vote” provision in Article XVII, section 1, of the Oregon Constitution is more strict than the “single-subject” provision in Article IV, section (1)(d)), although both serve the same purpose:  to prevent logrolling. The court distinguished Armatta in part because California’s separate-vote provision applies only to amendments by referral, not those by initiative, unlike Oregon’s provision, which applies to both.  The court in Armatta reasoned that Oregon’s separate-vote provision must be different than its single-subject provision in order to have any meaning.  That rationale does not apply to California’s separate-vote provision, the McPherson court concluded.  134 P3d at 346-47.

By the way, the California court also referred favorably to Judge Landau’s excellent law review article on the history-based arguments in construing state constitutions.  134 P3d at 305 and 329 (citing J. Landau, A Judge’s Perspective on the Use and Misue of History in State Constitutional Interpretation, 38 Val U L Reve 451 (2004)).

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