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It is emerging as a California tradition: The voters of the state enact a perfectly sound law, and the courts find a way to declare it unconstitutional.
It was thus with a voter-approved ballot measure banning racial quotas in state hiring and university admissions; it was thus with a law, again enacted by majority vote, barring certain types of welfare to illegal aliens; and now, a California judge has struck down as unconstitutional a voter-approved initiative that limits the number of terms state legislators can serve.
Approved by a hefty majority in 1990, California's Proposition 140 allows state assemblymen to serve a maximum of six years and state senators to serve a maximum of eight years during their lifetimes.
Federal Judge Claudia Wilken on Wednesday ruled the term-limits law unconstitutional, saying: "California's extreme version of term limits imposes a severe burden on the right of citizens to vote for candidates of their choice." She particularly objected to the lifetime nature of the limits.
Now, if these term limits had been imposed by California voters on their federal congressmen and senators, one could understand the judge's decision. The U.S. Supreme Court has held such laws unconstitutional. But Prop 140 dealt only with state offices, over which the U.S. Constitution has no jurisdiction.
There is, however, a major precedent for term limits in the Constitution. It's the 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, which bars anyone from serving more than two terms as president during his lifetime.
At least 20 states, including Nevada, have enacted term limits for state officeholders, and, until Wednesday, no court had discovered anything in the U.S. Constitution to invalidate those laws. This one California judge has apparently stumbled upon some heretofore unread passage in the Constitution that bars states from enacting limits on legislative tenure.
Either that or she is legislating from the bench in a crass attempt to thwart the people's will.
Agree or disagree? Write us at letters@lvrj.com
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