California Supreme Court asked to declare unconstitutional provisions requiring supermajorities to pass budgets and raise taxes.

The California Supreme Court has been petitioned to issue a writ of mandate declaring invalid two amendments to the State Constitution that require 2/3 majorities of both houses of the legislature to pass budget bills or raise tax rates. The first provision was adopted by the electorate in 1933 and the second (Proposition 13) was passed by the voters in 1978. Both are now challenged on the ground that they were approved by a procedure appropriate for "amendments," but were in fact "revisions" and could not be adopted in that way. This is a distinction peculiar to the California constitution and was most recently addressed by the California Supreme Court when it found in Strauss v. Horton that Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage, was in fact an "amendment," not a "revision" as contended by the challengers.

The petition was filed July 10, 2009 on behalf of Charles Young, a citizen, and defendants are Gregory Schmidt, in his capacity as Secretary of the California State Senate, and E. Dotson Wilson, in his capacity as Chief Clerk of the California State Assembly.  A pdf of the petition is here.  Lead counsel for the Petitioner is retired Ninth Circuit judge William A. Norris, who was lead counsel for parties who unsuccessfully challenged Prop. 13 on other grounds in Amador Valley Joint Union High School District v. Board of Equalization, 22 Cal. 3d 208 (1978).

Update on Monday, August 10, 2009 at 01:12PM by Skeptic

The Supreme Court's online case summary is here.

Update on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 03:29PM by Skeptic

The Supreme Court today denied the petition without opinion and without having received briefing on the merits.

Update on Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 07:12AM by Skeptic

LAT reported on December 26 that the parties and lawyers involved in this case have filed another suit, but it doesn't say where or when or if it raises the same or slightly different issue. UPDATE: The Chronicle says it was filed in the state appeals court in Los Angeles.