Assembly Constitutional Amendments Committee, Assembly Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee

Committee History

The Assembly Constitutional Amendment Committee was first created in 1901. Its purpose was to review all proposed constitutional amendments. In most cases, the committee reviewed proposed amendments in addition to the review by a specific legislative committee with jurisdiction over the topic of the Amendment.

The necessity of the committee was questioned at times. In 1959, the Bureau of Public Administration reviewed the entire standing committee structure of the California Legislature. The subsequent report noted that the Senate simply referred constitutional amendments to a specific committee rather than have an additional Constitutional Amendment Committee. They suggested the Assembly abolish its committee (Bureau of Public Administration and the California Citizens Legislative Advisory Commission, Standing and Interim Committees of the California Legislature (Sacramento: Assembly Rules Committee, 1959), 14). Nevertheless, the Assembly committee continued to play its traditional role (HR 438, Assembly Journal, 11 July 1968, 5708).

The most significant change for the committee came in the 1960s, when citizens and politicians advocated a substantive revision of the California Constitution. In response, the Legislature created a Citizen's Advisory Committee to Study Constitutional Revision in 1963. As the Advisory Committee finished its deliberations, the Constitutional Amendments Committee reviewed these recommendations before they were presented to the legislature and then to the voters.

In 1969, the Constitutional Amendments Committee merged with the Elections and Reapportionment Committee creating the Elections and Constitutional Amendment Committee (HR 21, Assembly Journal, 13 January 1969, 113-114). Its scope then became "the subject matter embraced in the Elections Code, uncodified laws on the same subject, matters relating to elections and reapportionment, the subject matter of the State Constitution and all matters relating thereto." After questions about the computer tabulation of the primary election results were raised in June 1970, there was a subcommittee on Voter Tabulation formed on June 8, 1970 (HR 414, Assembly Journal, 4 August 1969, 7393; Assembly Journal, 8 June 1970, 4233).

In 1971, the committee once again became the Constitutional Amendments Committee and was responsible only for review of such Amendments; the Elections and Reapportionment Committee took over matters related to elections. In 1974, the number of Assembly committees was reduced from 26 to 19. One of the committees abolished was the Constitutional Amendment Committee effective November 30, 1974 (HR 13, Assembly Journal, 14 January 1971, 167; HR 208, Assembly Journal, 28 August 1974, 17935). The Assembly Judiciary Committee took over review of constitutional amendments from 1974 until 1980.

In 1980, the Assembly Constitutional Amendments Committee was reestablished as a regular standing committee. Once again, the committee's responsibilities were to review all constitutional amendments introduced in the legislature, to review initiatives for "possible defects" in proposed constitutional amendments and to explore methods of improving the initiative process without undermining its "fundamental responsibility." At the time, however, Sacramento Union columnist Dan Walters speculated that Speaker of the House Leo McCarthy reconstituted the committee specifically way to block passage of SCA 4 (1980) that would have allowed for legislative veto of agency regulations (Assembly Journal, 1 December 1980, 12; Larry Doyle, Memorandum to Phil Wyman, 8 June 1981, Assembly Constitutional Amendments Committee Records, LP220:2, California State Archives).

Nevertheless, hoping to strengthen the political influence of the committee, the Committee's Chair Philip Wyman explored the possibility of adding responsibility for "measure relating to judges, courts and court personnel" and removing this responsibility from the Assembly Judiciary Committee. He was concerned that the relatively small number of measures being referred to the committee meant that without expanded responsibilities its influence would decline (Larry Doyle, Memorandum to Phil Wyman, 8 June 1981).

Perhaps because of this limited workload, the committee's responsibilities were absorbed temporarily into the Elections, Reapportionment, and Constitutional Amendments Committee in 1983. A Constitutional Amendments Committee existed again from 1985 to 1986. Afterwards, however, the review of constitutional amendment became part of the responsibilities of the Assembly Elections, Reapportionment, and Constitutional Amendments Committee (Assembly Journal, 12 January 1987, 192).

The chairs of these committees were:

Assembly Constitutional Amendment Committee, 1903-1975

H. S. G. McCartney (Rep.), 1903-1904

Frederick Houser (Rep.), 1905-1906

H. W. A. Weske (Rep.), 1907-1908

Nathan C. Goghlan (Rep./Union Labor), 1909-1910

W. A. Sutherland (Rep.), 1911-1912

William C. Clark (Rep.), 1913-1914

John F. Quinn (Dem./Rep.), 1915-1916

Milton Marks (Rep.), 1917-1918

Arthur A. Wendering (Rep./Dem.), 1919-1920

Carlton W. Greene (Rep./Dem.), 1921-1922

Allen G. Mitchell (Rep.), 1923-1924

Roscoe J. Anderson (Rep., Rep./Dem.), 1925-1930

B. J. Feigenbaum (Rep, Rep./Dem.), 1931-1934

E. V. Latham (Rep.), 1935-1936

Charles A. Hunt (Dem.), 1937-1938

Ernest C. Crowley (Dem., Dem./Rep.), 1941-1952

Frank P. Belotti (Dem./Rep.), 1953-1954

Clark L. Bradley (Rep.), 1955-1956

Eugene G. Nisbet (Dem.), 1957-1958

John A. Busterud (Rep.), 1959-1960

Milton Marks (Rep.), 1961-1962

Edward M. Gaffney (Dem.), 1963-1964

Edward E. Elliott (Dem.), 1965-1968

Assembly Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee, 1969-1970

Paul V. Priolo (Rep.), 1969-1970

Assembly Constitutional Amendments Committee, 1971-1974, 1981-1982, 1985-1986

Alex P. Garcia (Dem.), 1971-1974

Dennis Brown (Rep.), 1981

Phillip D. Wyman (Rep.), 1981-1982

Johan Klehs, (Dem.), 1985-1986.

From the guide to the California State Assembly Constitutional Amendments Committee records, 1960-1982, (California State Archives)