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Committee advances ACA 8 to let voters petition to put appellate and Supreme Court retention contests on the ballot
Summary
ACA 8, authored by Assemblymember Pellerin, would place appellate and Supreme Court retention elections on the ballot only if a petition by registered voters requests inclusion. The committee passed the measure and will send it to Appropriations.
The Assembly Elections Committee on July 16 voted to pass Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8 and re-refer it to the Committee on Appropriations. ACA 8, introduced by Assemblymember Pellerin, would ask voters whether to amend the California Constitution so that appellate and Supreme Court justices appear on retention ballots only if a petition by registered voters is filed; absent a petition, the justice would be retained without appearing on the ballot.
Pellerin told the committee that retention contests routinely add a dozen-plus contests to gubernatorial election ballots, contributing to ballot fatigue and high roll-off rates. She said retention contests have resulted in retention more than 99.5% of the time since 1934 and cited high blank-ballot rates in retention contests.
Tim Cromartie, representing Secretary of State Shirley Weber's office, testified in support and said Secretary of State Weber's office supports ACA 8 as a limited reform to judicial election provisions that could reduce ballot clutter while preserving voters' ability to remove judges through a petition process. Dora Rose of the League of Women Voters also testified in support, noting the league backed the original retention system but now supports a petition-based process to better focus voter attention.
Pellerin said the amendment would not prevent voters from putting judges on the ballot; it would require a petition to trigger inclusion. She acknowledged the implementation threshold (signature-count threshold) would not be placed in the constitution; the plan is to propose legislation next year to set an appropriate number of signatures.
The committee discussed concerns that a future legislature might raise the petition threshold to an unrealistically high level, which led at least one member to withhold support during the hearing. The committee ultimately recorded ACA 8 as passed and re-referred to Appropriations; the clerk announced the bill "out 4 to 2." Pellerin said she would work with stakeholders on a later statute to determine the signature threshold if voters approve the constitutional change.
