BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNANCE AND FINANCE
Senator Robert M. Hertzberg, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
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|Bill No: |SCA 8 |Hearing |7/1/15 |
| | |Date: | |
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|Author: |Mendoza |Tax Levy: | No |
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|Version: |5/11/15 |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant|Weinberger |
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CHARTER COUNTIES' BOARDS OF SUPERVISORS
Requires any charter county with a population greater than 2
million residents after the 2020 U.S. census to have a governing
body comprised of at least seven members.
Background and Existing Law
If a county adopts its own voter-approved charter, the
California Constitution requires the county to have a directly
elected board of supervisors with at least five members. The
Constitution allows charter counties to elect their supervisors
by districts, from districts, or at large.
There are 14 charter counties: Alameda, Butte, El Dorado,
Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, Placer, Sacramento, San Bernardino,
San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Tehama.
San Francisco, a city and county, elects its 11 supervisors by
districts. The other charter counties elect their five-member
boards of supervisors by districts.
Five counties have populations of more than 2 million residents:
Los Angeles (10.1 million), San Diego (3.2 million), Orange (3.1
million), Riverside (2.3 million), and San Bernardino (2.1
million). In large counties, some observers complain that the
size of the supervisorial districts result in unrepresentative
democracy. Each Los Angeles County supervisor represents nearly
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2 million constituents, which is larger than the countywide
population in 53 of California's 58 counties. The extreme ratio
between constituents and supervisors can lead to political
alienation and a lack of political responsiveness.
Although voters can amend their county's charter to expand the
number of supervisors, there are no recent successes:
On November 6, 1962, Los Angeles County voters rejected
Proposition D, which would have expanded the Board of
Supervisors from five members to seven members.
At the November 2, 1976 General Election, Los Angeles
County voters rejected Proposition B, which would have
expanded the Board of Supervisors from five members to nine
members.
Proposition C on the November 3, 1992 ballot, would have
increased the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors from
five to nine members, failed by a margin of about
two-to-one.
On the March 26, 1996 primary ballot, voters in Orange
County rejected Measure U, a charter proposal to expand the
board of supervisors from five members to nine members.
On November 7, 2000, more than 64% of Los Angeles County
voters rejected Measure A, which would have increased the
number of county supervisors from five to nine.
Some observers suggest that five-member boards of supervisors
provide few opportunities to increase the diversity of the
members to better represent demographic changes in California's
most populous counties. They want the Legislature to propose an
amendment to the California Constitution that, if approved by
California voters, would expand some charter counties' boards of
supervisors to at least seven members after the next U.S. Census
in 2020.
Proposed Law
Senate Constitutional Amendment 8 requires that in a charter
county with a population of more than 2 million residents at a
decennial United States census, beginning with the 2020 United
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States census, the county charter must provide for a governing
body of 7 or more members.
SCA 8 caps expenditures for the governing body and its staff, in
a charter county with a population of more than 2 million
residents, at either the amount budgeted for the 2020-21 fiscal
year or the amount that has the same proportion to total county
expenditures as the governing body and staff expenditures had to
the total county budget in the 2020-21 fiscal year, whichever is
less.
SCA 8 repeals, on January 1, 2021, the authority for any county
charter to provide for a governing body elected at-large or
at-large by district.
SCA 8 repeals, on January 1, 2021, constitutional language
specifying the manner in which some charter counties can
prescribe their governing bodies' compensation by ordinance.
SCA 8 renumbers provisions within Section 4 of Article XI of the
California Constitution, adds a cross-reference to the new
Section 4.5 of Article XI of the California Constitution, and
makes additional non-substantive changes to current law.
State Revenue Impact
No estimate.
Comments
1. Purpose of the measure . In 1850, Los Angeles County's
five-member board of supervisors governed just 3,530 people.
Today, five Los Angeles County Supervisors govern more than 10
million county residents, a population larger than most states'
populations. Even though charter counties can boost the size of
their boards of supervisors and create numerically more
representative governments, no recent ballot measure has
succeeded. Massive supervisorial districts create barriers to
running for a seat on a county board and make it difficult for
supervisors to engage with and respond to their constituents. If
county government structures don't adapt to the enormous changes
in the size, demographic composition, and service needs of their
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populations, some county residents may become increasingly
frustrated and disengaged. SCA 8 will make county governments
more responsive and representative by adding two members to the
board of some of California's largest counties, while ensuring
that the larger boards do not increase costs to taxpayers for
board operations.
2. State interest vs. home rule . Counties adopt voter-approved
charters to gain more local control over their governance and
employees. Voters in any county can adopt a charter that calls
for more county supervisors. Voters in any charter county can
increase the size of its board. Over a span of more than four
decades, Los Angeles County voters have rejected multiple
charter amendments that would have expanded the board of
supervisors. Orange County voters also rejected a county
charter proposal to create a nine members board of supervisors.
If local voters don't support expanding boards of supervisors,
why should legislators ask voters throughout California to amend
the Constitution to tell Los Angeles County and Orange County
residents how to govern themselves? Should votes cast by
residents in the San Francisco Bay Area really outweigh local
votes in determining the size of the governing bodies in San
Diego County or San Bernardino County? SCA 8 may not be
consistent with the home-rule purpose of county charters.
3. Bigger boards, or smaller counties ? It is unclear whether
adding members to a board of supervisors is the best way to
ensure that a county government is reflective of, and responsive
to, the full diversity of interests within each county's
population. Even if the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
were expanded to nine members, each supervisor would still
represent more than 1 million constituents, producing only a
relatively modest increase in the representativeness of the
board of supervisors. More substantial changes to county
governance may be needed to produce the results sought by SCA
8's proponents. It has been more than a century since
California has created a new county. The massive demographic
changes that the state has experienced since Imperial County
became the 58th county in 1907 may warrant a reconsideration of
existing county jurisdictions. The statutes governing the
formation of new counties have remained largely unchanged since
1974. Legislators may wish to consider whether streamlining the
process for creating new counties out of territory within
existing counties that have more than 2 million residents may be
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a more effective way to create new county government structures
that will better represent and serve all Californians.
4. Balancing interests . Policymakers may wish to consider
other ways to balance voters' authority to determine a charter
county's governance structure with the state's interest in
ensuring that extremely large districts represented by county
supervisors don't undermine county governments'
representativeness and responsiveness. One possible model is
Senate Constitutional Amendment 17 (Marks, 1993), which would
have required any charter county with a population of more than
1.5 million residents to hold an election on increasing the
number of county supervisors after each census. SCA 17 died in
the Senate Local Government Committee without a vote. A
recurring election requirement could ensure that the issue of
expanding boards of supervisors would regularly be placed on
voters' agenda. However, such an amendment would not guarantee
that any board of supervisors would, in fact, be expanded.
5. Who's in, and who's out ? SCA 8 affects four of the 14
charter counties: Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, and San
Bernardino. Department of Finance demographic projections
suggest that Santa Clara County's population in 2020 may fall
just short of SCA 8's threshold of 2 million residents.
Although Riverside County has a population that exceeds 2
million residents, it is not a charter county and, therefore,
remains unaffected by SCA 8. If legislators want to require
Riverside County to expand its board of supervisors, they will
need to either amend the provisions of Government Code §25000,
which requires general law counties to have five-member boards
of supervisors, or amend the California Constitution to apply a
minimum size requirement to general law counties' boards.
6. Let's be clear . Although SCA 8 is intended to require that
the most populous charter counties must elect at least seven
county supervisors by district after the 2020 census, the
amendment is drafted in a way that makes it ambiguous whether
the requirement that supervisors must be elected by district
would apply to the largest charter counties. To prevent
possible misinterpretations, the Committee may wish to consider
amending SCA 8 to specify that counties with populations of more
than 2 million after the 2020 census must:
Elect the seven members of their boards of supervisors
by district.
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Require that the members reside in the district.
Be subject to statutes that relate to apportioning
population of governing body districts.
7. Prior legislation . SCA 8 is similar to SCA 7 (Polanco,
1999), which would have expanded the board of supervisors in any
charter county with more than 5 million residents from five
members to seven members. SCA 7 was passed by the Senate, but
died in an Assembly policy committee.
8. Double-referral . The Senate Rules Committee has ordered a
double-referral of SCA 8 --- first to the Senate Governance &
Finance Committee which has policy jurisdiction over county
governments, and then to the Senate Elections & Constitutional
Amendments Committee, which has jurisdiction over all proposed
constitutional amendments.
Support and
Opposition (6/25/15)
Support : Los Amigos of Orange County.
Opposition : Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors; Orange
County Board of Supervisors; San Bernardino County Board of
Supervisors.
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