A referendum to overturn Senate Bill 202, one of the most controversial measures to emerge from the 2011 legislative session, was given the green light this week to collect signatures.

Opponents of the measure have until Jan. 5 to collect 504,760 signatures of registered voters to place the issue on the ballot.

We don't know whether they'll spend several million dollars to qualify the referendum, but assuming that they do, it sets up what could be a complex game of political chess.

SB 202, written and passed in the session's final hours, declares that initiative ballot measures can appear only on a November general election ballot, or in a special election, thus overturning 40 years of having them appear in both primary and general elections.

Democrats and labor unions fashioned the bill, which was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, who as secretary of state in 1971 allowed initiatives to appear on primary ballots even though the state constitution limits them to general and special elections.

Whether purposefully or coincidentally, Brown took advantage of his legally dubious decision by sponsoring a political reform measure on the 1974 primary ballot to aid his campaign for governor that year.

The unions and their Democratic allies sought SB 202 because of a pending initiative measure that would make it more difficult to extract union campaign funds from members' paychecks.

They believe that so-called "paycheck protection" would have a stronger chance of approval at the June 2012 presidential primary since Republican voter turnout is likely to be relatively high and that of Democrats relatively low.

If the referendum qualifies, it also would appear on the next general or special election ballot. More importantly, until voters decided its fate, SB 202 would be suspended. Referendum sponsors might hope that suspending SB 202 would mean that the paycheck measure would appear on the June primary ballot.

But would it?

The constitution still says that initiative measures are to go before voters in a general election. But the secretary of state's office in 1970 allowed an initiative to appear on a June ballot that combined special and primary elections. When Brown took office as secretary of state in 1971, his office followed that primary-ballot precedent, as did those who came after him.

The current secretary of state, Democrat Debra Bowen, could overrule recent practice and declare that both the paycheck protection measure and the SB 202 referendum could not go to voters until November 2012. Bowen would certainly be under great pressure from her party and the unions to do that. Even were SB 202 to be overturned by voters, she could simply continue the practice of placing initiatives on the general election ballot, as the constitution says.

She might face a legal challenge, but she would have the plain wording of the constitution on her side.

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Call The Bee's Dan Walters, (916) 321-1195. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/ walters.

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