Viewpoints
California Supreme Court should hear this challenge to Proposition 22
The California Supreme Court should grant immediate review to a challenge to Proposition 22, the initiative that designates drivers who work for app-based companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash to be independent contractors and not employees.
On Jan. 12, a lawsuit was filed directly in the California Supreme Court, rather than following the usual procedure of a case beginning in the Superior Court, with review in a Court of Appeal, and then the possibility of Supreme Court review. In extraordinary circumstances, the California Supreme Court can hear matters without needing to wait for the lower courts.
The challenge to Prop. 22 is exactly such a situation. The initiative withdraws minimum employment protections from hundreds of thousands of California workers.
The lawsuit filed in the California Supreme Court raises many serious constitutional challenges to the validity of Prop. 22. The suit argues that the initiative usurps the “plenary power” of the California State Legislature, granted by the California Constitution, to establish and enforce a complete system of workers’ compensation. Prop. 22 would prevent the Legislature from providing app-based drivers this important benefit in seeming violation of the state constitution.
Prop. 22 also infringes the authority of the judiciary by preventing the courts from determining what is a permissible legislative action in the future. The initiative very broadly defines what would be considered an impermissible amendment, including precluding any statute that would authorize an entity or organization to represent app-based drivers, including a union that could bargain collectively for better wages and benefits. Prop. 22 bars the legislature from acting even though this is not a matter covered by the initiative.
One of the most astounding and troubling provisions of Prop. 22, and one that was largely overlooked in the public debate about it, is its requirement that legislation in this field now can be enacted only by a seven-eighths supermajority vote. No law should be able to preclude its revision by the democratic process in this way.
Also, the state constitution requires that an initiative address only a single subject. The myriad topics addressed in Prop. 22 violate this single subject rule.
Under California law, the constitutionality of an initiative cannot be challenged until it is enacted. Now that the voters have approved it, review is essential and a prompt resolution of these issues is critical. Prop. 22 will have enormous effects on the lives of hundreds of thousands of app-based drivers and their families. Under the initiative, app-based drivers will be deprived of basic employment protections, such as workers’ compensation, to which they otherwise would be entitled by law.
Also, there are many lawsuits pending which turn on the constitutionality of Prop. 22 and whether app-based drivers are employees or independent contractors for purposes of California law. For example, the California attorney general and the city attorneys of Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego have obtained injunctive relief, which was affirmed on appeal, against the two largest rideshare companies, Uber and Lyft, for misclassifying their drivers as independent contractors.
At the very least, the California Legislature needs to know whether the seven-eighths requirement for new laws is constitutional. It cannot act in this area without guidance as to what is required for legislation.
The usual course of litigation would likely take not months, but years. There is an urgent need to have these crucial questions resolved quickly. The California Supreme Court hearing the matter now is best for all in the state — the workers, the companies, the Legislature and the courts.
California law allows the California Supreme Court to exercise what is called “original jurisdiction” — taking up a case before it is heard in the lower courts. The court has done this many times in the past when there have been challenges to initiatives.
In 1999, the court exercised its original jurisdiction to hear a challenge to Prop. 225, an initiative that set term limits for congressional candidates. Eight years earlier, the Court granted review, without lower court proceedings, concerning Prop. 140, which imposed term and compensation limits for state legislators. In 1989, the Court heard a challenge in its original to Prop. 103, an initiative that made many changes to the regulation of automobile insurance.
The court should follow these precedents, exercise its original jurisdiction and hear the challenge to Prop. 22.
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