26 Apr Assembly Bill 428 is aimed at preventing Measure K
Original Article by Mark Gutglueck and posted on The San Bernardino County Sentinel. Below is an excerpt of the full article.
In an effort widely viewed as making good on a political chit he issued over a decade ago, Assemblyman Chad Mayes has authored legislation aimed at preventing Measure K, the county government reform initiative approved by more than two thirds of San Bernardino County’s voters in November 2020, from going into effect.
In one fell swoop, Mayes with Assembly Bill 428 is aiming at preventing both prongs of Measure K – the imposition of a one term limit on San Bernardino County supervisors and putting a cap on their pay commensurate with the mean income level of county residents – from being implemented.
Measure K vs Measure J
During a signature gathering drive that began in 2019 and ended in 2020, the Red Brennan Group, an affiliation of activists devoted to government accountability, succeeded in gathering 75,132 signatures of county voters to put a county government reform initiative on the November 2020 ballot in San Bernardino County.
Ultimately dubbed Measure K by the Registrar of Voters Office, it called for setting the total compensation for an elected supervisor in San Bernardino County at $60,000 per year – including both salary and benefits – and imposed a single four-year term on supervisors. The board of supervisors rushed to place its own initiative on the ballot, which was given the place before Measure K on the voting guide and the ballot as Measure J.
Measure J essentially left the supervisors’ total compensation at around $260,000-to-$280,000 annually by giving each of them a salary equal to 90 percent of that provided to a Superior Court judge and a benefit package equal to that provided to the county government’s department heads. It further left intact the current term limit restriction of three four-year terms for the supervisors.
Going head-to-head with Measure J as a competing government reform initiative in November, Measure K found far greater support by the county’s electorate. While Measure J garnered passage, with 378,964 votes or 50.72 percent of the 747,188 votes cast supporting it and 368,224 or 49.28 percent opposed, it was soundly outdistanced by Measure K, which passed with 516,184 or 66.84 percent of the 772,282 voters participating supporting it, and 256,098 voters or 33.16 percent opposed. Because they dealt with the same issues of salary and term limits, under California law Measure K was to go into effect rather than Measure J because it was passed by more votes.
The Board of Supervisors file a Lawsuit
In short order, the board of supervisors sued the supervisors’ own employee, San Bernardino County Clerk of the Board Lynna Monell, to prevent her from implementing Measure K. The legal action, a petition for a writ of mandate, alleges that Measure K is fatally flawed because it “violates California Constitution Article XI, Section l(b) by seeking to set supervisor compensation via citizen initiative… [and] it exceeds the initiative power of the electorate by intruding on matters that are exclusively delegated to the governing body, in this case the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors… [and its] term limit provision for members of the county board of supervisors violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution [by] impermissibly infring[ing] on voters’ and incumbents’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.”
Additionally, the writ of mandate maintains Measure K violates “the single subject rule” pertaining to voter initiatives and that “Measure K must not be implemented because it does not embrace a single subject.”
The suit put the enforcement of Measure K on hold while the matter is adjudicated in the court. It has been pointed out that the grounds cited in the supervisors’ lawsuit for invalidating Measure K would equally apply to Measure J, and there is some concern among the supervisors and their supporters that the lawsuit will fail and eventually Measure K and its salary and term limitations will go into effect.
Accordingly, Supervisor Janice Rutherford, who played a role in advancing Mayes’ political career by hiring him as her chief of staff in 2010, importuned him to author legislation that will keep Measure K from achieving the ends the Red Brennan Group designed it for.
Assembly Bill 428
Mayes indulged Rutherford by drafting Assembly Bill 428 which, with regard to the number of terms a supervisor may serve, states, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the board of supervisors of any general law or charter county may adopt or the residents of the county may propose, by initiative, a proposal to limit to no fewer than two terms or repeal a limit on the number of terms a member of the board of supervisors may serve on the board of supervisors.”
With regard to the pay county supervisors are to receive, Assembly Bill 428 explicitly calls for preventing the citizenry at large from setting the pay grade for members of a board of supervisors, stating, “The board of supervisors shall prescribe the compensation of all county officers, including the board of supervisors, and shall provide for the number, compensation, tenure, appointment and conditions of employment of county employees.”
The People Voice Concern
On April 7, Scott Kaufman, the legislative director for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, sent a letter to Mayes. The letter reads, “This is to inform you that the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association must oppose AB 428. AB 428 seeks to undo the overwhelming approval of Measure K in San Bernardino County that amended the county charter to impose a term limit of one term and reduced the total compensation for each member of the board of supervisors to $5,000 per month.”
Kaufman continued, “Now, other counties are concerned about the potential for similar measures. If Measure K is a problem, it is no worse than stripping voters of the ability to designate their preferred length of terms and set pay of the county supervisors because we dislike the outcome of an election.”
Link to Original Article: Assemblyman Mayes Authors Legislation To Keep Measure K’s Salary & Term Limit Reforms From Being Applied