Schabarum

In this case we consider whether the funds budgeted for the Legislative Counsel Bureau must be included in the budget of the Legislature for purposes of constitutional spending limitations. We hold that those funds need not be included in the Legislature’s budget.

At issue here is article IV, section 7.5, of the California Constitution, enacted as part of Proposition 140 (the term limit initiative) at the November 6, 1990, General Election. In relevant part that section provides: “In the fiscal year immediately following the adoption of this Act, the total aggregate expenditures of the Legislature for the compensation of members and employees of, and the operating expenses and equipment for, the Legislature may not exceed an amount equal to nine hundred fifty thousand dollars ($950,000) per member for that fiscal year or 80 percent of the amount of money expended for those purposes in the preceding fiscal year, whichever is less.” In subsequent years, the total aggregate expenditures of the Legislature may not exceed that of the preceding fiscal year, adjusted and compounded “by an amount equal to the percentage increase in the appropriations limit for the State…

I dissent. In this case, we are not asked to review a budget item, but rather to construe a constitutional commandment that imposes limits on the legislative budget. The majority opinion leads to the result that the computers sitting on the desks of legislators are not their “equipment” and legal services they receive that are essential to the enactment of laws are not “operating expenses.” The People, in the course of adopting legislative reforms, could not have foreseen this result and I cannot join in the frustration of their clear purpose.

I

I agree the Legislature has the power to make lawful appropriations as it sees fit and structure and fund agencies of the state government: Peter F. Schabarum does not contest these powers. Within these powers the Legislature is free to parcel out the People’s money to whichever agencies it chooses. But that does not confer the power to decide which expenditures should “count” toward the constitutional limit the People have set for their Legislature. (See Nougues v. Douglass (1857) 7 Cal. 65, 79-80 (cone. opn. of Murray, C. J.) [“the Legislature cannot do, indirectly, what they are forbid from doing directly”].) Schabarum’s major…

In this case we consider whether the funds budgeted for the Legislative Counsel Bureau must be included in the budget of the Legislature for purposes of constitutional spending limitations. We hold that those funds need not be included in the Legislature's budget.

At issue here is article IV, section 7.5, of the California Constitution, enacted as part of Proposition 140 (the term limit initiative) at the November 6, 1990, General Election. In relevant part that section provides: "In the fiscal year immediately following the adoption of this Act, the total aggregate expenditures of the Legislature for the compensation of members and employees of, and the operating expenses and equipment for, the Legislature may not exceed an amount equal to nine hundred fifty thousand dollars ($950,000) per member for that fiscal year or 80 percent of the amount of money expended for those purposes in the preceding fiscal year, whichever is less." In subsequent years, the total aggregate expenditures of the Legislature may not exceed that of the preceding fiscal year, adjusted and compounded "by an amount equal to the percentage increase in the appropriations limit for…