Recorder

These consolidated appeals present important questions of first impression about an initiative measure, commonly known as Proposition 190, which was approved by a large majority of California voters in 1994. The Commission on Judicial Performance (the commission) timely appeals from an order granting a petition for writ of mandate filed in June 1997 by The Recorder, a legal newspaper published in San Francisco, in an effort to compel the commission to disclose how individual commissioners voted in formal disciplinary proceedings concerning the Honorable Jose Angel Velasquez of the Municipal Court of Monterey County, and in all subsequent formal proceedings regarding judicial discipline. The Recorder contends that such disclosure is required by California Constitution, article VI, section 18, subdivision (j), a provision enacted as part of Proposition 190.

The commission claims it acted within its rulemaking authority as conferred by California Constitution, article VI, section 18, subdivision (i) — which was also enacted as part of Proposition 190—by adopting procedures allowing it to withhold information about how individual commission members voted with respect to…