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This mostly true as written, but confusing to most folks not into the esoterics of this, because it implies the legislature can do nothing. The legislature can

This mostly true as written, but confusing to most folks not into the esoterics of this, because it implies the legislature can do nothing. The legislature can't override it themselves, but they can submit it back to the voters: " (c) The Legislature may amend or repeal a referendum statute. The Legislature may amend or repeal an initiative statute by another statute that becomes effective only when approved by the electors unless the initiative statute permits amendment or repeal without the electors’ approval."

thaumasiotes 5y ago
I'm confused by something in the judgment. (I) It's based on the idea of a conflict between (1) a constitutional grant of unlimited power to the legislature to "create and enforce a complete system of worker's compensation"; and (2) Proposition 22's specification that "an app-based driver is an independent contractor and not an employee or agent with respect to the app-based driver's relationship with a network company if [certain] conditions are met." (II) It states that independent contractors are not eligible for worker's compensation because, "as presently codified", California's worker's compensation law does not apply to independent contractors. (III) It then concludes that this language from Proposition 22 restricts the Legislature's constitutionally unlimited power "to determine what workers must be covered or not covered by the worker's compensation system". But up in step (II), there seems to be an explicit acknowledgement that the worker's compensation system could cover independent contractors if it wanted to. If the Legislature's unlimited power to create a worker's compensation system can be used to determine whether app-based drivers working as contractors are or aren't eligible for worker's compensation, how does restricting the Legislature's ability to determine whether app-based drivers are independent contractors or employees also restrict the Legislature's ability to determine whether they are covered by the worker's compensation system?
- DannyBee 5y ago
  So your argument is about who could overrule who, but that is a secondary question. General rule of thumb, if the constitution says "x has complete the power to do y", and you aren't x, your attempt to do so is unconstitutional even if x could simply overrule you. At the federal level, you see this play out in things like the "dormant commerce clause" - States don't have the power to regulate interstate commerce. Sometimes they try in spaces where congress hasn't acted yet. Congress doesn't have to explicitly overrule them, they are simply unconstitutional in the first place. It's not your power to play with. You also see it play out in congress trying to regulate for the general welfare (a power reserved to states). In this case, if the constitution says "the legislature gets to decide who has workers comp", and they decided, and you attempt to adjust that, that's probably unconstitutional. The 100% normal thing that would happen is a court would sever it and say "to the degree the statute tries to adjust who gets workers comp, that part is null and void ". It's just that here, the statute explicitly says "if that provision is found unconstitutional, the whole statute should be struck down". So the court did. One side thing to keep in mind, because it often plays into these things later - when a court finds a statute unconstitutional, they are finding that it was always unconstitutional from day 0, not just moving forward. In such cases, it is considered "void ab initio" - it is like it never existed. So assuming this holds up, the next thing that will happen is a bunch of folks will then come and file cases about what they should have gotten in the intervening time period. (void ab initio in practice is becoming harder to manage, and arguably being moved away from, but ..)
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    First, thanks for responding! > So your argument is about who could overrule who, but that is a secondary question. This is related, I guess, but I see my argument as being about something different. The claim of the ruling seems to be that: (I) The Legislature has the unlimited power to determine who does and who doesn't get worker's comp. (II) The Legislature has, using their discretion, given worker's comp to one category of worker (employees) and withheld worker's comp from another category of worker (contractors). (III) Therefore, no other group has the power to determine who belongs to which category, because that would interfere with the Legislature's power to determine who has worker's comp. But I don't think this works. Suppose the Legislature managed to get Proposition 209 repealed and subsequently determined that blacks receive worker's comp and whites don't. The implication of this ruling is that an initiative defining who is black and who is white would be invalid because that would interfere with the Legislature's power to define the worker's compensation scheme they want. And this is true in general - the Legislature's power to determine who gets worker's comp now automatically includes the power to determine who belongs to any category, as long as they first decide to award worker's comp to that category, or to withhold it from that category. [1] I don't see why the ability to use a category when describing the worker's compensation scheme necessarily includes the very different power to take control of the definition of that category. For a different hypothetical, suppose that all workers employed in driving were already ineligible for worker's comp. Proposition 22 then would have had no impact on who was eligible for worker's comp. There's no difficulty with a "dormant commerce clause"-style argument that it should be invalid anyway because, even though the Legislature hasn't yet extended worker's compensation to drivers, they might do so in the future. But it seems to me that, in order to make that argument, you would first have to argue that it is impossible for the Legislature to extend worker's compensation to independent contractors -- otherwise, what's the difference between discretionarily extending worker's comp to driving employees before Prop 22 and discretionarily extending it to driving contractors after Prop 22? [1] I'm having difficulty forming the hypotheticals I really want because the body given unlimited power over worker's comp in this case is the official legislature, which tends to make examples sound less ridiculous than I think they should, as the legislature already possesses most other legislative powers. But with so much being rested here specifically on their power over worker's comp (since that power is immune to statutory propositions and most others aren't), I think it's worth separating them conceptually. What if the constitution endowed a separate body, the "California Worker's Compensation Authority", with this plenary power? Then by this ruling, the official legislature would no longer have the power to define who is an independent contractor and who isn't -- that would interfere with the constitutional grant of authority to the CWCA. But I suspect the CWCA also wouldn't have the power to define who is an independent contractor. Who would?

thaumasiotes 5y ago

I'm confused by something in the judgment. (I) It's based on the idea of a conflict between (1) a constitutional grant of unlimited power to the legislature to "create and enforce a complete system of worker's compensation"; and (2) Proposition 22's specification that "an app-based driver is an independent contractor and not an employee or agent with respect to the app-based driver's relationship with a network company if [certain] conditions are met." (II) It states that independent contractors are not eligible for worker's compensation because, "as presently codified", California's worker's compensation law does not apply to independent contractors. (III) It then concludes that this language from Proposition 22 restricts the Legislature's constitutionally unlimited power "to determine what workers must be covered or not covered by the worker's compensation system". But up in step (II), there seems to be an explicit acknowledgement that the worker's compensation system could cover independent contractors if it wanted to. If the Legislature's unlimited power to create a worker's compensation system can be used to determine whether app-based drivers working as contractors are or aren't eligible for worker's compensation, how does restricting the Legislature's ability to determine whether app-based drivers are independent contractors or employees also restrict the Legislature's ability to determine whether they are covered by the worker's compensation system?

DannyBee 5y ago
So your argument is about who could overrule who, but that is a secondary question. General rule of thumb, if the constitution says "x has complete the power to do y", and you aren't x, your attempt to do so is unconstitutional even if x could simply overrule you. At the federal level, you see this play out in things like the "dormant commerce clause" - States don't have the power to regulate interstate commerce. Sometimes they try in spaces where congress hasn't acted yet. Congress doesn't have to explicitly overrule them, they are simply unconstitutional in the first place. It's not your power to play with. You also see it play out in congress trying to regulate for the general welfare (a power reserved to states). In this case, if the constitution says "the legislature gets to decide who has workers comp", and they decided, and you attempt to adjust that, that's probably unconstitutional. The 100% normal thing that would happen is a court would sever it and say "to the degree the statute tries to adjust who gets workers comp, that part is null and void ". It's just that here, the statute explicitly says "if that provision is found unconstitutional, the whole statute should be struck down". So the court did. One side thing to keep in mind, because it often plays into these things later - when a court finds a statute unconstitutional, they are finding that it was always unconstitutional from day 0, not just moving forward. In such cases, it is considered "void ab initio" - it is like it never existed. So assuming this holds up, the next thing that will happen is a bunch of folks will then come and file cases about what they should have gotten in the intervening time period. (void ab initio in practice is becoming harder to manage, and arguably being moved away from, but ..)
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  First, thanks for responding! > So your argument is about who could overrule who, but that is a secondary question. This is related, I guess, but I see my argument as being about something different. The claim of the ruling seems to be that: (I) The Legislature has the unlimited power to determine who does and who doesn't get worker's comp. (II) The Legislature has, using their discretion, given worker's comp to one category of worker (employees) and withheld worker's comp from another category of worker (contractors). (III) Therefore, no other group has the power to determine who belongs to which category, because that would interfere with the Legislature's power to determine who has worker's comp. But I don't think this works. Suppose the Legislature managed to get Proposition 209 repealed and subsequently determined that blacks receive worker's comp and whites don't. The implication of this ruling is that an initiative defining who is black and who is white would be invalid because that would interfere with the Legislature's power to define the worker's compensation scheme they want. And this is true in general - the Legislature's power to determine who gets worker's comp now automatically includes the power to determine who belongs to any category, as long as they first decide to award worker's comp to that category, or to withhold it from that category. [1] I don't see why the ability to use a category when describing the worker's compensation scheme necessarily includes the very different power to take control of the definition of that category. For a different hypothetical, suppose that all workers employed in driving were already ineligible for worker's comp. Proposition 22 then would have had no impact on who was eligible for worker's comp. There's no difficulty with a "dormant commerce clause"-style argument that it should be invalid anyway because, even though the Legislature hasn't yet extended worker's compensation to drivers, they might do so in the future. But it seems to me that, in order to make that argument, you would first have to argue that it is impossible for the Legislature to extend worker's compensation to independent contractors -- otherwise, what's the difference between discretionarily extending worker's comp to driving employees before Prop 22 and discretionarily extending it to driving contractors after Prop 22? [1] I'm having difficulty forming the hypotheticals I really want because the body given unlimited power over worker's comp in this case is the official legislature, which tends to make examples sound less ridiculous than I think they should, as the legislature already possesses most other legislative powers. But with so much being rested here specifically on their power over worker's comp (since that power is immune to statutory propositions and most others aren't), I think it's worth separating them conceptually. What if the constitution endowed a separate body, the "California Worker's Compensation Authority", with this plenary power? Then by this ruling, the official legislature would no longer have the power to define who is an independent contractor and who isn't -- that would interfere with the constitutional grant of authority to the CWCA. But I suspect the CWCA also wouldn't have the power to define who is an independent contractor. Who would?