Newsom v. Superior Ct.
Annotate this CaseIn May 2020, the chairs of the California Assembly and Senate committees that consider election-related matters, prepared a formal letter to the Governor indicating they were working on legislation to ensure Californians could vote by mail in light of the emergency occasioned by COVID-19. The committee chairs encouraged the Governor to issue an executive order allowing all Californians to vote by mail. On June 3, 2020, the Governor signed the order at issue here, Executive Order No. N-67-20. The Executive Order identified statutory provisions that were displaced pursuant to its provisions. At the time the Governor issued the Executive Order, two bills pending in the Legislature addressed the substance of the Governor’s Executive Order: Assembly Bill No. 860 (2019-2020 Reg. Sess.), which would ensure all California voters were provided ballots in advance of the election to vote by mail, and Senate Bill No. 423 (2019-2020 Reg. Sess.), which would govern those remaining aspects of the election that were yet to occur. In June, real parties filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief seeking a declaration that the Executive Order “is null and void as it is an unconstitutional exercise of legislative powers reserved only to the Legislature, nor is it a permitted action” under the Emergency Services Act and an injunction against the Governor implementing the Executive Order. The complaint also sought an injunction. In Newsom v. Superior Court, 51 Cal.App.5th 1093 (2020), the Court of Appeal granted the Governor’s petition challenging a temporary restraining order suspending the Executive Order that the superior court issued in an expedited, “ex parte” proceeding. The Court held that there was no basis for the superior court to grant real parties’ ex parte application at a hearing conducted one day after the action was filed, without proper notice to the Governor or his appearance, and without the substantive showing required for an ex parte proceeding. Following the earlier Newsom decision, the case was reassigned to a different judge who conducted a trial and entered a judgment granting declaratory relief that the Executive Order was void as unconstitutional, and that the California Emergency Services Act did not authorize the Governor to issue the Executive Order. In this case, the Court of Appeal granted the Governor’s petition and directed the superior court to dismiss as moot real parties’ claim for declaratory relief: the Executive Order was superseded by legislation and was directed only at the November 3, 2020 general election, which had occurred before the judgment was entered. However, the Court found the declaratory relief and accompanying permanent injunction regarding executive orders issued under the Emergency Services Act raised matters of great public concern regarding the Governor’s orders in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic emergency. The Court ruled the superior court erred in interpreting the Emergency Services Act to prohibit the Governor from issuing quasi-legislative orders in an emergency. The Court concluded the issuance of such orders did not constitute an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power.
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