California Teachers Assn. v. Collins

WASTE, C. J.

Petitioners apply for a peremptory writ of mandate, directed to respondent, ordering him to receive and file a section of an initiative petition which respondent refuses to accept upon the ground that it does not comply with the law, in that the “short title”, appearing on the top of each page after the first page of the petition, is not printed in eighteen-point gothic type, and exceeds twenty words in length. Respondent demurs to the petition.

The pages, after the first, of the petition tendered respondent for filing, contain, across the top, printed in twelve-point black-face type the following: “INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, SUBMITTED DIRECTLY TO THE ELECTORS, MAKING STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION ELECTIVE; ABOLISHING SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, PROVIDING FOR DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION.” The Constitution (art. IV, see. 1) provides that initiative petitions proposing a law or amendment to the Constitution to- be submitted to the electors shall have printed across the top (first page) thereof in twelve-point black-face type the following: “Initiative measure to be submitted directly to the electors.” Such legend, in twelve-point type, appears on the initiative petition in this case, followed by the title and summary prepared by the attorney-general, as required by section 1197a of the Political Code. The statute (Pol. Code. sec. 1197b) provides that “across the top of each page after

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the first page of every initiative . . . petition or secuon thereof which may be prepared and circulated in accordance with law there shall be printed in eighteen-point gothic type a short title, in not to exceed twenty words, showing the nature of the petition and the subject to which it relates.” In this ease, the provision of the Constitution appears, from our examination of the first page, to have been correctly complied with. The requirements of the code section as to the pages “after the first page”, a matter on which the Constitution is silent, are not met, in the opinion of the respondent, as to the size of the type and the number of words used.

The requirements of both the Constitution and the statute are intended to and do give information to the electors who are asked to sign the initiative petitions. If that be accomplished in any given case, little more can be asked than that a substantial compliance with the law and the Constitution be had, and that such compliance does no violence to a reasonable construction of the technical requirement of the law. In two instances in the matter of the use of