Migliavacca v. City of Napa

[384]

HART, J.

This is a direct application to this court for a writ of prohibition, the purpose of which is to restrain the respondents—the city of Napa and its mayor, city clerk and councilmen—from submitting to the voters of the said city of Napa certain proposed amendments to the charter, to be voted upon by said voters at the general municipal election to be held in said city on the third day of May, 1909.

The city of Napa, as a municipal corporation, is governed by a freeholders’ charter, adopted in accordance with the requirements of section 8 of article XI of the constitution.

It appears from the averments of the petition that on the twentieth day of January, 1909, under an ordinance previously adopted by the city council for that purpose, a special election was held in said city at which were submitted certain proposed amendments to said charter. None of these proposed amendments received the required number of votes for their ratification, and were, therefore, rejected by the electors voting at said election.

On the 16th of February, 1909, “another petition, duly signed by more than fifteen per cent of the qualified voters of the said city of Napa, requesting the legislative authority thereof to submit certain proposed amendments to the charter of the said city to the qualified voters thereof for approval, was presented to and filed with the legislative authority of the said city,” and in pursuance thereof the said legislative authority, on the first day of March, 1909, passed an ordinance, the same having been approved by the mayor on the same day, “for the purpose of submitting said last mentioned proposed amendments to the said charter to the qualified voters of said city of Napa for approval.”

The respondents have interposed a general demurrer to the petition, and the single question thus submitted for consideration hinges upon the meaning of section 8 of article XI of the constitution.

So much of that section of the constitution as is pertinent to the inquiry here reads as follows: “. . . The charter so ratified may be amended at intervals of not less than two years by proposals therefor, submitted by the legislative authority of the city to the qualified electors thereof, at a general or special election, held at least forty days after the publication of such proposals for twenty days in a daily news