Mendoza v. State of Calif., No. B195835 (Cal. App. April 17, 2007)
A California state appeals court has ruled that the recently enacted state law giving the mayor of Los Angeles partial control over the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) violates several provisions of the state constitution. The court concluded that "the Romero Act is an unconstitutional attempt to do indirectly what the Legislature is prohibited from doing directly," and that, "The Legislature cannot overrule the LAUSD’s voters’ determination that their Board is to be elected rather than appointed, nor may it transfer authority over part of the school system to entities outside of the public school system." A lower court also had invalidated the legislation.
The appeals court first focused on article IX, section 16 of the state constitution, which grants charter cities like Los Angeles the right to determine whether their school boards are elected or appointed. The only entities to which the constitution "expressly permits the legislature to delegate powers regarding education are the very same governing boards" that the constitution guarantees charter cities the right to elect. This right of the citizens of Los Angeles is violated by the act’s provisions relating to the Mayor’s Partnership, which the court found "completely divest" the school board of its control over three school clusters in the demonstration project; the provisions relating to the Council of Mayors, which the court characterized as a "somewhat more subtle, but no less substantial interference"; and the transfer of many of the board’s other powers to the district’s superintendent. While it clearly would be unconstitutional the legislature to give the mayor the right to appoint the school board, the effect of the act is the same, the court found. Rejecting the defendants’ argument that article IX, section 16 allows the legislature to transfer the school board’s powers to a different entity and "then say the charter city has no right to determine the composition of that entity [because] it is not a [school board]," the court held this amounts to "nothing more that an end-run around the Constitution." The court also rejected the defendants’ contention that the legislation is justified by an "emergency situation" that threatens LAUSD students’ constitutional right to basic equality of educational opportunity. The Romero Act makes no such findings, the court noted, and instead, "purports to justify its interference with the Board’s authority on the basis that the LAUSD ‘has unique challenges and resources that require and deserve special attention to ensure that all pupils are given the opportunity to reach their full potential.’"
The court then turned to article IX, section 6, which provides that, "No school or college or any other part of the Public School System shall be, directly or indirectly, transferred from the Public School System or placed under the jurisdiction of any authority other than one included within the Public School System." The purpose of that provision, the court observed, is "to guarantee that the ability of that system to discharge its duty fully is not impaired by the dissipation of authority and loss of control that would result if parts of the system were transferred from the system or placed under the jurisdiction of some other authority." The court first determined that the Council of Mayors and the Mayor’s Partnership are not entities within the public school system, because they act only at the direction of the mayor, who is not a part of the public school system. Article IX, which governs education, provides only for a state superintendent and board of education, county superintendents and boards, and local school districts with governing boards, and because "the Council of Mayors and the Mayor’s Partnership are not article IX entities, they are not part of the public school system." The court then held that the act makes a prohibited transfer by giving the Mayor’s Partnership control of the three clusters of schools and giving the Council of Mayors veto power over selection of the superintendent.
Mendoza v. State of Calif., No. B195835 (Cal. App. April 17, 2007)
[Full opinion]
[Editor’s Note: Background on the takeover attempt is found at the link below, from which a summary of the lower court’s ruling in the case is available.]
[NSBA School Law pages on D.C. and L.A. mayoral takeovers]