BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1816
Page 1
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB
1816 (Dahle)
As Amended May 24, 2016
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |77-0 |(May 5, 2016) |SENATE: |37-0 |(August 15, |
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Original Committee Reference: L. GOV.
SUMMARY: Authorizes the Tulelake Irrigation District
(District), to adopt a resolution to make changes to the
qualifications for directors.
The Senate amendments:
1)Authorize a person, who owns land in the District and resides
within the residency area, to be a director only in the
division in which they own land or act as the owner's legal
representative.
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2)Require, before a legal representative may declare his or her
candidacy or be appointed to serve as director, a legal
representative to present to the District a copy of his or her
authority to be kept and filed with the returns of the
election or the certificate of appointment.
3)Define the following terms:
a) "Corporation" to mean "any legal entity, public or
private, properly organized under the laws of the state in
which it was created, that is allowed to own real property
in California;" and,
b) "Legal representative" to mean "the person authorized to
act for purposes of this bill for or on behalf of a
corporation, estate, or trust holding title to land within
the District."
FISCAL EFFECT: None
COMMENTS:
1)Irrigation District Voter and Director Qualifications.
California's 93 irrigation districts function under a range of
statutes that are a hybrid of registered voter and
landowner-voter type districts. In general, registered voters
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are eligible to vote in district elections, but directors
(also referred to as board members) must be landowners of the
district.
2)Are the Landowner Qualifications Constitutional? The
California Constitution provides that the right to vote or
serve in elected office may not be conditioned on a
landownership qualification. However, in 1973, the United
States (U.S.) Supreme Court ruled in Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare
Water District that the California statute requiring a
landownership qualification did not violate the Equal
Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The court ruled
there was no violation because those districts do not exercise
normal governmental authority and their activities
disproportionally affect landowners.
The California Supreme Court, in Choudhry v. Free (1976) 17
Cal. 3d 660, declared unconstitutional a section of the
Irrigation District Law requiring potential board candidates
to be landowners. The court ruled that this section was
unconstitutional as applied to the Imperial Irrigation
District and its board of directors, the real parties in
interest, because it deprived the irrigation candidates and
voters, including petitioner voters, of equal protection. The
court's opinion gave two reasons it did not extend its ruling
to other irrigation districts. First, the Imperial Irrigation
District was singular at that time among irrigation districts
in that it had more residents, land, and employees than any
other irrigation district and it was providing retail water
service. Second, neither respondents nor real parties in
interest had opposed petitioners' claim that Water Code
Section 21100 was unconstitutional, and numerous irrigation
districts in the state that would have been affected by a
finding of unconstitutionality did not have the opportunity to
present their views or offer evidence regarding the
characteristics and operation of irrigation districts in
general.
3)Bill Summary and Senate Amendments. Under existing law,
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directors of the District are registered voters, landowners,
and residents within the division they represent. The
Legislature has authorized several irrigation districts:
Pixley Irrigation District, Hills Valley Irrigation District,
Stratford Irrigation District, and Byron-Bethany Irrigation
District, to allow nonresident and nonvoter landowners to
serve on the board of directors, if the board passes a
resolution. There are protections in existing law that
establish protest proceedings for resident voters in each of
the Districts, if they do not want nonresident and nonvoter
landowners to serve as directors.
This bill mirrors provisions in existing law for several other
irrigation districts and authorizes the District to adopt a
resolution in a public hearing to allow nonvoter nonresident
landowners who live within one mile of the District's
boundaries to serve as a director. This bill also includes
the ability for registered voters to protest the change to
allow landowners of the District, who are residents within the
residency area defined by this bill, to serve on the board.
According to the District, there are 200 landowners within the
residency area defined by this bill, who would then qualify to
be a director.
Senate amendments authorize the legal representative of a
person that owns land within the District to serve as a
director, if the District adopts a resolution to authorize
nonvoter nonresident landowners to serve as directors.
Additionally, Senate amendments limit where a landowner may
serve as a director to only the division in which they own
land. This bill is sponsored by the District.
4)The District. The Tulelake Irrigation District is located
within the Upper Klamath Basin and includes land in both Modoc
and Siskiyou counties. The District has an exterior boundary
that includes 96,000 acres, and its northern boundary is
contiguous to the border between California and Oregon. The
District's governing body is a five-member board of directors.
According to Modoc County Local Agency Formation Commission's
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municipal service review, the District was formed in 1952, and
entered into a contract with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in
1956 for repayment of construction charges and the transfer to
the District the maintenance of the facilities used to deliver
water to District lands. In 1957, the Board of Directors
approved the formation of an improvement district to operate
and maintain pumps, dikes, and drainage facilities already
constructed by landowners and to apportion all charges among
several landowners according to the number of acres of land
owned. The District only provides water services for
agricultural purposes and is financed by assessments on
landowners.
5)Prior Legislation. The Assembly Local Government Committee
has heard several bills addressing qualification requirements
for both voters and directors of irrigation districts. There
have been several legislative attempts that have sought to
limit landowner qualifications for board directors: SB 614
(Wolk), Chapter 784, Statutes of 2013; SB 1939 (Alarcón),
Chapter 1041, Statutes of 2000; AB 2279 (Dymally) of 2004;
and, AB 159 (Salinas), Chapter 847, Statutes of 2006.
Several bills seeking to make changes to voter and director
qualifications for individual irrigation districts were never
heard by a policy committee or failed passage. SB 1189
(Florez) of 2006, which was never heard by the Senate Local
Government Committee, would have required voters to be
landowners instead of registered voters in the Alpaugh
Irrigation District. AB 286 (Matthews) of 2005, which failed
passage in the Senate Local Government Committee, would have
allowed the Board of Directors of the Banta-Carbona Irrigation
District to adopt a resolution to allow non-resident
landowners to serve on the board. The introduced version of
this bill was nearly identical to AB 386 (Dahle) of 2015,
which was never heard by the Assembly Local Government
Committee.
6)Policy Considerations. The Legislature may wish to consider
that there are other approaches to widening the pool of
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eligible directors besides allowing nonvoter and nonresident
landowners to serve as directors.
a) Resident Non-landowner Directors. The principal acts
for almost all other types of special districts do not
require landownership as a qualification for office. The
Legislature may wish to consider allowing resident voters,
who are not landowners, to be eligible to serve on the
board as a director. The Legislature has established an
exemption to the landowner requirements in existing law for
the South Bay Irrigation District.
b) Size and Divisions. Existing law provides a process for
irrigation districts to change the number of divisions or
the method of electing directors. Due to the expressed
challenges by the District in getting five directors to
serve, who are registered voters, landowners, and residents
within the division, the Legislature may wish to consider,
if a three-member board or removing the divisions in the
District would help remedy these challenges.
Arguments in Support. The District argues "The District has had
difficulty finding landowners who are willing and eligible to
serve on its Board of Directors given the current requirement
that Directors live in the Division they represent."
Arguments in Opposition. None on file.
Analysis Prepared by:
Misa Lennox / L. GOV. / (916) 319-3958 FN:
0003473
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