BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 1816 Page 1 CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS AB 1816 (Dahle) As Amended May 24, 2016 Majority vote -------------------------------------------------------------------- |ASSEMBLY: |77-0 |(May 5, 2016) |SENATE: |37-0 |(August 15, | | | | | | |2016) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. AB 1816 Page 2 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 AB 1816 Page 3 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, AB 1816 Page 4 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 AB 1816 Page 5 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 AB 1816 Page 6 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 AB 1816 Page 7