BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2517
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Date of Hearing: April 27, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS AND REDISTRICTING
Shirley Weber, Chair
AB 2517
(Thurmond) - As Amended April 6, 2016
SUBJECT: Voting age: school district governing board
elections.
SUMMARY: Allows a charter city to permit 16- and 17-year olds
to vote in school district elections if those elections are
governed by the city's charter. Specifically, this bill:
1)Allows a city or city and county to amend its charter to
authorize a person who will be at least 16 years of age at the
time of the next election to vote in a school district
governing board election in which he or she would be qualified
to vote based on residence. Provides that this provision
applies only to elections for school district governing boards
that are governed by a charter, as specified.
a) Requires the city or city and county to prescribe the
manner and method by which votes may be cast and counted,
provided that all votes are cast no later than 8 p.m. on
the day of the election.
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b) Provides that if a city or city and county amends its
charter to permit 16- and 17-year olds to vote in school
district elections, the city or city and county shall enter
into an agreement with the county elections official
providing for payment by the city, city and county, or
school district of all costs necessary to implement the
charter amendment. Alternately permits the city, city and
county, or school district to perform any or all duties to
implement the charter amendment, unless prohibited by law.
Provides that an agreement need not be entered into before
the enactment of the charter amendment.
c) Provides that a charter amendment adopted pursuant to
these provisions is valid regardless of the date it was
approved, as long as the amendment has an effective date on
or after January 1, 2017.
2)Permits a person who is at least 16 years of age, and who
otherwise meets all other requirements, to register to vote
for the limited purpose of voting in a school district
governing board election if a city or city and county amends
its charter to authorize participation by 16- and 17-year
olds.
3)Makes various findings and declarations, including the
following:
a) Research shows that early voting experiences are
important determinants of future voting behavior. The
formation of voting habits begins when individuals reach
voting age and experience their first elections.
b) Local political decisions have great influence on the
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lives of 16- and 17-year olds. As such, 16- and 17-year
olds deserve to vote, and research shows they are mature
enough to do so.
c) Lowering the voting age will also increase the demand
for better civics education in schools, thereby
significantly increasing political engagement.
d) It is unclear whether existing state law permits charter
cities to lower the voting age for local elections.
4)Makes corresponding changes.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Permits a person who is a United States citizen, a resident of
California, not in prison or on parole for the conviction of a
felony, and is at least 18 years of age at the time of the
next election to register to vote in any local, state, or
federal election.
2)Allows a person who is at least 16 years old and otherwise
meets all voter eligibility requirements to register to vote.
Provides that the registration will be deemed effective as
soon as the affiant is 18 years old at the time of the next
election. Provides this option will be operative when the
Secretary of State certifies that the state has a statewide
voter registration database that complies with specified
provisions of federal law.
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3)Permits a county or a city to provide for its own governance
through the adoption of a charter by a majority vote of its
electors voting on the question.
4)Permits a city charter to provide for the conduct of city
elections. Grants plenary authority, subject to limited
restrictions, for a city's charter to provide for the manner
in which and the method by which municipal officers are
elected.
5)Provides that a legally adopted city charter supersedes all
laws inconsistent with that charter with respect to municipal
affairs.
6)Permits a county and all cities within it to consolidate as a
charter city and county. Provides that a charter city and
county is both a charter city and a charter county, and
provides that its charter city powers supersede conflicting
charter county powers.
7)Provides that any unified school district that is coterminous
with or includes within its boundaries a chartered city or
city and county shall be governed by the board of education
provided for in the charter of the city or city and county.
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FISCAL EFFECT: None. This bill is keyed non-fiscal by the
Legislative Counsel.
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose of the Bill: According to the author:
Voting is the cornerstone of California's democracy.
Yet in the most recent 2014 midterm elections, only
36% of eligible voters actually cast a ballot, which
marked a 72-year low. Only 20% of 18-29 year olds
voted in the 2014 midterms, the lowest youth turnout
rate ever recorded.
California has taken some important steps to address
the challenge of low civic engagement and voter
turnout, including automatic voter registration for
anyone with a California Driver's License and
pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds to vote.
Yet it is clearly not enough.
Currently two municipalities in the United States
allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote: Takoma Park and
Hyattsville, Maryland. The results from these cities
are very encouraging. For instance, after Takoma Park
lowered its voting age for the 2013 election, turnout
among 16- and 17-year-olds was higher than any other
age group.
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The international evidence is just as compelling. In
Norway, more than 20 municipalities lowered their
voting age to 16 on a trial basis for the 2011
election. The result was that turnout of 16- and
17-year-olds was much higher than first-time voters
ages 18-21. Other countries such as Brazil, Ecuador,
Argentina, Nicaragua, Germany, Scotland, Hungary and
Austria all have gone forward with letting 16- and
17-year-olds vote in local, state, and/or national
elections.
AB 2517 will:
Increase voter turnout, especially among young
voters.
Give young adults the ability to truly
influence the direction of their local schools.
Increase civic engagement among young adults.
Provide a strong incentive to improve civics
education.
Moreover, AB 2517 is permissive. Thus, only those
communities that are most ready and prepared to change
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the vote will empower the young adult voice.
In California, 16- and 17-year-olds are provided with
almost all the rights, privileges, and obligations as
other adults - they can drive, work, pay taxes, and
even be charged with a felony as an adult. The right
to vote should now be provided as well.
2)Age of Majority: This measure breaks with traditional notions
of the age of majority and the responsibilities and privileges
attached thereto. For the most part, California law does not
allow minors to enter into civil contracts, including
marriage, or to be held to the same standards of
accountability in criminal matters, absent extenuating
circumstances.
With a few limited exceptions (most notably the legal drinking
age and, if pending legislation is signed by the Governor, the
legal smoking age), California confers the legal rights and
responsibilities attendant with adulthood on those individuals
who are 18 years of age or older. The committee should
consider whether it is appropriate to confer one specific
legal right-the right to vote-on certain individuals who have
not yet reached the age of majority.
3)School Districts Governed by City Charters: The provisions of
this bill are applicable only to elections for school district
governing boards that are governed by a city charter. As
detailed above, existing law provides that any unified school
district that is coterminous with or includes within its
boundaries a chartered city or city and county shall be
governed by the board of education provided for in the charter
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of the city or city and county. Because state law allows a
city's charter to govern a school district even if that
district contains territory outside the boundaries of that
city, this bill could allow for a city's charter to lower the
voting age for voters outside the city's boundaries.
For example, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is
governed by the Los Angeles City Charter. However, LAUSD
contains significant territory that is outside the boundaries
of the city of Los Angeles. In addition to the City of Los
Angeles, the district's boundaries also contain all or parts
of the Cities of Bell, Bell Gardens, Beverly Hills, Carson,
Commerce, Cudahy, Culver City, Downey, El Segundo, Gardena,
Hawthorne, Huntington Park, Inglewood, Lomita, Long Beach,
Lynwood, Maywood, Montebello, Monterey Park, Rancho Palos
Verde, Rolling Hills Estates, San Fernando, Santa Monica,
South Gate, Torrance, Vernon, and West Hollywood. (LAUSD also
contains portions of the territory of the Cities of Alhambra,
Calabasas, Santa Clarita, and South Pasadena, though the
portions of those cities that overlap with the boundaries of
LAUSD involve only a few parcels of land that generate no
enrollment for LAUSD.)
Nonetheless, while this bill would permit a city's charter to
govern the voting age for certain elections for areas outside
that city, all the voters within the school district-including
those who live outside the city-would be able to vote on the
charter amendment asking whether the voters want to allow 16-
and 17-year olds to be permitted to vote in school governing
board elections. Article IX, Section 16 of the California
Constitution provides that if the boundaries of a school
district extend beyond the limits of a city whose charter
governs school district elections, any amendment to the
charter that changes the manner in which school board members
are elected must be submitted to the voters of the entire
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school district-not just those who live within the boundaries
of the city.
4)Does this Policy Require a Constitutional Amendment? Article
II, Section 2 of the California Constitution states, "A United
States citizen 18 years of age and resident in this State may
vote." Because this provision of the Constitution describes
voter qualifications, it is unclear whether a statute may
extend the right to vote beyond those who meet the
qualifications established in the Constitution.
5)Limited Voting Rights: While this bill would establish a
framework under which 16- and 17-year olds could be allowed to
vote in elections for public office, those 16- and 17-year
olds would have only limited voting rights. Voters under the
age of 18 would be able to vote for school board members, but
would not be able to vote on other offices or measures that
appear on the ballot.
Under existing state law, eligibility to participate in public
elections generally is governed by a single set of
qualifications: namely, that a person must be a United States
citizen, at least 18 years of age, a resident of the
jurisdiction, not mentally incompetent, and not imprisoned or
on parole for the conviction of a felony. (The one notable
exception is for elections in landowner voter districts, where
only landowners in the district are eligible to vote in
elections conducted by the district. The United States
Supreme Court has found that landowner voter districts can be
constitutionally permissible only where a district does not
"exercise what might be thought of as 'normal governmental'
authority, but its actions disproportionately affect
landowners." Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Water District (1973)
410 US 719.) Having different qualifications for voting on
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different offices or measures, instead of a uniform set of
voting qualifications, is a significant departure from
existing policy in California.
This proposed shift in policy is particularly notable in light
of the mechanism that would be used to authorize 16- and
17-year olds to vote in school board elections. An amendment
to a city charter would be required to extend voting rights to
individuals under the age of 18, yet such a charter amendment
would not permit 16- and 17-year olds to vote in city
elections, but would only grant voting rights with respect to
school board elections. Furthermore, this mechanism creates
the potential that neighboring school districts-even within
the same county-would have different qualifications for
participating in district elections.
Among the findings and declarations that are contained in this
bill are statements that "[r]esearch shows that early voting
experiences are important determinants of future voting
behavior," and that "16 and 17 year olds deserve to vote, and
research shows they are mature enough to do so." In light of
these findings, would it be appropriate to grant only limited
voting rights to 16- and 17-year olds, rather than lowering
the voting age across the board and allowing all
otherwise-eligible 16- and 17-year olds to vote in all public
elections?
6)Election Administration Complications: By allowing 16- and
17-year olds to vote in certain elections, but not in others,
this bill could complicate the administration of elections.
For example, in school districts that consolidate their
governing board elections with statewide elections, this bill
presumably would require the creation of a separate ballot
that contains school district governing board races, but not
the other races and measures that appear on the ballot at the
same consolidated election. Poll workers would need to be
trained and new procedures would need to be developed to
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ensure that each voter received the correct ballot.
7)Arguments in Opposition: In opposition to this bill, the
California School Boards Association writes:
AB 2517 disregards the fact that school districts are
co-equal branches of local government by treating them
as subordinate to charter cities for purposes of
governing elections and making related fiscal
decisions. The bill presupposes that a non-educational
entity is better equipped to determine how best to
engage students in civic learning, and it interferes
with the purpose of the Local Control Funding Formula,
which is to allow local educational entities to set
goals for their students and to align financial
resources in support of those goals.
Further, the bill treats voters inequitably by giving
some voters full rights, and others only limited
voting rights. AB 2517 effectively creates three
classes of voters because some 16 and 17 year olds
would be allowed to vote, while others would not. In
addition to the question of fundamental fairness
raised by creating separate classes of voters, this
would likely result in widespread voter confusion and
make even more challenging the work of those who seek
to get voters to the polls.
Together with the overlapping boundaries of
municipalities and local educational agencies in our
state, this bill would create a great deal of
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confusion as to which 16 year olds qualified to vote
and which agency should make that determination.
Indeed, the bill appears to grant multiple agencies
the right to make this determination for the same
areas as it applies to school districts whose
boundaries are coterminous with or includes within its
boundaries a chartered city. The bill makes no
provision for resolving disputes between charter
cities, or affected general law cities and school
districts.
8)Technical Amendment: One of the findings in this bill
contains incorrect information about the turnout at the
November 2014 statewide general election. To correct that
error, committee staff recommends the following amendment to
this bill:
On page 2, line 6 of the bill, "42" should be replaced with
"31."
9)Related Legislation: ACA 7 (Gonzalez), which is awaiting
referral to a policy committee by the Assembly Rules
Committee, proposes an amendment to the California
Constitution to allow 16- and 17-year olds to vote in a school
or community college district governing board election in
which that person would be qualified to vote based on
residence.
ACA 2 (Mullin), which is pending on the Inactive File on the
Assembly Floor, allows a person who is 17 years of age, and
who will be 18 years old at the time of the next general
election, to vote in any intervening primary or special
election that occurs before the next general election.
10)Previous Legislation: ACA 7 (Mullin) of 2013, ACA 2
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(Furutani) of 2009, ACA 17 (Mullin) of 2005, and ACA 25
(Mullin) of 2004, all were similar to ACA 2 of the current
legislative session (as described above). All of these
measures were approved by the Assembly Elections &
Redistricting Committee (or, in the case of ACA 25 of 2004,
the Assembly Elections, Redistricting, and Constitutional
Amendments Committee), but none of the measures passed off the
Assembly Floor.
SCA 19 (Vasconcellos) of 2004, initially proposed to lower the
voting age to 14 years, with votes by 14- and 15-year olds
counting as one-quarter of a vote, and votes by 16- and
17-year olds counting as one-half of a vote. SCA 19
subsequently was amended instead to lower the voting age to
16, with all votes counting equally as a single vote. SCA 19
failed passage in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
ACA 23 (Speier) of 1995, proposed lowering the voting age to 14,
but was never set for a hearing in the Assembly Elections,
Reapportionment, and Constitutional Amendments Committee.
11)Double-Referral: This bill has been double-referred to the
Assembly Local Government Committee. Due to impending
committee deadlines, if this bill is approved in this
committee today, it would need to be heard in the Assembly
Local Government Committee next week, absent a waiver of the
Joint Rules. However, if this bill is amended in committee
today, that may prevent this bill from being heard in the
Assembly Local Government Committee before next week's
deadline for policy committees to hear and report bills. In
light of this fact, if it is the committee's desire to approve
this bill with amendments, committee staff recommends that
this bill be passed out of committee with the author's
commitment to take those amendments subsequent to passage by
this committee.
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REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
The Greenlining Institute (co-sponsor)
Vote16 - Berkeley (co-sponsor)
Opposition
Association of California School Administrators
California School Boards Association
Analysis Prepared by:Ethan Jones / E. & R. / (916) 319-2094
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