How to Amend or Revise California’s Constitution

How to Amend or Revise California’s Constitution By Chris Micheli

            The California Constitution, naturally, provides the avenues to amend or revise its provisions. Specifically, Article XVIII deals with amending and revising the constitution, which was most recently amended by Proposition 6 on the November 3, 1970 ballot. Article 18 contains four sections.

Section 1 provides that the Legislature, by 2/3 vote, may propose an amendment or revision of the Constitution and may amend or withdraw its proposal. Each amendment is required to be prepared and submitted so that it can be voted on separately by the electorate.

Section 2 specifies that the Legislature, by 2/3 vote, may submit at a general election the question whether to call a convention to revise the Constitution. If the majority of the electorate votes yes, then within 6 months the Legislature is required to provide for the constitutional convention. Delegates to a constitutional convention must be voters elected from districts as nearly equal in population as may be practicable.

Section 3 state that the electors may amend the Constitution by initiative.

Section 4 requires a proposed amendment or revision to be submitted to the electors and, if approved by a majority of votes, takes effect on the fifth day after the Secretary of State files the statement of the vote for the election at which the measure is voted on, but the measure may provide that it becomes operative after its effective date. In addition, if provisions of two or more measures approved at the same election conflict, the provisions of the measure receiving the highest number of affirmative votes prevails.

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