California Proposition 28, Change Senate Apportionment from Equal Population to Counties Initiative (1926)

California Proposition 28
Election date November 2, 1926
Topic Redistricting policy and State legislative elections
Status Approved
Type Initiated constitutional amendment	Origin Citizens

California Proposition 28 was on the ballot as an initiated constitutional amendment in California on November 2, 1926. It was approved.

A “yes” vote supported this constitutional amendment to: change state Senate apportionment from population-based districts to a system giving each county one senator, with smaller counties grouped into districts of up to three, and create a Reapportionment Commission (Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Surveyor General, Secretary of State, and Superintendent of Public Instruction) to draw districts if the Legislature failed to act.

A “no” vote opposed this constitutional amendment, thereby: keeping the existing requirement that both Assembly and Senate districts be apportioned based on equal population, and not creating a Reapportionment Commission to draw districts if the Legislature failed to act.

Election results

California Proposition 28
Result		Votes	Percentage
Yes		437,003	54.61%
No		363,208	45.39%

Results are officially certified.

Source

Text of measure

Ballot title

The ballot title for Proposition 28 was as follows:

“

Legislative Reapportionment. Initiative measure.

”

Ballot summary

The ballot summary for this measure was:

“

Amends Constitution, Article IV, Section 6. For choosing legislators requires Legislature, immediately following each Federal census, and next Legislature using 1920 census, to divide State into forty senatorial and eighty assembly districts, comprising contiguous territory, with assembly districts as equal in population as possible, no county or city and county containing more than one senatorial district, and no senatorial district comprising more than three counties of small population; creates Reapportionment Commission, comprising Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Surveyor General, Secretary of State, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction, to make apportionment if Legislature fails to act.

”

Full Text

The full text of this measure is available here.

Support

Arguments

• David P. Barrows: "The growth of city population in California, and particularly the unprecedented development of the two great urban regions of the state, will have the effect, if representation is reapportioned according to present law, of consolidating political power in the inhabitants of 3 per cent of the area of the state to the prejudice of the representative rights of the balance of the population who inhabit 97 per cent of the area of the state. The state legislature, foreseeing disadvantages to the general interests of the state, has repeatedly declined, since the publication of the last federal census, to reapportion representation on the basis of the existing law. ... The plan is called the “Federal Plan” because its provisions resemble those of the federal constitution with respect to representation in the United States Congress. It rests upon a principle widely recognized in American government and other governments that representation in a public assembly is equitably apportioned not according to population alone but according to two factors—population and territory. ... It will create a well-balanced legislature in which neither the cities nor the countryside may predominate."

Opposition

Arguments

• Dana R. Weller: "The proposed amendment is unfair and impractical so far as it relates to senatorial districts. The provision that no county or city and county shall contain more than one senatorial district would limit Alameda, Los Angeles and San Francisco to one senator each. These three combined have 200,000 more than half of the population of the state, so the result would be that the majority would have only three senators, and the minority would be represented by thirty-seven senators. There is no good reason for the discrimination. ... The only fair way is to base the representation on population, in accordance with the fundamental principles of our government that the majority shall rule."

Path to the ballot

See also: Signature requirements for ballot measures in California

In California, the number of signatures required for an initiated constitutional amendment is equal to 8 percent of the votes cast at the preceding gubernatorial election. For initiated amendments filed in 1926, at least 77,263 valid signatures were required.

See also

1926 Measures

• 1926 Measures
• State legislative elections on the ballot
• Redistricting policy on the ballot
• 1926 legislative sessions

California

• California ballot measures
• California ballot measure laws

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
• Ballot measure polls

External links

• California Voter Guide (November 1926)