> Legislature can amend Proposition 22’s provisions with a statute passed by a seven-eighths majority in both houses, so long as the statute is “consistent with, and furthers the purpose of,” the initiative and the Legislature complies with certain procedural requirements
Initiate Constitutional Amendments do, Initiative Statutes do not. Prop 22 was an initiative statute, and as such did not amend the Constitution.
Nevertheless, because the legislative power resides in the people first and is delegated by them to the legislature to the extent that they have not themselves exercised it, an initiative statute, while subordinate to the State Constitution, cannot usually be altered by the legislature (the legislature can propose changes, but they must be passed by the people.) But, OTOH, Prop 22, as you note, contains a provision allowing a legislative hypermajority to amend it, and so can, in fact, be altered by the legislature unilaterally.
On the gripping hand, though, those unilateral alterations that the legislature can make are explicitly limited, and do not include making app-based drivers regular employees rather than contractors.
You know here all this time I thought that "modify" is a synonym of "change". So can lawmakers modify it or can they not modify it?
So it is yes and no i guess, in theory yes, in practice better forget about it. This is state constitution, it isnt meant to be modified as someone pleases
This one amendment to the law is just more difficult to amend than all the rest of the Constitution because it was designed specifically to be extremely difficult verging on impossible to amend but not technically impossible to amend as part of its text; and voters approved it with a far lower threshold than it would take for the legislature to modify it.
No, its not.
The Constitution can only be amended by a vote of the people (either by initiative or proposed by the legislature.)
This law can be amended by a vote of the people (either by initiative or proposed by the legislature), or it can be amended within certain bounds by a 7/8 vote of each house of the State Legislature without a vote of the people. It is, strictly, easier to amend than any part of the State Constitution.
Perhaps, but the comparison isn’t “7/8 of the legislature vs. a bare majority of the people” it is “7/8 of the legislature or a bare majority of the people vs. a bare majority of the people”.
It is absolutely not harder to amend Prop 22 than the State Constitution, or a normal initiative statute. It is easier. Perhaps only so slightly easier as to make no substantial difference, but your claim is that it is harder, and that is completely wrong. Even if it is not substantially easier, it is also not at all harder.
as an example you might say Law X section 7 says Uber drivers are contractors.
In some systems a change would be to remove this provision or to say the opposite.
a modification might be to add:
The definition of contractor will follow the amended definition of contractor as in Law Y Section 9 - subsection Uber contractors.
- "Modify" this part on the widget: Please alter this part to function correctly.
- "Change" this part on the widget: Please replace this part with a new part so that the widget functions correctly.
e.g. if I modified a cover, it probably means I drilled an extra hole or something to make it fit.....if I changed the cover, it probably means that I found a new cover that had the right hole.
Holy mother of supermajorities ...
What's the procedure for reversing a ballot measure? Can only be done via a different ballot measure?
Think about that before getting all fired up about 7/8 - most ballot initiatives completely exempt themselves from legislative amendment. That's the default.
Obviously lawmakers must still abide by laws in effect*, but they can absolutely change those laws if they have sufficient votes to do so.
Even the US Federal Constitution can be changed by lawmakers, nothing is off-limits with enough votes.
* Some countries suspend enforcement of laws within the physical space of legislative chambers. As an example, I understand over in Japan it's perfectly legal for a Diet member to murder someone in the Japanese Diet's legislative chamber because laws prohibiting murder aren't in effect in there. IANAL so I could be misled by urban legends.
This really depends on how loosely you define "lawmakers."
The federal legislature cannot amend the Constitution by itself, as it requires a 2/3 supermajority of the House and Senate, 3/4 supermajority by the states, which are not what one would traditionally refer to as 'lawmakers' but I guess could colloquially be sort of.
There's of course the constitutional convention path, but that's even less kind-of-sort-of fitting any normal definition of "lawmaker."
Congress isn’t the only legitimate legislature in the United States.
No, state legislators (and it is 3/4 of state legislatures that need to ratify) are absolutely, 100%, lawmakers. If one wants to differentiate federal from state lawmakers to refer specifically to either one, the appropriate adjective is used along with "lawmakers", but "lawmkers", without qualification, definitely encompasses both.
> there’s of course the constitutional convention path, but that’s even less kind-of-sort-of fitting any normal definition of “lawmaker.”
No, again, the convention is an alternative to Congress for proposing amendments, but they are still ratified by state legislatures, comprised of state legislators, who are exactly within the usual definition of “lawmkers” without further qualification. (And do so exactly as much as when the exact same group ratifies amendments proposed by the other mechanism, not “even less kind-of-sort-of”.)