California State Senate Elections, Reapportionment, and Constitutional Amendments Committee Records, 1850-2006

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Summary

Creators:
California State Senate Elections, Reapportionment, and Constitutional Amendments Committee
Abstract:
The Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee is the most recent Senate committee to oversee election law, redistricting and reapportionment, and, beginning in 2005, constitutional amendments. Throughout the life of the committee its scope appears to have remained that of bills relating to elections and reapportionment, with the addition of hearing constitutional amendments in 2005. The Senate Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee records consist of Bill Files, 1969, 1975-1980, 1982-2006, Hearing Files, 1967-1975, Contested Election Files, 1850-1937, Reapportionment Files, 1967-1975, 1982-2001, Reapportionment Hearings, 1961, 1971-2001, Reapportionment Court Case Files, 1982-2002, Subject Files, 1962-2004, Correspondence, 1974-2000, Maps and Data Files, 1965-1967, Demographic and Political Profiles, 1992-1993, Miscellaneous Reports, 1851-1858, 1973-1996, and News Clippings, 1980-2004. It is anticipated that the Archives will receive further records from the Senate Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee. Researchers should check for recently received, unprocessed records of this committee.
Extent:
52 cubic feet
Language:
Languages represented in the collection: English

Background

Scope and content:

The Senate Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee records consist of Bill Files, 1969, 1975-1980, 1982-2006, Hearing Files, 1967-1975, Contested Election Files, 1850-1937, Reapportionment Files, 1967-1975, 1982-2001, Reapportionment Hearings, 1961, 1971-2001, Reapportionment Court Case Files, 1982-2002, Subject Files, 1962-2004, Correspondence, 1974-2000, Maps and Data Files, 1965-1967, Demographic and Political Profiles, 1992-1993, Miscellaneous Reports, 1851-1858, 1973-1996, and News Clippings, 1980-2004. It is anticipated that the Archives will receive further records from the Senate Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee. Researchers should check for recently received, unprocessed records of this committee.

The bill files document the bills directed to the committee. The files include committee analysis, letters from interested parties, and the comments of affected agencies. These files show the close involvement of the committee in such issues as campaign finance reform, the Political Reform Act and amendments to the Act, term limits, same day registration and voting, voting rights for young people and efforts to engage them in the voting process, online public disclosure, and secure electronic voting. Other issues taken up by the committee included a revision to the Code of Fair Campaign Practices (AB866, 2005) adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of topics a candidate would not use to appeal to negatives prejudices during a campaign.

The records also include an early series on contested elections. This series spanning 1850-1937 documents the committee's involvement in examining the election results of contested elections at the senate district level and includes transcripts, reports and related material.

The hearing files span a variety of elections related topics including voter registration and voter turnout, the Political Reform Act of 1974, campaign finance reform, efforts to make elections "English only," electronic voting and voting systems software, the decennial census and redistricting, as well as bill specific hearings.

There is also a second reapportionment specific hearing series, dealing specifically with the various topics, bills, and initiatives important to the committee's reapportionment work. Also included are hearings to present the proposed redistricting. This series, as well as the reapportionment series and reapportionment court cases deal exclusively with the decennial census, reapportionment, and redistricting process. Here researchers will find documentation of the committee's work drafting new congressional, senate, and assembly districts. The reapportionment court cases document the legal challenges to those proposals and the committee's response. The researcher should note that the committee collected redistricting hearing files under both hearing files and reapportionment hearing files and both series should be consulted.

The subject files document the committee's work in areas such as a revision of the Elections Code and the Voting Rights Act, campaign finance, voter discrimination, electronic filing, litigation (again mostly in relation to the reapportionment and redistricting process), and the Census and voting demographics, as well as some reapportionment and redistricting material not found in the Reapportionment series. The correspondence consists of mostly outgoing correspondence from the Committee chairperson. Topics include current legislation and redistricting efforts, the organization of public hearings, as well as day to day administrative details of the committee and committee consultants' work. The maps and data series includes maps and data relating to reapportionment and redistricting, such as census population and demographic data, party registration and election results at the state assembly and senate district level and at the federal congressional district level. This series also includes some correspondence and notes.

The demographic and political profiles are a complete series of profiles for each senate district that were produced by the committee in 1992 and 1993. The miscellaneous reports include mostly reports produced outside the committee on a number of topics including campaign finance, political reform, and reapportionment. This series also includes a number of reports analyzing state propositions in each election cycle. The news clippings are a collection of newspaper and magazine articles collected by the committee on topics relating to the committee's work.

Biographical / historical:

The Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee is the most recent Senate committee to oversee election law, redistricting and reapportionment, and, beginning in 2005, constitutional amendments.

The first committee that had elections under its purview was Privileges and Elections. It was created as a standing committee of the Senate by the President in 1849. Its purpose was to "examine the returns of the elections of Senators as communicated by the Secretary of State." In 1851 the committee was renamed simply Elections and appears to have expanded its work to include bills relating to elections as well as the examination of election returns. This committee was renamed Elections and Election Laws in 1903, before reverting back to the Elections Committee in 1913, which it remained until 1967 when it became the Elections and Reapportionment Committee. The committee shorted its name again to simply the Elections Committee in 1985, before reverting back to the Elections and Reapportionment Committee in 1989, a name it kept until 2005, when it became the Elections, Reapportionment, and Constitutional Amendments Committee. Throughout the life of the committee its scope appears to have remained that of bills relating to elections and reapportionment, with the addition of hearing constitutional amendments in 2005.

The chairs of these committees from 1900-2006:

Delvin, Robert T. (Rep.), 1901-1902

Beslshaw, C.M. (Rep.), 1903-1904

Leavitt, Frank W. (Rep.), 1905-1906

Walker, George S. (Rep.), 1907-1908

Estudillo, Miguel (Rep.), 1909-1912

Hewitt, Leslie R. (Rep.), 1913-1914

Benson, Frank H. (Rep.), 1915-1916

Flaherty, Lawrence J. (Rep.), 1917-1918

Slater, Herbert W (Dem.), 1919-1926

Fellon, Roy (R-D), 1927-1928, 1931-1932

Merriam, Frank F. (Rep.), 1929-1930

Jespersen, Chris N (R-D), 1933-1934, 1941-1942

Allen, James M. (Dem.), 1937-1938

Hays, Ray W. (Rep.), 1939-1940

Breed, Arthur H., Jr. (R-D), 1943-1944

Biggar, George M. (R-D), 1945-1946

Carter, Oliver J. (Dem.), 1947-1948

Weybret, Fred (R-D), 1949-1950

Dilworth, Nelson S. (R-D), 1951-1958

Cobey, James A. (Dem.), 1959-1960

Richards, Richard D. (Dem.), 1961-1962

Rodda, Albert S. (Dem.), 1963-1965

Mills, James (Dem.), 1967-1968

Deukmejian, George, (Dem.), 1969

Whetmore, James E. 1970

Dymally, Mervyn M. (Dem.), 1971-1974

Rains, Omer L. (Dem.), 1975-1976

Holden, Nate (Dem.), 1977-1978

Keene, Barry (Dem.), 1979-1980

Boatwrite, Daniel E. (Dem.), 1981-1982

Lockyer, Bill, (Dem.), 1983-1984

Carpenter, Paul B. (Dem.), 1985-1986

Marks, Milton, (Dem.), 1987-1994

Polanco, Richard G. (Dem.), 1995-1996

Karnette, Betty (Dem.), 1997-1998

Murray, Kevin (Dem.), 1999-2000

Perata, Don (Dem.), 2001-2004

Bowen, Debra, (Dem.), 2005-2006

Acquisition information:
The State Archives received these records in accordance with California Government Code 9080(b) which requires legislative committees to transfer their records to the State Archives when they are no longer needed by the committee.
Physical location:
California State Archives
Rules or conventions:
Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Access and use

Location of this collection:
1020 "O" Street
Sacramento, CA 95814, US
Contact:
(916) 653-2246
reference@sos.ca.gov
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