1. This week’s edition of #50Weeks50Constitutions will have you saying #Eureka! Well, maybe that’s just me dreaming in winter about a hotel you can’t leave with some suffer girls. Anyway, stay here & you’ll get some #goldnuggets about the constitution for the State of California.
2. The territory now known as California was under Spanish control from the mid-1700’s until 1822, when Spain ceded it to Mexico after Mexico gained independence. But the Mexican government was more interested in territory closer to the capital. 
3. This worked well for the U.S. to achieve Jefferson’s vision of an entire Pacific coast populated by Americans. From the 1840s on there was a big push of immigrating from elsewhere in the country to California.
4. Inevitably there was conflict between the U.S. and Mexico. It certainly wasn’t the main reason for the Mexican-American war, but at the war’s end and at the signing of a treaty, the U.S. controlled the land that would become the State of California.
5. The path to statehood was delayed a bit over Congressional discussions of slavery, but eventually the people of California came together and drafted a constitution in Monterrey in 1849.
6. The drafters borrowed from the recent Iowa and New York constitutions. Intriguingly, the delegates included natives of Switzerland, France, Scotland, Ireland, and Spain. This diversity made the first constitution quite moderate.
7. The constitution granted the legislative branch the most power, but there were some restrictions, including on the granting of divorces, chartering corporations, & establishing banks, & a prohibition on enacting special legislation for private benefit.
8. Drafting a Declaration of Rights was the first substantive business of the convention. This Declaration include an embrace of natural rights and a prohibition on both slavery and involuntary servitude.
9. The Declaration also including a Baby Ninth Amendment declaring that the “enumeration of rights shall not be construed to impair or deny others retained by the people.” Intriguingly though, there was no explicit protection of the right to bear arms.
10. The constitution also established a Supreme Court with three justices elected by the people for terms of six years. But the first legislature would elect the first justices to staggered terms so one was up for election every two years.
11. This constitution, at a nod at the diversity of the state, required that all laws be published both in English and Spanish. Unfortunately, this constitution did not last. It was only amended three times before being replaced in 1879.
12. Between 1849 and 1879 the population of California increased by a few hundred thousand people. Most of the 1879 constitution was aimed at curbing corporate power, with nine sections aimed at the railroads. It also embraced the anti-Chinese sentiment of the day.
13. There was a debate over women’s suffrage, but women were not given the vote. Still, Art. XX, Sec. 19 declared that no person should be denied pursuing any business, vocation, or profession because of their sex. So that was a step in the right direction at least.
14. This 1879 Constitution is the current constitution for the state of California. But the people of California have amended it over 500 times making it one of the longest in the world.
15. One of the most intriguing amendments, in 1990, was to Article 1 Section 24, which now states “rights guaranteed by this Constitution are not dependent on those guaranteed by the United States Constitution.” Which seems quite good!
16. But alas, it is lacking. It then severely undercuts that language with a list of rights, mostly of criminal defendants, that shall not be construed to be any more protected by the California constitution than by the federal version. But hey, it still has a Baby Ninth!
17. Californians have often used the proposition process, but the courts sometimes get in the way. A proposition to amend the constitution to split California into 3 states was removed by the Cal. Supreme Court before the election: '
foxnews.com/us/cal-3-propo…
foxnews.com/us/cal-3-propo…
18. Sources for this week’s edition of #50Weeks50Constitutions:
cpp.edu/~jlkorey/calco…; monterey.org/museums/Monter…; sos.ca.gov/archives/colle…; books.google.com/books/about/Th…
cpp.edu/~jlkorey/calco…; monterey.org/museums/Monter…; sos.ca.gov/archives/colle…; books.google.com/books/about/Th…
