Term limits restrict the number of times an elected official may be re-elected. They date back to ancient Greece and Rome and were enacted throughout history to prevent power monopolies and abuses. When one California county passed a measure that limited its supervisors to a single, four-year term, opponents sued, and the trial court ruled that a single, four-year term limit is unconstitutional. On appeal, the ruling was reversed.

In November 2020, San Bernardino County enacted Measure K with 66.84% of the vote. Measure K amended the County charter to limit its supervisors to a single, four-year term and set their compensation at $5,000 per month. Three new supervisors were also elected at that time. San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Donald R. Alvarez found Measure K to be unconstitutional. The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors appealed Alvarez’s ruling, but the issues became more complex in November 2022 when voters eliminated Measure K and replaced it with Measure D, which re-instated the legality of three four-year terms.

Nonetheless, the question of Measure K’s constitutionality was decided in a 2-1 decision by justices in Division Two of California’s Fourth District Court of Appeal on May 25. Writing for the Court, Presiding Justice Manuel A. Ramirez and concurring Justice Douglas P. Miller upheld the constitutionality of Measure K and found that supervisors’ compensation can be established by initiative.

While dissenting Justice Frank J. Menetrez found the issue to be moot because of Measure D’s enactment, Ramirez ruled that Measure K is constitutional. He wrote that the Court’s ruling is not moot because of the possibility that Measure K could “theoretically spring back into existence” especially if Measure D, which is also now on appeal, were to be held unconstitutional, making it the only California county with this type of term limit. The issue becomes even more complex given that Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 428, which bars any new term limit of less than two years, into law in 2021.

The plaintiff in San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors v Monell (Renner) is County Clerk Lynna Monnell, but Nadia Renner, who was elected to be a member of San Bernardino County’s Board of Supervisors in November 2022 was given leave to intervene by the trial court. Renner argued against the constitutionality of Measure K, said it only applies to new supervisors, and said the compensation limit was “severable” from the issue of Measure K’s constitutionality.

After finding that Alvarez’s ruling was appealable because it resolved the question of whether an injunction could be issued against the enactment of Measure K, the opinion turned to the question of how Measure D, now on appeal, would or would not supersede Measure K. The opinion also denied the request to stay the Court’s decision until the Measure D questions are settled.

With those issues out of the way, Ramirez turned to a discussion about the standard that must be used to decide challenges to state election laws. He said that the importance of votes is paramount and challenges should only go forward where questions about whether such laws would burden the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of voters. Applying this standard, he found that term limits are “not so “severe” as to trigger strict scrutiny.” The opinion found that the one-term limit was “reasonable and not discriminatory,” and does not affect the rights of voters who “retain the basic fundamental right to cast their ballots for the qualified candidate of their choice.”

The opinion then turned to the rights of candidates. It found they were not burdened by term limits because they were free to run for other offices and could still serve for a “meaningful term.” In addition, Ramirez explained the benefits of term limits as upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1991 case Legislature v. Eu, which imposed lifetime term limits on certain state officials. The Court wrote, “…the over-all health of the body politic is enhanced by limitations on continuous tenure” and found that “this interest was sufficiently compelling for the term limits there to survive even strict scrutiny.”

The constitutionality of Measure K was thus upheld, with Ramirez writing, “the one-term limit here is a “‘reasonable, nondiscriminatory restriction” and therefore “the State’s important regulatory interests are . . . sufficient to justify it.”

The opinion also found the new California law AB 428 does not undo the compensation set by Measure K and does not violate state or federal minimum wage laws, due to a lack of supporting evidence. Finally, the appellate court ruled that Measure K’s compensation measures do not apply to new supervisors who were elected before it went into effect. The court declined to decide whether Measure K would be severable from compensation issues.

When the constitutionality of Measure D is determined and gets added to the mix, the courts will most likely have another opportunity to take a close look at the term limits question in California.