(The Center Square) – California Democrats in the State Senate suspended procedural rules for Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed Constitutional amendment to limit gun access, allowing the resolution to go to the Senate floor after just one policy committee hearing on August 29 and not be treated as legislation. As a result of the suspension of procedure means the bill will face less opportunity for public debate. From progressive legislator State Senator Scott Wiener (D–San Francisco) to constitutional expert and dean of UC Berkeley School of Law Erwin Chemerinsky, whom Democrats have often leaned on to help make constitutionally questionable items on more solid legal footing, prominent Newsom allies have taken to the public square to sound the alarm on the risks brought by a potential Article V convention.
“Obviously it’s just a stunt to build email lists and national attention,” said California Policy Center co-founder Edward Ring to The Center Square.
Newsom’s proposed “Right to Safety” amendment would require universal background checks, end gun ownership to those under 21 except in highly limited circumstances, create a national minimum waiting period before guns can be transferred from sellers to buyers, and ban “assault weapons and other weapons of war.” Instead of taking the typical amendment route of seeking approval from ⅔ of each chamber of Congress then ratification by ¾ of state legislatures, Newsom is seeking an Article V Constitutional convention, which has never been done before for any amendment. To launch such a convention, ⅔ of states must adopt resolutions calling for such a convention, and ¾ of states must ratify whatever the convention approves. However, due to a lack of detail in Article V, it’s unclear whether the convention could be limited to a single topic, or even how delegates would be apportioned.
In an email to the San Francisco Chronicle, Chemerinsky called the proposed resolution “dangerous,” and said that despite language in it calling for a “limited” convention that would be “void” if it considers any other subjects, “Once a constitutional convention is called into existence, no one knows whether it can be limited to one topic.”
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, University of California Los Angeles law professor Adam Winkler, a gun law specialist, echoed similar concerns, saying, “I don’t like the idea of a constitutional convention. I wouldn’t trust Americans to rewrite their Constitution right now. It could lead to a worse constitution than we have.”
Before the amendment was proposed in the California legislature, Wiener said to the San Francisco Chronicle, “It’s unclear whether there can be a convention limited to one topic. We need to make sure that we’re not going to inadvertently trigger a general constitutional convention, because that could go real bad real fast.”
Newsom’s measure also is noticeable for having only one group, Women Against Gun Violence sign on to the bill’s endorsement file as of the most recent California Senate report. The local California-based group has only one staff member and reported receipts of $197,356 for the fiscal year ending in 2022.
The Senate Public Safety Committee hearing for the joint Assembly and Senate resolution was delayed one week until August 29, 2023, with a spokesperson from Newsom citing bad weather. Other hearings that day, however, proceeded as normal.
