Amwest Surety Ins. Co. v. Wilson

In Amwest Surety Ins. Co. v. Wilson (1995) 11 Cal.4th 1243, the proponent of the legislation argued that the court "should adopt a deferential standard of review in determining whether the enactment ... furthers the purposes of Proposition 103." The court rejected that argument, and held that the proposition's limitation on legislative authority "must be given the effect the voters intended it to have. Adoption of the standard of review proposed by Amwest might well have the ironic and unfortunate consequence of causing the drafters of future initiatives to hesitate to grant even a limited authority to the Legislature to amend those initiatives ... a result that would diminish both the initiative process and the legislative process." (Id. at pp. 1255-1256.) The court must exercise "effective judicial review," and determine whether, "by any reasonable construction, it can be said that the statute furthers the purposes of the initiative." (Id. at p. 1256.)