Bill Text: CA ACR76 | 2015-2016 | Regular Session | Enrolled

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: Magna Carta: 800th anniversary.

Spectrum: Slight Partisan Bill (Democrat 51-26-1)

Status: (Passed) 2015-07-01 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Res. Chapter 88, Statutes of 2015. [ACR76 Detail]

Download: California-2015-ACR76-Enrolled.html

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BILL NUMBER: ACR 76	ENROLLED
	BILL TEXT

	ADOPTED IN SENATE  JUNE 25, 2015
	ADOPTED IN ASSEMBLY  JUNE 8, 2015
	AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY  JUNE 8, 2015

INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Jones
   (Coauthors: Assembly Members Chávez, Lackey, Achadjian, Alejo,
Atkins, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Burke,
Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dahle,
Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia,
Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove,
Hadley, Harper, Roger Hernández, Holden, Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Kim,
Levine, Lopez, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez,
Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, O'Donnell, Olsen, Patterson, Perea,
Quirk, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago, Steinorth,
Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, and Wood)
   (Coauthors: Senators Bates, Hall, Leno, Moorlach, and Pan)

                        MAY 19, 2015

   Relative to the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   ACR 76, Jones. Magna Carta: 800th anniversary.
   This measure would commemorate the 800th anniversary of Magna
Carta.



   WHEREAS, In response to the accumulation of grievances, heavy
taxation, and unsuccessful wars, a group of rebellious barons forced
King John of England to agree to limitations on royal power and
submit to the rule of law by affixing his seal to a charter of
liberties known to posterity as Magna Carta, Latin for the Great
Charter, on June 15, 1215, at a meadow beside the river Thames called
Runnymede, near Windsor; and
   WHEREAS, While many of Magna Carta's 63 clauses relate to specific
grievances and long-defunct feudal practices of little contemporary
relevance, several of its provisions have had a lasting significance
as precedents guaranteeing fundamental rights and liberties; and
   WHEREAS, Clause 39 of Magna Carta provides, "No freeman shall be
taken, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any
way harmed - nor will we go upon or send upon him - save by the
lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of land"; and
   WHEREAS, Clause 40 of the Magna Carta provides, "To none will we
sell, to none deny or delay, right or justice"; and
   WHEREAS, Magna Carta embodies the principle that no person, and no
government, is above the law; and
   WHEREAS, The phrase "due process of law" first appeared as a
substitute for Magna Carta's phrase "law of the land" in a 1354
statute of King Edward III that restated Magna Carta's guarantee of
liberty of the subject and, therefore, Magna Carta created a
precedent in guaranteeing "due process of law" that was later
embodied in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States
Constitution, the sources of key constitutional liberties for
Americans; and
   WHEREAS, Other clauses of Magna Carta state important principles,
such as the right to impartial and competent judges, reasonable
taxes, courts held in fixed places, fixed weights and measures,
criminal penalties that are proportionate to the seriousness of the
crime, and limitations on taking private property for public use; and

   WHEREAS, King John later repudiated Magna Carta, and a civil war
followed, but it was reissued, with revisions, numerous times by
subsequent monarchs, and though many provisions fell into disuse or
were superseded by subsequent legislation, Magna Carta remains as an
inspirational precedent for the proposition that government power is
not absolute and that the people possess fundamental rights which
government cannot violate; and
   WHEREAS, Magna Carta is an early milestone along the path toward
freedom and constitutional government, followed by the development of
Parliament in the 1260s, the 1606 First Charter of Virginia, the
1620 Mayflower Compact and other colonial charters, the 1628 Petition
of Right, the 1679 Habeas Corpus Act, and 1689 English Bill of
Rights, the 1776 American Declaration of Independence, the 1787
United States Constitution, the 1789 United States Bill of Rights,
and the 1948 United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
and
   WHEREAS, In a "History of the English-Speaking Peoples", Winston
Churchill summarized Magna Carta's achievement, stating, "In place of
the King's arbitrary despotism, they proposed, not the withering
anarchy of feudal separatism, but a system of checks and balances
which would accord the monarchy its necessary strength, but would
prevent its perversion by a tyrant or a fool. The leaders of the
barons in 1215 groped in the dim light towards a fundamental
principle. Government must henceforth mean something more than the
arbitrary rule of any man, and custom and the law must stand even
above the king. It was this idea, perhaps only half understood, that
gave unity and force to the barons' opposition and made the Charter
which they now demanded imperishable"; and
   WHEREAS, In his third inaugural address, delivered on January 20,
1941, as continental Europe groaned under the yoke of Nazi tyranny,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "Democracy is not dying. ...
The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history.
It is human history. It permeated the ancient life of early peoples.
It blazed anew in the middle ages. It was written in Magna 
Carta]. ... Its vitality was written into our own Mayflower Compact,
into the Declaration of Independence, into the Constitution of the
United States, into the Gettysburg Address"; and
   WHEREAS, In too many parts of the world, the right to jury trial,
habeas corpus, the rule of law, fair legal procedures, reasonable
taxation, and the proposition that no government is above the law,
principles either enshrined in or foreshadowed by Magna Carta, remain
goals yet to be attained, rather than a legacy to be celebrated; and

   WHEREAS, For as long as people celebrate freedom under law, Magna
Carta will remain an inspiring example of a people's ability to
resist tyranny and arbitrary government and will remain "the Great
Charter" of liberties; now, therefore, be it
   Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate
thereof concurring, That the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta hereby
be commemorated and the residents of the State of California be
encouraged to observe this important milestone in the history of
freedom and development of modern constitutional government; and be
it further
   Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate
thereof concurring, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit
copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.