SAN DIEGO (Legal Newsline) - Making a political point can have real-world costs, and California's taxpayers will now get to pay more than a half-million dollars so that state Attorney General Rob Bonta could deliver a message to Texas.
It's the latest chapter in the confusing saga of Senate Bill 1327, a bill that subjects makers of assault weapons, ghost guns and other banned firearms to lawsuits by private citizens. It contained a provision that said even a successful challenger of the law could be on the hook for California's attorneys fees incurred defending it.
The provision was championed by AG Bonta, who said it was modeled after a similar clause in Texas' anti-abortion law. In December, San Diego federal judge Roger Benitez declared it unconstitutional.
This was music to Bonta's ears, as he said it proved the provision in the Texas law should be deemed unconstitutional as well.
Ultimately, the cost to taxpayers for Bonta to make his point is $556,957.66. Bonta has stipulated to pay that much in attorney fees to the groups that filed court challenges to the provision. They include the California Rifle and Pistol Association, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Gun Owners of California, Second Amendment Law Center and the California Gun Rights Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition.
They had argued being subjected to California's fees in a challenge to the law robbed them of their First Amendment rights.
"By deterring citizens and coercing attorneys from accessing the courts for relief from constitutionally questionable laws, (the provision) severely chills both First Amendment rights and Second Amendment rights," Benitez wrote in December.
Bonta refused to defend the law and called it identical to Texas'. Benitez said that wasn't exactly true, because Texas' fee-shifting provision applies only to cases challenging abortion restrictions.
"California's law then goes even further," Benitez wrote. "As a matter of law, a California plaintiff cannot be a prevailing party. The Texas statute has no similar provision and thus it appears that a Texas prevailing plaintiff can be awarded his attorney's fees.
"The California provision, on the other hand, denies prevailing party status to a plaintiff, even a plaintiff who is entirely successful, and thus denies any possibility of recovering his attorney's fees."
California columnist Dan Walters was one of the many critics of Bonta's plan, calling it "an exercise in political oneupsmanship that makes a mockery of the legislative process."
"Passing a law in California with the declared intent of shaming a law in Texas while putting Californians in legal jeopardy is political malpractice," he wrote.
The six-figure payment to the groups that challenged the provision is "contingent upon certification of availability of funds, the approval of the Director of the Department of Finance, and is subject to appropriation by the Legislature."