SCOTUS Justice: California Is Not A Republic
In 1993, a legal battle was launched which spanned more than 25 years. The case, Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, centered around the Franchise Tax Board’s (FTB) relentless pursuit of man who it believed was liable for the payment of income taxes, even though he had moved to Nevada. The case summary states it this way:
In 1993, a tax auditor for the Franchise Tax Board of California (FTB) read a newspaper about Gilbert P. Hyatt, an inventor, and the large amounts of money he was making from the patent. The auditor decided to investigate Hyatt, and, after finding some discrepancies, opened an audit on Hyatt’s 1991 state tax return. In conducting the audit, the auditor found additional discrepancies surrounding Hyatt’s move from California to Nevada and opened an audit as to his 1992 tax returns. FTB determined that Hyatt owed $1.8 million in state income taxes, plus $1.4 million in penalties and $1.2 million in interest, resulted in a tax assessment of $4.5 million for Hyatt’s 1991 tax year. FTB further found that Hyatt owed over $6 million in taxes and interest for 1992, plus penalties.
Hyatt challenged the conclusions by filing protests with FTB and then in California courts. In 1998, Hyatt sued FTB in Nevada state court seeking damages for intentional torts and bad-faith conduct allegedly committed by FTB auditors during tax audits of Hyatt’s 1991 and 1992 state tax returns.
This case dragged-on for decades, as Hyatt pursued justice and the FTB pursued its pounds of flesh. FTB challenged the Nevada district court’s jurisdiction and argued that it was entitled to complete immunity under California law, and it was entitled to sovereign immunity per the the Full Faith and Credit Clause. The Nevada Supreme Court concluded FTB was not entitled to complete immunity under any of these principles, but only partial immunity. Eventually a Nevada jury found in favor of Hyatt and awarded him $85 million for emotional distress, $52 million for invasion of privacy, over $1 for special damages for fraud, and $250 million in punitive damages.
FTB appealed to the US Supreme Court, and the Court upheld the court’s determination that FTB was entitled only to partial immunity under comity principles, but the Court split 4–4 as to whether it should overrule Nevada v. Hall, which provides “that one State … can open the doors of its courts to a private citizen’s lawsuit against another State … without the other State’s consent.”
FTB asked the US Supreme Court to reconsider whether to overrule Nevada v. Hall and, in 2019, the Roberts Court finally ruled that states are immune from suit in the courts of other states. During oral arguments, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. said,
“You know, if California were a republic, I mean, we had the -- if we had the California republic, which is something some people in California would like - (Laughter.) -it would have a lot of leverage over Nevada that it doesn't have now, wouldn't it? …We could have, you know, it overwhelms it in every respect. So Nevada would have to be careful about what it did to California. But the situation now is different because they're states in the union.
Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. then said,
“Nevada may think that given the disparity in a number of respects between them and -- and California that its best hope is to be able to sue California in its states. So it has an entirely different view of the significance of that right than California would.”
You can read the transcript and listen to the entire oral argument session here. As you read or listen to the comments in context, at least three compound questions should come to mind:
If the state of California is not a republic, what form of government is it and how was it formed?
How many other states are not republics and what forms of government do they have?
How many states are contained in California and how are they identified?
Republic vs Democracy
We’ve been taught that the United States of America is a republic. In fact, in the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin, upon exiting the Convention, was approached by a lady who asked him, “Well, Dr. Franklin, what have you done for us?” Franklin replied,
“My dear lady, we have given to you a republic– if you can keep it.”
Furthermore, the Pledge of Allegiance tells us that the form of the federal government is a republic:
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Our Founders gave us a republic rather than a democracy because, they concluded, it was better for securing personal liberties and it was a less corruptible form of governance. For example, James Madison said,
“[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
John Witherspoon, Signer of the Declaration, said,
“Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state, it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.”
John Adams warned,
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
He said that, under a democracy,
“,,,every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few.”
Therefore, having seen that pure democracies were dangerous, the Founders sought to make sure that, not only would the federal government remain a republic, but that the states who were admitted to the Union would have to be republics as well.
California Not a Republic?
The Guarantee Clause of the United States Constitution (Article IV, Section 4) requires that each state of the Union provide a Republican form of government:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
According to the National Constitution Center,
“Thus, the Guarantee Clause imposes limitations on the type of government a state may have. The Clause requires the United States to prevent any state from imposing rule by monarchy, dictatorship, aristocracy, or permanent military rule, even through majority vote. Instead, governing by electoral processes is constitutionally required.”
Of course, this limitation upon state governments also prohibits them from having pure democracies, where the majority is unrestricted by a constitution, where those who have the money, media, and other means to sway the majority can impose their collective will upon the minority by various means, such as influencing election outcomes. Yet Californians have witness this type of manipulation for more than half a century. So if California is not a republic, then what form of government is controlling the lives of Californians?
California Has States?
Did Roberts mean to say “state” instead of “states”? Was he referring to geo-political bodies under California’s jurisdiction, or was he referring to the condition of California at various times or places with respect to circumstances, attributes, structure, form, phase, etc.? At present, we have no data to piece together answers to either of these questions, so we welcome insights and information from our subscribers.
Help Us Get Answers
Ever tenacious to uncover the truth, Passage To Liberty contacted SCOTUS multiple times to get a clear and detailed explanation of the statements of these justices, but there has been no response whatsoever. We need your help to get answers. Please share this post far and wide so that millions of people will be able to contribute small efforts of research to get to the answers. Also, please contact SCOTUS and ask to be sent a detailed explanation by Roberts’ staff: 1-202-479-3000. Please share any responses you receive by commenting on this post.