State's oath of office takes a shortcut - Sacramento Politics - California Politics | Sacramento Bee

State's oath of office takes a shortcut
By Carlos Alcalá
calcala@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2008 | Page 1D

A little-known second paragraph exists in the official oath of office in the California Constitution, but no one swears to it.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg didn't swear to it over the weekend. New state legislators didn't Monday. And Sacramento Mayor-elect Kevin Johnson won't if he takes office as expected today.

Yet the oath spelled out in the California Constitution, Article XX, Section 3, applies to everyone from the governor down to park district trustees. Even City Council members in Isleton.

Because no one says it, a group called the Free Enterprise Society claims that no one is holding office legally in the state.

In the first paragraph of the oath, officeholders swear (or affirm, for those whose beliefs preclude swearing) to uphold and support the U.S. and state constitutions, and to do their jobs faithfully and well.

That's the part everybody does – the swearing or affirming part, not the doing-their-jobs-well part.

The oft-ignored second paragraph – a relic of the 1950s Red Scare – is essentially a loyalty oath, in which the officeholders are supposed to say that they aren't members of a group trying to overthrow the government.

Nobody swears to it because it was ruled invalid in 1967.

"The second paragraph of the oath is a dead letter," according to a standard constitutional reference guide by Joseph R. Grodin, Calvin R. Massey and Richard B. Cunningham.

Holding onto that paragraph, however, is the Free Enterprise Society, which says it's still part of the constitution.

"Currently not one official in the State of California has taken the Constitutionally prescribed oath of office," says the society's Web site. "Not one elected representative in California legally occupies his office."

Maybe that explains why we're having such trouble with the state budget.