REQUEST FOR CITY COUNCIL ACTION
SUBMITTED TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council Members
SUBMITTED BY: Eric G. Parra, Interim City Manager
VIA: Travis K. Hopkins, Assistant City Manager
PREPARED BY: Jennifer Carey, Acting Deputy City Manager
Subject:
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Approve for Introduction Ordinance No. 4326 Adding Chapter 1.23 of the Huntington Beach Municipal Code Relating to Parents’ Right to Know City
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Statement of Issue:
On August 6, 2024, the City Council directed the City Manager’s Office to work with the City Attorney’s Office to draft an Ordinance declaring that Huntington Beach is a “Parents’ Right to Know City” in response to Governor Newsom signing Assembly Bill 1955 (AB 1955) into law.
Financial Impact:
There is no financial impact to adopt this Ordinance.
Recommended Action:
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Approve for introduction Ordinance No. 4326, “An Ordinance of the City Council of the City of Huntington Beach Adding Chapter 1.23 of the Huntington Beach Municipal Code Relating to Parents’ Right to Know City.”
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Alternative Action(s):
Do not approve Ordinance No. 4326, and direct staff accordingly.
Analysis:
1. On August 6, 2024, the City Council directed the City Manager’s Office to work with the City Attorney’s Office to draft an Ordinance declaring that Huntington Beach is a “Parents’ Right to Know City” in response to Governor Newsom signing Assembly Bill 1955 (AB 1955) into law. Ordinance No. 4326 is provided for City Council consideration.
Suggested findings include:
A. State Assembly Bill (“AB”) 1955, signed into law by Governor Newsom on July 15, 2024, prohibits public schools from adopting or enforcing any policy, rule, or administrative regulation requiring an employee to disclose any information related to a student’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person without the minor student’s consent.
B. Numerous studies assert that transgender and gender nonconforming students suffer from increased psychological, emotional, and physical harassment and abuse, and that transgender youth experience an abnormally high number of suicidal thoughts and make an abnormally high number of suicide attempts.
C. The matters of “student sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression” contained in the prohibitions of AB 1955 are not related to “education.” but instead are subject matters that are extremely “private” and highly “personal” for the parent and child.
D. The State may not claim control over education as a pretext or a guise to invade or regulate the “private” and highly “personal” matters that naturally belong to and should remain within the parent/child relationship. Accordingly, as the State’s attempt to legislate the parent/child relationship by way of AB 1955 is an illegal violation of the California and United States constitutions and not “education,” as such, AB 1955 does not preempt local regulation and may be subject to legal challenges of local authorities, parents, and/or children.
E. Although the State may regulate “education,” AB 1955 exceeds the State Legislature’s authority to regulate public schools under the California and United States Constitutions and infringes on parents’ constitutional rights by prohibiting schools from adopting policies that would require notifying parents of “private” and highly “personal” matters such as when a parents’ child may be at increased risk of psychological, emotional, and physical harassment and abuse, and extremely high rates of suicide and suicide attempts, no matter how young the child is, without the child’s consent and is not a matter of statewide concern.
F. The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” (U.S. Const. amend. XIV.) The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized parents’ constitutional right to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children. (Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 65 (2000).) This includes the right to direct their children’s upbringing and education. (Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 400 (1923); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534-535 (1925).)
G. Parental rights are not secondary to the desires of government agencies. In Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584, 602-603 (1979), the United States Supreme Court declared, “our constitutional system long ago rejected any notion that a child is ‘the mere creature of the State’ and, on the contrary, asserted that parents generally ‘have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare their children for additional obligations’…[t]he statist notion that governmental power should supersede parental authority in all cases because some parents abuse and neglect children is repugnant to American tradition.”
H. In David v. Kaulukukui, 38 F.4th 792, 799 (2022), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit observed, “[t]he interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children - is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by the Supreme Court. Our case law has long recognized this right for parents and children under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.”
I. The City of Huntington Beach has nearly 200,000 residents comprised of parents and children. There are 35 elementary schools and five high schools located in the City. By population, Huntington Beach is the 23rd largest city, or is within the top 4% largest cities, among a total of 482 cities in the State of California.
J. The City of Huntington Beach was constituted by its people and incorporated on February 17, 1909. Since adoption of its Charter on May 17, 1937, the City of Huntington Beach is a Charter City created by the consent of the people within its jurisdiction and authorized by Article XI, Section 5 of the California Constitution to exclusively govern municipal affairs.
K. Charter Cities “are distinct individual entities and are not connected political subdivisions of the state.” (Haytasingh v. City of San Diego, 66 Cal.App.5th 429, 459 (2021)). “It is the free consent of the persons composing them that brings into existence municipal corporations.” (Id.) Charter Cities are creatures of the state constitution, formed by the authority of the people. “Charter Cities are specifically authorized by our state constitution to govern themselves, free of state legislative intrusion, as to those matters deemed municipal affairs.” (City of Redondo Beach v. Padilla, 46 Cal.App.5th. 902, 909 (2020).) As a Charter City, Huntington Beach is a city of and by the people. Its people, including parents and children, are directly affected by AB 1955.
L. The protection of parents and children in the City from interference by the State over “a student’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression” is a municipal affair, not a statewide concern. There can be no greater example of a municipal affair than the regulation of Huntington Beach citizens private and highly personal subject of “a student’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression” that should be, and remain, between a parent and a child. The people of Huntington Beach have a right to govern Huntington Beach municipal affairs and challenge the State’s attempt to assert authority of municipal affairs.
M. As a Charter City, that derives its power from the consent of the people, the City of Huntington Beach has a direct interest in protecting the rights of parents of minor children residing within its jurisdiction, and it has a direct interest in challenging the State’s actions that are demonstrably driving large economic producers out of California.
Environmental Status:
This action is not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to Sections 15060(c)(2) (the activity will not result in a direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment) and 15060(c)(3) (the activity is not a project as defined in Section 15378) of the CEQA Guidelines, California Code of Regulations, Title 14, Chapter 3, because it has no potential for resulting in physical change to the environment, directly or indirectly.
Strategic Plan Goal:
Non Applicable - Administrative Item
Attachment(s):
2. Ordinance No. 4326