Populism, Politics, and Procedure: The Saga of Summary Judgment and the Rulemaking Process in California

The California Constitution gives the primary power to promulgate rules of civil procedure for the state courts to the legislature and the people, leaving the state’s Judicial Council with residual, or secondary, authority to adopt rules of procedure and court administration “when and where the higher authority of the Legislature and the people has not been exercised.” This Article demonstrates how this legislative rulemaking process, referred to herein as “legislative primacy,” does not work because, as of the writing of this article in 1997, it produced ineffective statutory summary judgment law.