In quick succession, the Southern California cities of Inglewood and Carson have used the initiative process to approve new NFL football stadiums in bids to lure teams to new homes, bypassing review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) along the way. These wildly popular projects— seeking to bring professional football back to Los Angeles after more than 20 years—pose aquestion: Is this a football-only phenomenon, or might other popular projects utilize the initiative process as well?

The authority to bypass CEQA, used by Inglewood and Carson, is rooted in the California Elections Code, and the recent California Supreme Court decision, Tuolumne Jobs & Small Business Alliance v. Superior Court (2014) 59 Cal.4th 1029 (Tuolumne). Under the Elections Code, when more than 15 percent of a jurisdiction’s registered voters support an initiative, the elected body must chose to: (1) approve the initiative; (2) order a special election to submit the initiative for a public vote; or (3) order a report on the initiative to be prepared by city agencies. (Elections Code § 9214(a)) Last August, the Supreme Court’s Tuolumne decision confirmed that CEQA does not apply when the elected body chooses option (1) and adopts the initiative directly.