State's constitution vests the legislative power of State in the State Legislature, and provides for "a system of common schools by which a free school shall be kept up and supported in each district at least six months in every year...." It further grants the Legislature the power, by general law, to provide for "the incorporation and organization of school districts", under which City District was formed. Compare Art. IX, Secs. 5,14, Cal. Const.

State's legislature has enacted an education code, which provides the manner by which City District is governed. Compare Cal. Ed. Code, Secs. 35000 to 35351. The governing power of City District is vested in school board members elected by the qualified voters of the District, among whom are the intervening parents and fellow taxpayer-electors. Compare Cal. Ed. Code, 35010. The means of support of City District include taxes paid by intervenors and fellow taxpayers in the district. Compare Cal. Ed. Code, 41000 to 43052.

State's constitution also provides that "(t)he people have the right to instruct their representatives...." Compare Cal. Const., Art. I, Sec. 3. These intervenors, along with 28,000 other similarly situated residents of City District, have sought to instruct their representatives on the board by petition to seek of the trial judge the neighborhood school option for those students of City District who desire it. The City school board has refused to present to the court this modest request by many, if not a majority, of its constituents. It is apparent from all the facts that the refusal of this long-pending request is primarily based on the fear that the board cannot show to the satisfaction of the court, over the formidable opposition it will face, that it has sufficiently eliminated the vestiges of its predecessors' misconduct over 20 years ago.

At this point, these intervenors' rights as citizens to participate in the affairs of the City District they financially support entitle them to present the foregoing issue to the court upon the failure of the board to do so. They contend they do not have to await the tortuous procedure of elections, or recall of a school board president, as occurred in Los Angeles, with no assurance that a reconstituted board would present the issue to the trial judge. To have to take such steps under these circumstances would deny the intervenors and those similarly situated the right to the governing participation to which they are entitled in City District affairs under the laws and constitution of State.