Title: State ex rel. Residents' Initiative Voting Alliance v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of Elections

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Cite as State ex rel. Residents’ Initiative Voting Alliance v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of Elections, 
108 Ohio St.3d 125, 2005-Ohio-5547.] 
 
 
 
THE STATE EX REL. RESIDENTS’ INITIATIVE VOTING ALLIANCE ET AL., 
APPELLANTS, v. CUYAHOGA COUNTY BOARD OF  
ELECTIONS ET AL., APPELLEES. 
[Cite as State ex rel. Residents’ Initiative Voting Alliance v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. 
of Elections, 108 Ohio St.3d 125, 2005-Ohio-5547.] 
Elections — Referendum — Tax-levy decrease — Laches bars writ of mandamus 
to compel placement on ballot. 
(No. 2005-1086—Submitted October 12, 2005—Decided October 21, 2005.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, No. 85528. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} This is an appeal from a judgment denying a writ of mandamus to 
compel a board of elections to validate a petition and place a tax-levy decrease on 
the November 8, 2005 election ballot. 
{¶ 2} On March 2, 2004, voters in appellee Cleveland Heights-
University Heights City School District approved an 8.5-mill tax levy.  Appellant 
Residents’ Initiative Voting Alliance (“RIVA”) is a committee of school district 
electors designated to circulate a petition pursuant to R.C. 5705.261 to decrease 
the tax levy to zero. 
{¶ 3} On July 2, 2004, RIVA submitted to appellee Cuyahoga County 
Board of Elections a petition containing 2,149 signatures.  The petition requested 
“an election on the question of decreasing the increased rate of the levy which 
was approved at the election held on” March 2, 2004, with the requested decrease 
being from 8.5 mills to zero mills. 
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{¶ 4} At its September 8, 2004 regular meeting, the board of elections 
considered the sufficiency of the petition.  The board determined that the petition 
did not contain a sufficient number of valid signatures to place the issue on the 
November 2, 2004 election ballot. 
{¶ 5} On November 12, 2004, appellants, RIVA, its chairman, and 
various members (collectively “RIVA”), filed a complaint in the Court of Appeals 
for Cuyahoga County.  RIVA requested a writ of mandamus to compel the board 
of elections to validate its referendum petition and to submit the proposed tax-
levy decrease to the school district electors at the November 8, 2005 general 
election.  RIVA challenged the board of elections’ September 8, 2004 
determination.  On December 6, 2004, the board of elections answered and moved 
for summary judgment.  The school district was permitted to intervene as an 
additional respondent and filed an answer.  RIVA did not file a timely 
memorandum in opposition to the board’s motion for summary judgment. 
{¶ 6} On May 5, 2005, the court of appeals held that laches barred 
RIVA’s claim for a writ of mandamus, granted the board’s motion for summary 
judgment, and denied the writ. 
{¶ 7} In its appeal as of right, RIVA asserts that the court of appeals 
erred in denying the writ based on laches. 
{¶ 8} We agree with the court of appeals that laches bars RIVA’s claim.  
“We have consistently required relators in election cases to act with the utmost 
diligence.”  Blankenship v. Blackwell, 103 Ohio St.3d 567, 2004-Ohio-5596, 817 
N.E.2d 382, ¶ 19.  “ ‘If relators do not act with the required promptness, laches 
may bar the action for extraordinary relief in an election-related matter.’ ”  State 
ex rel. Miller v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of Elections, 103 Ohio St.3d 477, 2004-Ohio-
5532, 817 N.E.2d 1, ¶ 21, quoting State ex rel. Steele v. Morrissey, 103 Ohio 
St.3d 355, 2004-Ohio-4960, 815 N.E.2d 1107, ¶ 12. 
January Term, 2005 
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{¶ 9} RIVA failed to act with the required diligence by waiting 65 days 
to challenge the board’s September 8, 2004 decision.  In fact, RIVA’s action was 
filed 10 days after the November 2, 2004 election.  See State ex rel. White v. 
Kilbane Koch, 96 Ohio St.3d 395, 2002-Ohio-4848, 775 N.E.2d 508, ¶ 11, 
quoting State ex rel. Hills Communities, Inc. v. Clermont Cty. Bd. of Elections 
(2001), 91 Ohio St.3d 465, 468, 746 N.E.2d 1115 (“ ‘When the election has 
passed, as it has here, the action for extraordinary relief or an appeal from a 
judgment in the extraordinary-writ action is moot’ ”).  If RIVA had observed its 
duty to act promptly, it would have filed an action shortly after the September 8, 
2004 board decision and before the November 2, 2004 election, at which RIVA 
first intended that the referendum issue be submitted.  See State ex rel. Landis v. 
Morrow Cty. Bd. of Elections (2000), 88 Ohio St.3d 187, 189, 724 N.E.2d 775 
(“we have held that a delay as brief as nine days can preclude our consideration of 
the merits of an expedited election case” [emphasis sic]). 
{¶ 10} RIVA does not disagree with this general precedent.  Instead, it 
claims that because its petition was filed pursuant to R.C. 5705.261, an exception 
to laches applies.  RIVA relies on our decision in State ex rel. Citizens for 
Responsible Taxation v. Scioto Cty. Bd. of Elections (1993), 67 Ohio St.3d 134, 
616 N.E.2d 869, to assert this exception.  RIVA’s argument fails for the following 
reasons. 
{¶ 11} First, Citizens is inapposite.  In that case, we granted a writ of 
mandamus to compel a board of elections to submit a levy-decrease issue under 
R.C. 5705.261 to an election following the one for which it was originally 
intended.  But in that case, the relators had filed their action before the original 
election, and the parties later stipulated that the board had made a mistake in 
calculating the number of valid signatures on the referendum petition.  By 
contrast, RIVA did not file an action for a writ of mandamus before the election, 
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and the parties have not stipulated to any mistake in the board’s sufficiency 
determination. 
{¶ 12} Second, in State ex rel. Newell v. Tuscarawas Cty. Bd. of Elections 
(2001), 93 Ohio St.3d 592, 595-597, 757 N.E.2d 1135, a post-Citizens decision, 
we denied a writ of prohibition to prevent the submission under R.C. 5705.261 of 
issues proposing the repeal of voter-approved school-district tax levies to the 
electorate because the petitioner had waited 34 days to file his prohibition action.  
RIVA waited significantly longer – and until after the election – to file its 
mandamus action. 
{¶ 13} Third, as the court of appeals noted, RIVA did not even exercise 
the required diligence after it filed its mandamus action, because it failed to 
timely respond to the board’s summary judgment motion.  In fact, RIVA has not 
even acted with the requisite promptness in pursuing this appeal.  It waited 46 
days to appeal the court of appeals’ judgment and 41 days after the record was 
transmitted to file its merit brief and move for expedited consideration.  RIVA 
then waited the full 20 days to submit a reply brief to appellees’ merit briefs.  See 
S.Ct.Prac.R. VI(4)(A).  We have held that comparable dilatory action by election-
case appellants renders the appeal barred by laches.  See State ex rel. Hills 
Communities, Inc., 91 Ohio St.3d at 467, 746 N.E.2d 1115 (appellant in election 
case delayed 47 days to appeal court of appeals’ judgment and 46 days after the 
record was transmitted to file its merit brief).  This additional dilatory conduct by 
RIVA after it appealed the court of appeals’ judgment prejudiced the board of 
elections’ ability to prepare, print, and distribute appropriate ballots because of 
the expiration of the time for providing absentee ballots for the November 8, 2005 
election at which appellants seek to submit the issue to the voters.  Cf. State ex 
rel. Newell, 93 Ohio St.3d at 596, 757 N.E.2d 1135; R.C. 3509.01. 
{¶ 14} Moreover, RIVA erroneously argues that laches does not bar its 
mandamus action because by the time the board of elections ruled on September 
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8, 2004, that the petition was insufficient under R.C. 5705.261 and 3501.02(F) the 
next available election would have been on November 8, 2005, not November 2, 
2004.  R.C. 5705.261 specifies that “[t]he question of decrease of an increased 
rate of levy approved for a continuing period of time by the voters of a 
subdivision may be initiated by the filing of a petition with the board of elections 
of the proper county not less than seventy-five days before the general election in 
any year requesting that an election be held on such question.”  Then, once the 
board determines that the petition is valid, it must “submit the question to the 
electors of the district at the succeeding general election.”  Id.  Therefore, because 
RIVA filed the petition with the board on July 2, 2004, which was more than 75 
days before the November 2, 2004 election, the board would have been required 
under R.C. 5705.261 to submit the issue to the electors “at the succeeding general 
election,” i.e., November 2, 2004, if it had found the petition sufficient on 
September 8. 
{¶ 15} R.C. 3501.02(F) generally requires that “[a]ny question or issue, 
except a candidacy, to be voted upon at an election shall be certified, for 
placement upon the ballot, to the board of elections not later than four p.m. of the 
seventy-fifth day before the day of the election.”  It does not preclude a 
referendum issue submitted to the board of elections more than 75 days before an 
election from being placed on that election ballot merely because the board does 
not finish its sufficiency determination until less than 75 days before that election.  
And insofar as R.C. 3501.02(F) could possibly conflict with R.C. 5705.261, the 
more specific provision ─ R.C. 5705.261 ─ controls.  See State ex rel. Slagle v. 
Rogers, 103 Ohio St.3d 89, 2004-Ohio-4354, 814 N.E.2d 55, ¶ 14, quoting State 
ex rel. Dublin Securities, Inc. v. Ohio Div. of Securities (1994), 68 Ohio St.3d 
426, 429, 627 N.E.2d 993 (“ ‘when two statutes, one general and the other special, 
cover the same subject matter, the special provision is to be construed as an 
exception to the general statute which might otherwise apply’ ”); see, also, State 
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ex rel. South-Western City School Dist. Bd. of Edn. v. Franklin Cty. Bd. of 
Elections, Franklin App. No. 04AP-869, 2004-Ohio-4893, 2004 WL 2070539, fn. 
1, opining that R.C. 5705.217, which applies to district tax levies held at a special 
election, would control over R.C. 3501.02. 
{¶ 16} Finally, as the court of appeals concluded, RIVA’s contention that 
the board’s alleged negligence and unclean hands should prevent application of 
laches “is unpersuasive when the relators did not attempt to commence the 
mandamus action until after the election.”  Many of the purported errors that 
RIVA claims the board of elections committed, e.g., lack of reasonable notice of 
the September 8, 2004 board meeting, the denial of an opportunity to present 
evidence at the September 8 board meeting, and the invalidation of certain part-
petitions, could have been raised by RIVA in a court action before the November 
2, 2004 election.  But RIVA failed to do so.  In addition, none of RIVA’s dilatory 
conduct after filing this appeal is attributable to any purported negligence or 
unclean hands on the part of the board. 
{¶ 17} Based on the foregoing, the court of appeals correctly held that 
laches barred RIVA’s mandamus claim.  As that court cogently observed, “[i]t is 
sound public policy to compel the parties to exercise extreme diligence in election 
matters so that the election issue is fully resolved within the time period for the 
targeted election.  Allowing an exception for R.C. 5705.261 elections, so that 
those matters may linger until the next election or even indefinitely, contradicts 
that policy.”  Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals. 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
MOYER, C.J., RESNICK, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL and 
LANZINGER, JJ., concur. 
 
PFEIFER, J., concurs in judgment only. 
 
O’CONNOR, J., not participating. 
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January Term, 2005 
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PFEIFER, J., concurring in judgment only. 
{¶ 18} I would not rely on laches to decide this case.  I would deny the 
writ pursuant to this court’s decision in State ex rel. Choices for South-Western 
City Schools v. Anthony, 108 Ohio St.3d 1, 2005-Ohio-5362, 840 N.E.2d 582.  As 
in South-Western, “the levy-repeal question presented by relators’ petition 
exceeded the scope of R.C. 5705.217 and 5705.261.” 
__________________ 
 
Phillips & Co., L.P.A., and Gerald W. Phillips, for appellants. 
 
William D. Mason, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Reno J. 
Oradini Jr., Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee Cuyahoga County Board 
of Elections. 
 
Ulmer & Berne, L.L.P., Michael N. Ungar, and Yelena Boxer, for appellee 
Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District. 
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