Opinion ID: 835999
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: determining the meaning of ors 246.910

Text: The question whether ORS 246.910 authorized the trial court to assume jurisdiction over the individual plaintiffs' complaints requires this court to determine the intention of the legislature. In making that inquiry, this court first examines the text and context of the relevant statute. Context includes the provisions of other related statutes and case law that construes the meaning of the statute at issue. If those sources disclose the clear meaning of the statute in question, this court proceeds no further. State v. Toevs, 327 Or. 525, 532, 964 P.2d 1007 (1998). ORS 246.910(1) begins with the phrase [a] person adversely affected   . That phrase describes those persons with standing to seek the statutory appeal remedy, and, as we already have seen, it includes persons, including the individual plaintiffs, who are registered voters or electors. Ellis, 302 Or. at 11, 725 P.2d 886. Neither the majority nor any party questions that proposition. ORS 246.910(1) then describes the two categories of conduct that an adversely affected person may appeal. As pertinent to this case, the categories are (1) any act or failure to act by the Secretary of State    under any election law and (2) any order, rule, directive or instruction made by the Secretary of State    under any election law   . The word any appears four times in subsection (1). The ordinary meaning of that word is one indifferently out of more than two:    one, no matter what one: EVERY   : ALL   . Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 97 (unabridged ed 1993). Applying those definitions in this context, the scope of the first category of appealable conduct in subsection (1) is broad to the point of being without limit. The phrase any act or failure to act embraces every thing done, deed, or decision, id. at 20, 725 P.2d 886 (defining act), as well as every omission of performance of an action or task;    neglect of an assigned, expected, or appropriate action    FAILING, LAPSE    DEFICIENCY   . Id. at 815 (defining failure). The phrase any act or failure to act sweeps within its scope each of the four acts or failures to act by the Secretary of State, described above, that the individual plaintiffs allege as the basis of their complaint. The second category of appealable conduct in subsection (1) includes any order or rule, two kinds of legal action that the legislature has exposed to judicial review under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), ORS 183.310 to 183.550. See ORS 183.400 (providing for judicial determination of validity of administrative rule); ORS 183.480-183.490 (providing for judicial review of administrative orders). However, the appeal remedy under ORS 246.910(1) is broader in scope than judicial review under the APA. For example, the definition of rule in ORS 183.310(8) includes an agency directive if it is of general applicability and implements, interprets or prescribes law or policy, or describes the procedure or practice requirements of any agency[,] but excludes certain internal management directives that do not substantially affect the interests of the public in relations between or within agencies. The remedy in ORS 246.910(1) extends to any directive, as well as any instruction of the Secretary of State under any election law. Moreover, the fact that the APA exposes orders and certain rules to judicial review does not diminish the remedy of appeal described in ORS 246.910(1), because ORS 246.910(4) provides that the remedy of appeal is cumulative of any other remedy. This court drove home that point in OEA v. Roberts, 301 Or. 236, 721 P.2d 837 (1986), in which this court held that, because the Secretary of State's conduct in approving a proposed initiative for circulation was reviewable under ORS 246.910, the question whether ORS 183.482 also afforded judicial review of the same decision was moot. The foregoing discussion indicates that the text of ORS 246.910(1) clearly supports the view that the legislature authorized the circuit court to review every official action by the Secretary of State regarding Measure 7. Thus, according to the statutory text, every exercise of the Secretary of State's official power over Measure 7 is subject to judicial review for conformity with Oregon election laws, including those that establish the scope of the Secretary of State's delegated authority over initiative petitions. Because that statute exposes every act or failure to act to a statutory appeal, it is unavailing to contend that a party's challenge to a recent exercise of the Secretary of State's authority, such as the canvassing of ballots, also could have been filed against some earlier exercise of authority over the same initiative petition. This court's case law construing ORS 246.910(1) confirms the legislature's intention to authorize the circuit court to consider challenges to all actions or failures to act by the Secretary of State under any election law. In OEA v. Roberts, 301 Or. 228, 721 P.2d 833 (1986), the plaintiffs brought an action under ORS 246.910 to compel the Secretary of State and the Attorney General not to process a proposed initiative petition and to prevent the sponsors from circulating it. The plaintiffs contended that the Secretary of State had a duty to determine before the election whether the proposed initiative complied with the one-subject rule stated in Article IV, section 1(2)(d), of the Oregon Constitution. Id. at 230, 721 P.2d 833. The Secretary of State argued that that duty arose only after the election and that she had no duty, before the voters adopted an initiative measure, to examine a proposed initiative for compliance with the one-subject provision. The court had left that question open in an earlier case, State ex rel Fidanque v. Paulus, 297 Or. 711, 688 P.2d 1303 (1984). The court determined that the Secretary of State did have a duty, before an election, to determine whether a proposed initiative addressed only one subject. The court also reviewed the various decisions that the Secretary of State must make on a proposed initiative in the months leading up to an election and stated: The submission process thus contains several discrete decisions by the Secretary, any one of which may be challenged.  OEA, 301 Or. at 234, 721 P.2d 833 (emphasis added). See also State ex rel Fidanque, 297 Or. at 716 n. 5, 688 P.2d 1303 (Therefore, in the submission process, a series of decisions must be made. As each decision is made, it becomes susceptible to challenge.). The court then turned to the question whether the particular decision that the plaintiffs had challengedthe approval of the prospective petition for circulationwas a proper occasion for a challenge under the one-subject rule. The court agreed with the plaintiffs that a one-subject challenge at that stage was proper because `[i]t is this determination that provides the first opportunity for the Secretary of State to exercise her official power with respect to the prospective petition. If, as the Plaintiffs-Relators contend, there is a constitutional duty to act, it would arise at this time. It is in approving a prospective petition which did not comply with the alleged requirements of Article IV, section 1, that the Secretary of State's authority under the constitution and statutes first would be exceeded and her duty breached.' OEA, 301 Or. at 234, 721 P.2d 833 (quoting State ex rel Fidanque, 297 Or. at 715, 688 P.2d 1303). The court's determination in OEA that the Secretary of State's approval of a prospective petition was her first action in arguable violation of her powersconfirmed that the plaintiffs, in contesting that action, had not brought their challenge prematurely, as the defendants contended. The defendants' argumentthat the plaintiffs should have brought their claim only after enactment of the measurewas unresponsive to the question whether the Secretary of State's responsibility to apply the one-subject rule arose before the election. The plaintiffs' choice to contest the first exercise of the Secretary of State's authority over the proposed initiative was correct procedurally, because, as the court stated, that decision was the first of several discrete decisions by the Secretary of State in the submission process, any one of which may be challenged. OEA, 301 Or. at 234, 721 P.2d 833. The individual plaintiffs similarly argue that the Oregon Constitution does not authorize the actions and certifications that the Secretary of State has employed to advance Measure 7 to a vote and to canvass the votes after the election because they contend, among other things, that Measure 7 unlawfully makes multiple amendments to the constitution. The majority responds that Ellis declined to consider a similar form-of-adoption challenge to a pre-election certification of an initiative petition. The majority reasons that, because Ellis announced a 60-day deadline for challenging the Secretary of State's approval of a proposed initiative, and measured the deadline from certification of the ballot title, the Ellis deadline expired in this case in June 1999. Because that theory would restrict significantly the appeal remedy in ORS 246.910(1), I examine Ellis in detail.