Opinion ID: 835999
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: the challenged conduct of the secretary of state

Text: The issue is whether the individual plaintiffs' complaints state facts that constitute a claim within the circuit court's jurisdiction under ORS 246.910(1). The majority acknowledges that the allegations in the McCall complaint refer to four acts by the Secretary of State that contravene Oregon election law: (1) accepting the proposed petition; (2) verifying that the petition contained the requisite number of signatures; (3) certifying the measure for placement on the ballot; and (4) after the election, deciding to canvas and beginning to canvass the votes for and against Measure 7. Id. at 9, 725 P.2d 886. The allegations in the League of Oregon Cities complaint substantively are identical. [1] The majority does not address the court's jurisdiction under ORS 246.910(1) over the four acts, or failures to act, by the Secretary of State that the complaints allege. Instead, at the state's suggestion, the majority adopts a reformation of the complaints that leaves the allegations in a state that the individual plaintiffs scarcely would recognize. For example, the majority states that,  McCall plaintiffs agree that the Secretary of State's constitutional evaluation of the proposed initiative petition that became Measure 7 is the `act' at the heart of this challenge. Id. at 10-11, 725 P.2d 886. The record contains no genuine agreement by the individual plaintiffs to abandon reliance on three of the four factual allegations on which they base their actions. When fairly read, the complaints contend that each of the Secretary of State's four alleged acts or failures to act, from the earliest to the most recent, contravenes Oregon election law because, among other things, Measure 7 improperly presented multiple constitutional changes to the voters but packaged them for a single vote. The individual plaintiffs did not waive their complaints about the Secretary of State's more recent actionsincluding the canvassing of the votes on Measure 7 after the electionmerely because they also argued that the Secretary of State never should have accepted the proposed petition in the first place. In my view, the majority errs in determining jurisdiction under ORS 246.910(1) by considering only one of the Secretary of State's alleged acts or failures to act in violation of Oregon election law. After effectively reforming the complaints and concluding that, in reality, they challenge only the Secretary of State's April 1999 initial evaluation of the proposed initiative, the majority concludes, under Ellis, that the individual plaintiffs' opportunity to challenge that act under ORS 246.910(1) expired in June 1999. What the majority omits from its analysis is a consideration of the text and context of ORS 246.910. The sole case on which the majority relies, Ellis, similarly failed to construe and apply ORS 246.910. As the following discussion demonstrates, unless this court is willing to enforce the legislature's appeal remedy under ORS 246.910 as the legislature intended, the public will suffer the loss of an important protection against unauthorized conduct by elections officials.