Opinion ID: 1452513
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: the teachings of threadgill

Text: My commitment to the undiluted force of Threadgill v. Cross [42] continues with undiminished fervor. [43] Threadgill teaches that conformity of an initiative measure's content to the commands of our constitutionstate or federalmay not be judicially examined in advance of the initiative petition's adoption by the people. Threadgill protects from pre-submission, content-based constitutional challenges those measures which, if adopted by the people, would become law not measures which are facially incapable of attaining the status of law. Pre-submission review of an initiative's fundamental-law conformity should be confined to fatally vitiating infirmities in the initiative process itself to measures that are procedurally flawed, patently invalid or, as in this case, are facially incapable of becoming law. The electorate's effort at legislating directly must not be hindered by pre-election attacks other than those which target the petition's compliance with some insuperable barrier to the measure's submission. Since the proposed measure is clearly and facially contrary to state law, [44] Threadgill is no obstacle to this court's pre-submission scrutiny of the initiative's validity and to a pre-submission sentence of nullity. VI