Opinion ID: 1378507
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: club membership

Text: While in New York Ravenel joined the Union Club and the City Mid-Day Club, taking a resident membership rather than a nonresident membership which was available. He also joined the Fairfield Country Club in Connecticut, taking a full membership and not a nonresident membership. He registered his automobile in Connecticut, where he apparently spent considerable time on the weekends with relatives. Birth certificates for his children show Mother's Usual Residence as being New York. They were baptized in Charleston. A Charleston address is indicated on the following documents: Selective Service Registration (about 1956), application for membership in Huguenot Society (1961), a passport (1961), application for Harvard Business School (1961), and marriage license application (1963). Ravenel admits that, after the date of his marriage license, there is no other document in evidence to show that he claimed Charleston as a residence until November, 1971. At that time he applied for a passport giving Charleston as his residence. In 1971 he flew to Boston to consider the advisability of accepting employment. He states that he declined to accept the job because of his desire to return to South Carolina. It is significant that his intent to return was not so fixed that he would decline to even consider the employment. Ravenel states that during his years of absence he visited in South Carolina some four or five times each year. In 1968 he procured an interest in and helped to develop a hotel in Charleston. Ravenel testifies that his physical return to South Carolina was delayed because of a necessity to remain in New York to protect certain investments. He maintains that except for this fact and his desire to obtain additional practical training he would have moved back to Charleston earlier. On September 12, 1972, Ravenel registered to vote in South Carolina. This was his first effort to participate in South Carolina election processes. On October 3, 1972, he procured a South Carolina driver's license. The question in this case is the proper construction of the pertinent language of Article IV, section 2 of the South Carolina Constitution, or more specifically, the intent and meaning of the language citizen and resident. There is no Federal constitutional issue involved in this proceeding, Ravenel having expressly refrained from raising any such. Basically his contention is that the evidence shows that his domicile was in South Carolina during the pertinent five year period and that such proof of domicile satisfies the constitutional requirement that he be a citizen and resident for the pertinent period. Stated otherwise, his contention is that the terms resident and citizen are synonymous and that the word resident in the Constitution requires only that he have been domiciled in South Carolina. The parties are in agreement that for Ravenel to qualify he must be at least a domiciliary of South Carolina in order to be a citizen thereof. Respondents Dekle and Dukes contend that the words citizen and resident, as used in the Constitution have separable meanings and that the word resident is used in the strict primary sense of one actually and physically living in the place for a time. With this latter contention we agree. As briefly stated in our order announcing our decision, the terms citizen and resident, as used in the constitutional provision, are not synonymous and the constitutional provision requires as a condition of eligibility to the office of Governor that one must have been both a citizen and resident for the required time. The constitutional requirement that a person be both a citizen and a resident, for a period of time, as a prerequisite to being eligible for the office of Governor had its origin in the Constitution of 1790. [2] Present Article IV, section 2 of the Constitution was adopted in the general election of 1972 and ratified in 1973. The pertinent language therein parallels the language of prior South Carolina Constitutions and is identical with that of the Constitution of 1895. Thus the meaning and intent of the terms citizen and resident as used in those earlier documents is highly persuasive, if not controlling. When the Constitution of 1895 was drafted it is clear that in judicial concept the terms citizen and resident were not the same. Nor did one necessarily include the other. Shortly before the ratification of the Constitution of 1895, Justice McIver noted the distinction's existence when, in discussing a statutory requirement that non-resident plaintiffs give security for court costs, he wrote: The provisions relate only to residence, and not to citizenship which are entirely different things. As was said by Mr. Justice Grier in Parker v. Overman , 18 How. 127 [137] 15 L.Ed. 318: citizenship and residence are not synonymous terms. Cummings v. Wingo , 31 S.C. 427, 10 S.E. 107, 110 (1889). The Wingo opinion clearly reflected substantial agreement in the contemporary legal community that citizenship and residence were separate and distinguishable. E. g., Menarde v. Goggan , 121 U.S. 253, 7 S.Ct. 873, 30 L.Ed. 914 (1887); Grace v. American Ins. Co. , 109 U.S. 278, 3 S.Ct. 207, 27 L.Ed. 932 (1883); Robertson v. Cease , 97 U.S. 646, 24 L.Ed. 1057 (1878); Holt v. Tennallytown & R. Ry. Co. , 81 Md. 219, 31 A. 809 (1895); Robinson v. Oceanic Steam Nav. Co. , 112 N.Y. 315, 19 N.E. 625, 2 L.R.A. 636 (1889). See generally, 10 Cent. Dig., Constitutional Law , secs. 625-648, at 2036-2070. In the years intervening between 1895 and 1973 this Court has adhered to the distinction between the term citizen and the term resident, holding that they do not mean the same thing. LaTourette v. McMaster , 104 S.C. 501, 89 S.E. 398 (1916), affirmed, 248 U.S. 465, 39 S.Ct. 160, 63 L.Ed. 362 (1919); Tedars v. Savannah River Veneer Co. , 202 S.C. 363, 25 S. E. (2d) 235 (1943). In view of the plain language of the Constitution and the long standing concept of the distinction between the terms citizen and resident we think it clear that the framers of the constitutional provision intended to require actual physical residence in the state rather than mere domicile as one of the prerequisite to be eligible for the office of Governor. Demonstrative of the fact that the framers of the Constitution of 1895 were well aware of the distinction between the terms citizen and resident is the following fact. Article V, section 10 of the Constitution of 1868 provided, inter alia , that eligibility to become either a judge of this Court or of the circuit court was conditioned among other things, upon one having been a resident of this State for five years next preceding his election, but did not require, as a condition of eligibility, that one be a citizen of the state. Framers of the 1895 Constitution added the additional qualification of eligibility that one must also have been a citizen of this State for five years. Article V, section 10 (1895). Now Article V, section 11 (1973). A cardinal rule as to the construction of constitutional provisions is, we think, well stated in 16 Am. Jur. (2d) 244, Constitutional Law, section 67, as follows: An elementary rule of a construction is that if possible, effect should be given to every part and every word of a constitution and that unless there is some clear reason to the contrary, no portion of the fundamental law should be treated as superfluous. A court should avoid a construction which renders any constitutional provision meaningless or inoperative, and must lean in favor of a construction which will render every word operative, rather than one which may make some words idle and nugatory. South Carolina decisions are in accord with the stated rule. See cases collected in Wests' South Carolina Digest, Constitutional Law, Key 15, and Statutes, Key 206. The stated rule is applicable to the construction of statutes as well as constitutional provisions but is particularly applicable to the construction of constitutions and the various provisions thereof. Constitutions generally are most carefully prepared and the courts are bound to presume that the framers had some purpose in inserting every clause and every word contained in the document and it is never to be supposed that a single word was inserted in the organic law of the state without the intention of conveying thereby some meaning. See numerous cases cited in the footnotes to the text above quoted from 16 Am. Jur. (2d). Citizenship in the first instance is founded upon actual residence and thereafter as long as one retains his residence even in a domiciliary sense, he remains a citizen. If the framers of the particular constitutional provision meant to require nothing more than a domicile they could have stopped after using the word citizen and omitted the words and resident. Resident, in the domiciliary sense is embodied within the term citizen. It follows therefore that if the words and resident be construed as meaning anything other than a requirement of actual physical residence such language would be surplusage. Accordingly the language permits of no other construction because we are not at liberty to treat any portion of the Constitution as surplusage. Admittedly Mr. Ravenel does not meet the requirement of actual residence in this State for the necessary five year period, and without more it conclusively follows that he is not eligible to be elected to the office of Governor. The purpose of requiring actual residence is, we think, plain. By requiring a durational five year actual residency, the people have reserved to themselves the right to scrutinize the person who seeks to govern them. Obviously the people desired such a period to observe a gubernatorial candidate's conduct, to learn of his habits, his strengths, his weaknesses, his ideals, his abilities, his leanings, and his political philosophy  a period of time in which to consider, not only his words, but his acts and activities in community and public affairs. Correspondingly, they wanted a candidate to actually live in the state five years immediately preceding the election in order that he might become acquainted with the state's problems, its people, its industries, its finances, its institutions, its agencies, its laws and its Constitution, and become acquainted with other officials with whom he must work if he is to serve efficiently. In Chimento v. Stark , 353 F. Supp. 1211 (N.H.D. 1973) affirmed, 414 U.S. 802, 94 S.Ct. 125, 38 L.Ed. (2d) 39, a three judge Federal court dealt with a seven year durational residency provision of the New Hampshire Constitution as a condition of eligibility to serve as governor of that state. The opinion of the court points out that 29 states require five or more years, 10 states require seven or more years and two states require ten years residency before one may serve as Governor. In commenting upon the purpose of such a requirement the court said it ensures that the chief executive officer of New Hampshire is exposed to the problems, needs, and desires of the people whom he is to govern, and it also gives the people of New Hampshire a chance to observe him and gain firsthand knowledge about his habits and character. Ravenel relies in part on Article I, section 6 of the State Constitution that provides, inter alia , (t)emporary absence from the State shall not forfeit a residence once obtained. Even independent of this constitutional provision, temporary absences normally do not bring about a forfeiture of either citizenship or residency. Under the admitted facts, we do not think that this constitutional provision has any application in this case because we are not convinced that Ravenel's prolonged absence from the State could reasonably be held to be a temporary absence within the purview of the constitutional provision. If his contention in this respect and his further contention as to only domicile being required be held sound, it would follow that a native born citizen could leave the state and as long as he did not establish a domicile elsewhere, stay away for many years, and not return to the state until after his election as Governor, but still be eligible for such office. Such construction of the constitutional provisions would completely defeat the obvious purpose of the durational residency requirement for eligibility. Another elementary rule of construction is that no construction is permissible which will lead to an absurd result. Even if we assume, as contended by Ravenel, that the word resident as used in the Constitution should be construed to only require that he have a domicile for the prerequisite period of time he did not meet this test. As we have already held that the Constitution required him to be an actual resident, and not merely a domiciliary, we need deal only briefly with the law as to domicile. In Gasque v. Gasque , 246 S.C. 423, 143 S.E. (2d) 811 (1965) ( a divorce case) our Court had occasion to define the word domicile as follows: And `(t)he term domicile means the place where a person has his true, fixed and permanent home and principal establishment, to which he has, whenever he is absent, an intention of returning.' Such is a generally accepted definition of the term. It is generally recognized, as we did in Gasque , that intent is a most important element in determining the domicile of any individual. It is also elementary, however, that any expressed intent on the part of a person must be evaluated in the light of his conduct which is either consistent or inconsistent with such expressed intent. Other elementary propositions which require no citation of authority are that a person can have only one domicile at a time; one maintains his prior domicile until he establishes or acquires a new one. A person may have more than one residence, but cannot have more than one domicile or be a citizen of more than one state at the same moment. Despite his sincere intention to return to his native state some day the overwhelming weight of the evidence is to the effect that in November, 1969, the beginning of the crucial period of time, Mr. Ravenel was an actual resident of, domiciled in and a citizen of the State of New York. This opinion sets forth the basis of and reasons underlying our decision herein, announced by an order of this Court on September 23, 1974. Such order, of course, remains in full force and effect and no further judgment is required.