Opinion ID: 2629250
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Constitutional provisions are entitled to the same presumption of validity as legislative provisions.

Text: ¶ 15 We have held that it is the cardinal principle of statutory construction that a statute is constitutional and should be sustained against challenge where it is possible to do so. In re Application of the Oklahoma Dept. of Transp., 2002 OK 74, ¶ 27, 64 P.3d 546, 553, quoting with approval, NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1937); and Coyle v. Smith, 1911 OK 64, 113 P. 944, 971. This principle is codified in 75 O.S.2001 § 11a(1). [7] We hold that this cardinal principle applies equally to constitutional provisions as well as to statutory enactments. The Supreme Court of Florida reached the same conclusion in Ray v. Mortham, 742 So.2d 1276, 1281 (Fla.1999). Although the Florida court held that severability analysis was required, contrary to our holding here, it nevertheless held, as have we, that the presumption of constitutionality applies to constitutional provisions as well as to legislation. [8] The Florida Supreme Court held: The issue of severability arises only after an amendment already approved by voters has been challenged. Rather than ignoring the results of the election and requiring the Secretary of State to show that voters would have approved an amendment without the unconstitutional provisions, the burden is properly placed on the challenging party. The analysis urged by appellants would be the antithesis of the purpose underlying severability  to preserve the constitutionality of enactments where it is possible to do so. Accordingly, we conclude that we should adopt the severability analysis that we have applied to legislative enactments. [Emphasis added.] As was the case in Florida, plaintiffs would have us adopt an analysis, which to succeed would require us to ignore the presumption of validity to which the right to work amendment is entitled. This we decline to do. ¶ 16 Plaintiffs' argument that the people would not have approved the right to work law if they had known that certain of its provisions would not apply because of federal law strikes us as counterintuitive. Why would the people not approve a constitutional change that would protect workers from the involuntary payment of union dues simply because federal courts applying federal law might decide that some of its provisions would not apply to some but not all workers in clearly defined circumstances? We conclude that the possibility that the federal courts might hold that certain employees would not be subject to the right to work law cannot be assumed to be a factor which would have caused the people to vote against its passage. It is clear, therefore, that plaintiffs have failed in their burden, as defined by In re Application of the Oklahoma Dept. of Transp., 2002 OK 74 at ¶ 27, 64 P.3d 546, to show that the actions of the federal courts in declaring that certain provisions of the amendment are preempted in certain circumstances has, somehow, rendered the right to work law unconstitutional. ¶ 17 It is important to keep in mind that the federal courts in this matter have not declared any provision of the right to work law unconstitutional. Instead, the federal courts have merely held that the right to work law does not apply in certain circumstances due to the primacy of federal law, not that preemption lead to invalidation of any of the right to work law's provisions. Thus, the cases cited by plaintiffs in which this Court has examined whether a statute containing unconstitutional provisions would have been passed, had the legislature known that part of what it passed was unconstitutional, are inapposite here. See, for example, Comanche Light & Power v. Nix, 1916 OK 330, 156 P. 293, where the U.S. Supreme Court had declared that a state taxation statute was partially unconstitutional because it attempted to regulate interstate commerce. Here, by contrast, the federal courts have held that certain of the right to work law's terms are preempted by federal law, not that they are unconstitutional. Indeed, the Tenth Circuit carefully spelled out in its certified question No. 1 that certain of the right to work law's provisions were unenforceable because of their preemption ... as opposed to the `invalidation' of those provisions. Certified Question No. 1. ¶ 18 Just as whether some of the right to work amendment's provisions were preempted by federal law was a question of federal law, whether the finding of the federal court's requires us to engage in severability analysis is a question of state law. We hold that severability analysis is not necessary here for the reason that the right to work law contemplated that some of its provisions might be preempted by federal law and because plaintiffs failed to overcome the presumption that the right to work law is valid and enforceable. Thus, we decline to address plaintiffs' various legal arguments in support of their claim that the rulings of the federal courts in this matter establish that the voters were somehow mislead.