Opinion ID: 2600380
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: salvaging the initiative

Text: As the court recognizes in Part IV.A.2.b of its opinion, the Official English Initiative (OEI) was presented to the voters as an English-only law. The core provisions of the initiative are sections .320, Scope, which describes when English must be used, and .340, Exceptions, which specifies when languages other than English are allowed. [1] Section .320 sweepingly extends the English-only requirement to all functions and actions performed by government officials and all written materials they prepare: Sec. 44.12.320. Scope. The English language is the language to be used by all public agencies in all government functions and actions. The English language shall be used in the preparation of all official public documents and records, including all documents officially compiled, published or recorded by the government. Section .340 then describes eleven limited purposes for which government officials may use other languages when necessary; it also specifies that private citizens who address government officials may communicate in a language other than English, but only if their statements are translated into English: Sec. 44.12.340. Exceptions. (a) The government, as defined in AS 44.12.330, may use a language other than English when necessary for the following purposes: (1) to communicate health and safety information or when an emergency requires the use of a language other than English; (2) to teach another language to students proficient in English; (3) to teach English to students of limited English proficiency; (4) to promote international relations, trade, commerce, tourism or sporting events; (5) to protect the constitutional and legal rights of criminal defendants; (6) to serve the needs of the judicial system in civil and criminal cases in compliance with court rules and orders; (7) to investigate criminal activity and protect the rights of crime victims; (8) to the extent necessary to comply with federal law, including the Native American Languages Act; (9) to attend or observe religious ceremonies; (10) to use non-English terms of art, names, phrases, or expressions included as part of communications otherwise in English; and (11) to communicate orally with constituents by elected public officials and their staffs, if the public official or staff member is already proficient in a language other than English. (b) An individual may provide testimony or make a statement to the government in a language other than English, if the individual is not an officer or employee of the government, and if the testimony or statement is translated into English and included in the records of the government. All members of the court, including myself, agree on the intended meaning and dominant purpose of these provisions. Today's opinion correctly rejects the argument of Alaskans for a Common Language, Inc. (ACL) that we should read the initiative leniently, so that it applies only to formal and official documents and records. As the opinion states in concluding that section .320 as a whole cannot be read leniently: Because the meaning of the first sentence of AS 44.12.320 appears plain and unambiguous, and because ACL has not offered sufficient evidence of contrary voter intent, we have no basis to find that the voters shared what ACL calls its common sense reading of the initiative. The first sentence of section .320 plainly mandates the use of English by government officers and employees in the performance of their jobs, whether communicating with English or non-English speakers, except in specific circumstances [enumerated in AS 44.12.340(a)]. Accordingly, we reject ACL's contention that the plain language of the first sentence of AS 44.12.320 permits the unofficial or informal use of languages other than English by state officials or employees in the performance of their duties. All members of the court further agree that, so construed, the initiative's requirements impinge on constitutionally protected rights of free speech and are therefore invalid. Yet despite this understanding of section .320's plain and unambiguous meaning, the court proceeds to give the second sentence of section .320 precisely the meaning that it just rejected for the section as a whole. Because the second sentence of section .320 refers to official documents and records, the court reasons, it is capable of a narrow reading, which, in the court's view, plainly contemplates a permissible category of informal, unofficial written documents outside the reach of the OEI. The court also points out that the initiative's neutral ballot summary stated that [s]tate records must be in English; in the court's view, because this wording fails to specify that all records must be in English, it at least suggest[s] that those state records that are not official are not within the reach of the OEI. Finally, the court finds nuanced meaning in subtle phrasing differences between section .320's two directives to use English: the first sentence directs that [t]he English language is the language to be used, while the second directs that [t]he English language shall be used. The court takes this difference in the two otherwise clear directives as showing a permissive aspect in the second sentence  an aspect allowing the use of non-English languages in documents so long as English is also used. Through the narrow opening created by these infinitesimal textual gaps, the court leaps immediately to the conclusion that, because doubtful meaning should be resolved in favor of constitutionality, it has a duty to adopt this artificially narrow reading of the second sentence. The court makes no effort to first determine whether this meaning is textually or contextually plausible. Given the second sentence's newly declared meaning, the court leaps once more to conclude that the entire initiative can be rescued from unconstitutionality by severing the first sentence of section .320 and allowing the second to stand  again making no attempt to ask first whether the severed statute it adopts makes any sense in light of the primary purpose and dominant intent underlying the initiative's original version. This interpretive process results in a radically rewritten law that bears no realistic semblance to the version originally presented to and enacted by Alaska voters. By the court's own account, the initiative started out, and was sent to the voters, as a comprehensive and inflexible English-only law that covered the entire universe of government communications  spoken and written  and ranked among the nation's most restrictively worded official-English law[s] to date. [2] Yet as revised by the court, this law has now morphed into a modest and permissive measure that welcomes the use of all languages in all government functions and actions, spoken and written, as long as the government makes sure to keep an English version of official documents and records (whatever the court might later define that phrase to mean). Put simply, a law originally meant to say English only and always (except as necessary in a few specified situations) now says English sometimes but not always or only  and we can't tell yet exactly when. In my view, this interpretation makes no sense, and its adoption violates settled principles governing statutory construction and severance of unconstitutional language. Our duty to construe statutes in a way that avoids a finding of unconstitutionality is firmly constrained, as the court notes, by the constitutionally decreed separation of powers which prohibits this court from enacting legislation or redrafting defective statutes. [3] Accordingly, we are authorized to use narrowing constructions as a way of avoiding unconstitutional results only where it is reasonable to do so. [4] And we have recognized that a narrowing interpretation will be reasonable only if it can be adopted without doing violence to the manifest legislative intent of the statute at issue. [5] To this end, in determining the reasonable meaning of a law, courts regularly look for guidance to the fundamental canon of statutory interpretation that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme. [6] In other words, we must not be guided by a single sentence or member of a sentence, but look to the provisions of the whole law, and to its object and policy. [7] In reflexively giving the second sentence of section .320 the narrowest meaning it could possibly have in the first sentence's absence, today's opinion completely forgets to apply these prudential rules by ignoring the second sentence's meaning in its original context  the meaning that sentence had as an integral part of section .320 as a whole as that provision appeared in its original form. The court's interpretation of the second sentence in isolation from the first is consequently unsound  both textually and contextually. As a textual matter, there is simply no basis for the court's assumption that the second sentence's reference to official documents implies a permissible category of informal, unofficial written documents outside the reach of the OEI. The court's assumption ignores a simpler and more likely meaning of official documents and records  that is, all documents and records prepared or retained by government employees in performing their official functions and actions. Indeed, the restricted meaning proposed by the court quickly becomes implausible when carried over to other parts of the initiative. If we accept the court's proposed interpretation of the word official, parallel logic would advise us to read section .310's broad declaration that [t]he English language is the official language of the State of Alaska [8] as implying the existence of an informal, unofficial language outside the reach of the OEI  a meaning that nobody has even thought to propose. Moreover, section .320's second sentence incorporates other wording that rules out the court's proposed interpretation of official documents and records. Specifically, the second sentence requires English to be used not just in all official public documents and records, as today's opinion suggests, but rather  in the preparation of all official public documents and records. [9] Accordingly, the text of the second sentence evinces an unambiguous intent to extend its English-only requirement to all informal writings that precede the government's formal public documents and records. The second sentence's surrounding context points to the same conclusion. As already noted, the first sentence of section .320 unequivocally extends the initiative's English-only requirement to all actions and functions performed by government officers and employees. Because writing performed in the course of government work falls within the meaning of government functions and actions, the first sentence of section .320 would normally extend its English-only requirement to all writings produced in the course of government employment, regardless of the second sentence's presence. Given the first sentence's broad reach, the second sentence can best be understood, not as a sentence that covers the act of writing, but rather as one that covers the government's preparation and retention of writings produced by or submitted to the government for public use. While the two sentences may well overlap to a considerable extent when read in this way, the second sentence nonetheless served a valuable purpose in its original context  that is, as part of an initiative designed to apply a strict English-only requirement. By cementing the point that all writings produced by government functions and actions or submitted from other sources must always stay in English if they are to be kept as public records and documents, this sentence closes any potential gaps left open by the first. When construed in context with the original initiative as a whole, then, including its sibling first sentence, the second sentence originally meant to strengthen, not to dilute, the force of the first. Indeed, the court's own expressed understanding of the plain language of the first sentence of AS 44.12.320 conflicts with its proposed narrow reading of the section's second sentence. The court properly concludes that section .320 is incapable of being read in its entirety to permit[ ] the `unofficial' or `informal' use of languages other than English by state officials or employees in the performance of their duties. Given this conclusion, the court's proposal to read the second sentence of the section as having precisely that meaning would make no sense in the sentence's original context. Thus, as now adopted, this narrow meaning does violence to the manifest original purpose of section .320. A different contextual anomaly arises between the court's proposed narrow meaning of section .320 and the plain meaning of section .340. As we have seen, section .320 sets out the scope of the initiative's English-only requirement by defining the circumstances in which English must be used, while section .340 defines the permissible uses of other languages by adopting an exclusive list of specific exceptions that can be invoked only when necessary. [10] Because section .340's exceptions encompass situations involving both written and spoken language, the court's proposed reading of section .320 would have a paradoxical effect on section .340: as a permissive provision allowing the use of non-English languages in documents so long as English is also used, section .320's provisions governing writings would become broader than section .340's exceptions, thus turning the exceptions into restrictions. In short, because the court's proposed reading of section .320's second sentence is textually implausible, contextually unreasonable, and does violence to the manifest legislative intent of section .320 and the initiative as a whole, that narrow meaning fails to offer a viable path for avoiding the provision's unconstitutionality. Other courts considering nearly identical English-only provisions in the only two other states where they were adopted or proposed have not hesitated to strike them as facially unconstitutional. [11] Neither should we. As we have previously ruled on similar occasions, at some point, it must be assumed that the legislature means what it says. [12]
Separate problems arise from the court's attempt to invoke severance as a means to enact its recrafted version of section .320's second sentence. This court's authority to sever unconstitutional provisions from an act derives from the same source as its power to adopt narrowing constructions: the court's duty to uphold a statute as constitutional whenever the result is reasonably possible. As Sutherland explains, [t]he courts recognize a duty to sustain an act whenever this may be done by proper construction, and extend the duty to include the obligation to uphold part of an act which is separable from other and repugnant provisions. [13] By the same token, the court's severance powers are restrained by the same constraints that fence its powers to adopt limiting constructions: If a court finds a statute or portions of it unconstitutional, it has the power to strike it down or sever the invalid portion. It does not have the power to redraft the statute as that is the province of the legislature. [14] Thus, not only must the remaining portion of a severed statute be valid as a law by itself, [15] but it must also give effect to the apparent intention of the legislature that enacted the original provision. [16] Just as a court must do when it considers adopting a narrowing construction, a court contemplating severance must initially determine that severing the invalid portion will not do violence to the intent of the legislature. [17] If the court determines instead that by sustaining only a part of a statute, the purpose of the act is changed or altered, the entire act is invalid. [18] In keeping with these principles, our severance cases have often observed that, for purposes of determining whether the legislature would have wanted to enact the remaining portion of a severed statute, the critical inquiry is whether the severed portion remains faithful to the primary intent, [19] dominant purpose, [20] spirit, [21] or primary goal [22] of the entire act as originally enacted. [23] We have emphasized that [i]n the final analysis, a court must endeavor to fathom the legislative intent from all sources available to it. [24] This focus makes eminent sense because, unless the remaining provisions are faithful to the intended meaning of the original measure, they will amount to an impermissible judicial revision of the original law. [25] Yet here, in deciding to sever the first sentence of section .320, reconstrue the second, and leave the rest of the initiative intact, the court never once stops to consider the effects of its ruling on the initiative's original intent and dominant purpose, which openly conflict with the intent of the severed initiative's remaining provisions. After all, as the court itself acknowledges early on in its opinion, the original initiative meant to impose a uniquely stringent and all-encompassing English-only requirement on all government communication. In contrast, the revised law as it now stands freely allows government communication in any language for any purpose, as long as English versions of official records and documents are kept. Moreover, as the court admits, its interpretation of section .320 makes other provisions of the initiative superfluous or hortatory  a classic sign of changed meaning and improper severance. Instead of focusing on the initiative's original intent and purpose, the court's opinion seems to suggest that severance is justified because the newly interpreted second sentence of section .320 now has a constitutionally permissible meaning and still serves a useful purpose. But as I have already explained, the court minted its new interpretation of the second sentence after striking the first sentence, and without initially asking whether the interpretation did violence to the initiative's original intent and purpose; had the court stopped to ask, it would have found that its permissive reading of the second sentence conflicts with the basic purpose that the initiative was intended to serve  to impose a strict English-only requirement on all government speech. Because of this conflict, it is bootstrapping [26] for the court to use severance as a means to enable it to give the second sentence of section .320  and the redacted section as a whole  a new meaning that the original initiative never meant to enact. Gottschalk v. State [27] illustrates the proposition. There, the legislature had defined a criminal defamation law to include an overbroad culpable mental state requirement. On appeal, the state urged this court to sever the overbroad provision and construe a related provision of the statute as incorporating a constitutionally permissible mens rea requirement. [28] Characterizing the state's argument as a request for radical reconstruction that asked us to undertake a wholly inappropriate judicial activity amounting to judicial legislation, [29] we declined the request: We recognize the rule of construction that where it is reasonably possible to do so, statutes should be construed in a manner consistent with constitutional requirements. Here, however, as in Campbell ..., we are not able to save the statute in question because in doing so we would be stepping over the line of interpretation and engaging in legislation.[ [30] ] Today's opinion leans heavily on the initiative's express severance clause and the general severance preference appearing in the Alaska Statutes. The opinion seems to suggest that the electorate's expressed preference for severance somehow confers special powers on the court to rely on the severance doctrine when its use might otherwise be barred. But the court misunderstands the limited role of a severance clause. A general severance law like AS 01.10.030 [31] or a specific severability provision like AS 44.12.390 [32] simply works to override the traditional presumption against severance by establishing a presumption in favor of severance. [33] Because legislative powers are not delegable and belong to the legislature or the voters, severance clauses do not bestow courts with any substantive authority to sever. As Sutherland explains, it should be kept in mind that the authority of a court to eliminate invalid elements of an act and yet sustain the valid elements is not derived from the legislature, but rather flows from powers inherent in the judiciary. [34] Nor do severance clauses establish a specific legislative intent as to particular statutory provisions; at most, they merely create a slight generalized preference that helps guide the court when more specific evidence concerning the legislature's actual intent is close: It would seem that the soundest interpretation of this language [discussing preference clauses] is that, whereas a specific severability clause creates a slight presumption in favor of severability, a general clause creates an even weaker presumption. For all practical purposes, the difference between the two is negligible.[ [35] ] In each case, then, courts must look to the totality of the evidence bearing on the content of the measure and the circumstances surrounding its proposal [36] in order to decide the legislature's likely intent on the particular severance question at issue: [i]n the final analysis, a court must endeavor to fathom the legislative intent from all sources available to it. [37] And as previously mentioned, this endeavor typically begins by centering on the primary intent and dominant purpose of the original enactment. [38] Today's opinion completely fails to undertake this endeavor. The closest it comes are its brief discussion of the overarching symbolic importance that an official-English measure can have; its description of the fervent plea for severance advanced in ACL's supplemental brief; and its cryptic reference to the initiative's opening provision, AS 44.12.300, which broadly finds that English is the common unifying language of the State of Alaska and the United States of America, and then declare[s] a compelling interest in promoting, preserving and strengthening its use. But the court's approach mistakes the initiative's abstract statement of hopes and aspirations for the concrete content of the measure and the circumstances surrounding its proposal. [39] The voters' likely intent in enacting the initiative must be realistically gauged by what the initiative's substantive provisions actually do, not by the aspirational goals the voters eventually hope to attain. [40] The danger posed by the court's approach lies in the inevitable temptation it creates to overreach the limits of judicial power by trying to redraft an initiative to mean something that the court believes the voters would have wanted to enact had they proposed a constitutionally valid measure. The court in effect converts ACL's sincere desire to do something constitutional along the initiative's general lines  its fervent wish to adopt some valid form of official-English measure if its English-only initiative would not pass muster  into a mandate to engage in judicial legislation. The institutional harm of succumbing to this temptation is that it leads to public laws drafted and enacted by judges  a power that the Constitution does not confer on the judicial branch, but always allows the legislature and the voters to pursue for themselves. This type of danger, and the need to avoid it, was recognized and aptly described in State v. Zarnke , [41] a decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a criminal appeal raising severance issues similar to the ones we considered in Gottschalk v. State . [42] In Zarnke, the court addressed a challenge to a recently enacted criminal law that shifted the burden of proof from the state by requiring the defendant to prove the absence of guilty knowledge. [43] The trial court had dismissed the state's charge against Zarnke, concluding that the law was unconstitutional under the legal theory charged in his case. [44] In the intermediate court of appeals, the state conceded the law's unconstitutionality but convinced the intermediate court to sever the provision of the law imposing the unconstitutional burden and to construe the law's remaining provisions as incorporating the conventional requirement giving the state the burden of proving the element of guilty knowledge beyond a reasonable doubt. [45] The Wisconsin Supreme Court granted Zarnke's petition to review the intermediate court's severance ruling. [46] The state then renewed the severance argument it had raised below, but it advanced a new theory to support the argument, urging the court to rule that, even though the legislature had clearly intended to adopt the current law's allocation of burdens, it was nevertheless proper to sever the invalid provision and reinterpret the law's remaining provisions because the legislature's underlying intent had been to enact the most rigorous guilty-knowledge requirement that the constitution would permit. [47] The supreme court reversed the intermediate court's severance ruling. [48] Although it accepted the state's description of the legislature's underlying intentions, the court roundly rejected the state's new theory of severance and reinterpretation, explaining its ruling as follows: At oral argument, the State suggested that the legislature's explicit intent as evinced by legislative history is not what appears to be most clear from a reading of that history. Instead, the State suggests that we should consider the legislature's implicit intent, which it believes was really an intent to enact legislation that would allow it to legislate to the limits of the constitution.... We might agree with the State that the legislature's implicit intent was to draft a statute that went to the limits of the constitution. However, that the legislature intends to pass statutes which are constitutional is always our starting point in such an inquiry as this. But were we to rewrite a statute whenever it failed constitutional muster in order to save it, using any means possible, the legislature would soon realize that it need not be concerned with constitutional limitations: the judiciary could always be relied upon to mend and mold its language to fit within constitutional constraints.[ [49] ] Here, neither the initiative's severability clause nor ACL's commendable aspirations can dispel the conclusion that the weak and largely symbolic official-English law the court now adopts diverges radically from the restrictive and inflexible intentions manifested in the original initiative's deliberately sweeping and restrictive English-only requirements. As today's opinion makes clear, if the initiative's sponsors had wanted to propose a moderate and permissive official-English initiative, they would have had numerous examples to use as models  indeed, they still have those models and are free to propose them. Instead, the initiative's sponsors chose to propose a carefully crafted and elaborately structured measure that, the court concedes, clearly and unambiguously mirrored the nation's most restrictively worded official-English law[s] to date. [50] Today the court claims to have transformed the original initiative from a divisive, zero-tolerance English-only mandate into a unifying and permissive symbol of our common linguistic bond; yet in the same breath, the court declares that it sees no real change in the original initiative's basic meaning and primary intent. The court's goal may be laudable, but in my view, its vision fails. As I see it, the court's action is judicial legislation, pure and simple. I would hold that the original initiative means what it says. [51]