Opinion ID: 2615788
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Incidental objectives

Text: We are moved to note an incidental objective to be attained by the required statement of facts and reasons. This is prompted by plaintiff's assertion that the sole, exclusive and express purpose of the emergency declaration was to deprive the inhabitants of Portland  of their right to refer said proposed ordinance to the legal voters of the City for approval or rejection at the next general election, and its implication that the voters were thereby rendered impotent to correct the alleged mischief or punish those members of the council guilty of the legislative error. With the statement that a referendum was thereby denied, there can be no cavil or dispute; but in no sense was the public thereby robbed of all opportunity to vindicate its judgment that the legislation was wrong or that which was repealed could not be restored and, if so minded, at the same time punish the members of the council for their offending action by denying them further tenure in office. Indeed, there are jurisdictions which have held that the prime purpose of facts and reasons clauses is designed to promote that end. Our own decisions, as we shall later see, have long ago pointed in that direction. In State ex rel. City of Fostoria v. King, 154 Ohio St 213, 94 NE2d 697, two emergency ordinances were the object of judicial concern. They contained statements of reasons for the emergency, but an attack was made upon them as contravening the referendum power, coupled with an allegation that the reasons stated did not show that an emergency was necessary. The court said (94 NE2d 701): It may seem strange to sustain legislation as emergency legislation not subject to referendum, where there is in fact no emergency, or where the reasons given for the necessity and for declaring the emergency do not appear to be valid reasons. However, as does Section 4227-3, General Code, provisions for emergency legislation usually safeguard referendum rights by requiring substantially more than a majority vote to enact emergency legislation. The statutory requirement of stating reasons for declaring the emergency is provided only  to satisfy voters that their representatives did have valid reasons for the necessity of declaring that the ordinance was an emergency. If there was in fact no emergency or if the reasons given for such necessity are not valid reasons, the voters have an opportunity to take appropriate action in the subsequent election of their representatives. However, the existence of an emergency or the soundness of such reasons is subject to review only by the voters at such a subsequent election of their representatives. They are not subject to review by the courts   . (Italics ours.) We have already indicated our thought that the primal purpose of the charter was for the governance of the council as a check upon inconsiderate action. Yet we are not unmindful that it has another value and function. It also points the way to, if not invites, corrective action on the part of the public displeased therewith. It tends by the recital of the facts and reasons to focus public attention upon the justification for quickening the operating date of the law. If the inquiry thus stimulated leaves interested voters unconvinced, then those displeased with the result can decide upon which of the three available ways to pursue to correct the ensuing alleged wrong or punish those responsible therefor, or both. The courses open to those offended by the council's conduct are (1) to countermand the result through the avenue of the initiative, (2) to recall the erring councilmen, or (3) to resolve to vote against such legislators when they next seek re-election. It will be observed that all are exercised through the ballot box. This thought finds foundation in Biggs v. McBride, supra, 17 Or 640, 647, where the court said:    Such determination [i.e., the existence of an emergency by the legislature] is in its nature  political, and not judicial, and for such errors, if they be errors, the remedy must be found in the virtue and intelligence of the people. The ballotbox is the medium through which they may be corrected. (Italics ours.) In answer to the question    what remedy will the people have if the legislature, either intentionally or through mistake, declares falsely or erroneously that a given law is necessary for the purposes stated?, Mr. Justice BEAN in Kadderly v. Portland, supra, 44 Or 150, responded as follows:    The constitution has wisely divided the government into three separate and distinct departments, and has provided that no person charged with official duties under one of these departments shall exercise any of the functions of another, except as in the constitution expressly provided: Const. Or. Art. III, § 1. It is true that power of any kind may be abused when in unworthy hands. That, however, would not be a sufficient reason for one coordinate branch of the government to assign for attempting to limit the power and authority of another department. If either of the departments in the exercise of the powers vested in it, should exercise them erroneously or wrongfully, the remedy is with the people, and must be found, as said by Mr. Justice Strahan in Biggs v. McBride, 17 Or. 640 (5 L.R.A. 115, 21 Pac. 878), in the ballot box   . The recourse to the ballot box suggested in the Biggs and Kadderly cases has attained greater significance since their first pronouncements. We now have, as we did not then have, the initiative and the recall. This choice of three ways, other than referendum, exercised through the ballot box demonstrates that the public is not completely denied an opportunity to  correct a legislative error or vindicate a political principle. The argument that the urgency clause of the ordinance, if effective, unwarrantedly deprives the electorate of the power to invoke a referendum against it necessarily loses much of its power by reason of the availability of these alternative and, in some instances, concurrent methods to right a real or imagined legislative wrong. We do not represent that the three aforementioned devices by ballot are analogous in scope or result to the power of referendum; but we do suggest that their very availability as a method to register public displeasure with any given legislative action or, indeed, to restore that which may have been undone by unwise legislative judgment goes far to mitigate the loss of opportunity claimed by the denial of the referendum power.