Opinion ID: 1179979
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the challenges

Text: We turn now to the merits of petitioners' and intervenor's challenges. The text of the explanatory statement at issue here is as follows: Current law allows tractors pulling three trailers, or `triples,' to operate on highways under special permits issued by Oregon road authority. These special permits place restrictive conditions on the operation of triples. The Oregon Department of Transportation definition of `triple' is a truck pulling two trailers or a truck tractor pulling three semitrailers. Without a special permit, such combinations violate statutory limits on length and number of vehicles in a combination. Measure 4 prohibits the issuance of special permits for triples. If passed, Measure 4 will become effective 30 days after the election. Proponents and opponents disagree on the effects of the Measure 4 ban on triples. The effects may include, but not be limited to: increased truck traffic on the highways; increased revenue to the state highway fund; impact on the cost of doing business and jobs in Oregon. In Teledyne Wah Chang Albany v. Powell, 301 Or. 590, 592-93, 724 P.2d 319 (1986), this court stated its role in the review of an explanatory statement: The court must test the statement filed with the Secretary of State against the ORS 251.215(1) requirement that the statement be `impartial, simple and understandable.' The requirement in ORS 251.215(1) that the statement explain the measure must be read with the insufficiency ground for challenge under ORS 251.235. Lack of impartiality is not specified as a ground for challenge, but impartiality is a requisite for sufficiency.         [O]ur task is not to write a better statement, but only to determine whether the explanatory statement is a sufficient and clear statement of the measure and its effect. Thus, a statement is insufficient if it is not impartial. It also is insufficient if it is potentially misleading. Sollis v. Hand, 310 Or. 251, 256, 796 P.2d 1188 (1990); June v. Roberts, 301 Or. 586, 589, 724 P.2d 267 (1986). Petitioners object to the explanatory statement in three respects. First, they contend that the use in the second sentence of the term special permits to describe the permits currently issued to triples is incorrect and thus misleading. They contend that the correct term is variance permits. The Department of Transportation calls these permits Special Transportation Permits. We conclude that the use of the term special permits is not misleading. Secondly, petitioners also object to the use, in that same sentence, of the adjective restrictive to modify the word conditions. They argue that the term restrictive conditions is redundant and implies the existence of more severe restraints on the operation of triples than may in fact exist, thus misleading voters. Before modifying or invalidating some part of an explanatory statement, this court should find that its insufficiency is beyond reasonable argument. Teledyne Wah Chang Albany v. Powell, supra, 301 Or. at 593, 724 P.2d 319. We do not find the challenged term restrictive conditions insufficient. Finally, petitioners contend that the entire last paragraph of the explanatory statement is speculative, misleading, and not impartial. They argue that none of the listed possible effectsincreased truck traffic on the highways; increased revenue to the state highway fund; impact on the cost of doing business and jobs in Oregonis required by the passage of the measure. They request that the paragraph be deleted. We agree with petitioners that the paragraph suffers from several defects. One of the effects listed, impact on the cost of doing business and jobs in Oregon, does not even indicate what the nature of its impact would be. The statement is unclear and communicates nothing. Another, increased revenue to the state highway fund, is merely a secondary effect that might result from another listed possible effect, increased truck traffic on the highways. Its inclusion is misleading to voters. Moreover, fatal to the acceptability of all the listed effects is the committee's acknowledgment that [p]roponents and opponents disagree on the effects of the measure, and the committee's considered use of the term effects may include to introduce the list of effects. [3] As set forth above, ORS 251.215(1) requires the explanatory statement for a ballot measure to explain[] the measure and its effect. In June v. Roberts, 310 Or. 244, 249, 797 P.2d 357 (1990), this court found that an effect proposed to be added to the explanatory statement at issue in that case was speculative and [did] not belong in the official Explanatory Statement. Possible effects, particularly those whose occurrence is in dispute, are properly put before the voters through the use of arguments printed in the Voters' Pamphlet pursuant to ORS 251.255. Id. The inclusion of effects that are only possible in the explanatory statement accompanying Ballot Measure 4 renders that statement potentially misleading to voters and thus insufficient. ORS 251.235; Sollis v. Hand, supra, 310 Or. at 256, 796 P.2d 1188. Intervenor contends that a portion of paragraph three is misleading and not impartial for a different reason. Citing testimony from interested persons during the hearing on the statement, he contends that one of the listed effects, increased truck traffic on the highways, is not speculative, but certain. He requests that the statement be revised to state that the effects of Ballot Measure 4 will include increased truck traffic. We already have noted the committee's deliberate rejection of the term will include in relation to this effect. Considering that fact, we decline to adopt that wording ourselves. Pursuant to ORS 251.235, we approve the following explanatory statement as an impartial, simple and understandable statement explaining the measure and its effect, ORS 251.215(1): Current law allows tractors pulling three trailers, or triples, to operate on highways under special permits issued by Oregon road authority. These special permits place restrictive conditions on the operation of triples. The Oregon Department of Transportation definition of triple is a truck pulling two trailers or a truck tractor pulling three semitrailers. Without a special permit, such combinations violate statutory limits on length and number of vehicles in a combination. Measure 4 prohibits the issuance of special permits for triples. If passed, Measure 4 will become effective 30 days after the election. Ballot measure explanatory statement certified as modified.