Court Opinion

ID: 9693513
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:46:58.202863+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:47.860212
License: Public Domain

HANDLER, J.,
concurring and dissenting.
This case concerns the appropriate message to be conveyed in an interpretive statement accompanying a proposed State constitutional amendment affecting riparian lands which appeared on the ballot in the November general election. I subscribe generally to this Court’s resolution of the matter. My point of difference with the Court is narrow but important. I believe the Attorney General had every right to make a more explicit *46reference in the interpretive statement to the effect of the amendment upon the public school fund.1
The responsibility for fashioning an interpretive statement belongs to the officials charged by statute with that duty. That task properly reposes in the Attorney General and Secretary of State.2 Their formulation of the interpretive statement is entitled to considerable deference. The Court now recognizes this. The greater the statutory and administrative responsibility that is vested in the executive or legislative agents over election matters, the more constricted is the jurisdiction of the courts. Judicial and executive responsibilities in election matters stand, as it were, in inverse proportion to one another. See Quaremba v. Allan, 67 N.J. 1 (1975). Our primary concern is to assure that the ballot not be confusing or deceptive. Young v. Byrne, 144 N.J.Super. 10, 19 (Law Div.1976). Therefore, unless the interpretive statement is misleading or biased, it should not be disturbed by the courts. Cf. Quaremba v. Allan, supra; Farrington v. Falcey, 96 N.J.Super. 409 (App.Div.1967); Millman v. Kelly, 171 N.J.Super. 589 (Law Div.1979); Edelstein v. Ferrell, 120 N.J.Super. 583 (Law Div.1972) (all recognizing the broad discretion to be accorded election officials in performing their duties).
*47It is not the business of this Court to act as a ballot scrivener or to try its hand in the craftsmanship of such a sensitive, controversial and delicate matter as an interpretive statement concerning a proposed amendment to our State Constitution. We did so in this case only because of the emergent need to resolve the controversy. Hence, the interpretive statement in the Court’s order was at most a “suggestion” for the guidance of the responsible parties. While it contains the components of what this Court believes would be a statement fulfilling the objectives of the law, taking into account the legitimate, albeit somewhat partisan, views of the litigants, the ultimate crafting of such a statement remains securely within the discretionary authority of the Attorney General and the Secretary of State.3
The Attorney General in this matter sought to refer to the effects of the amendment upon public school funding because of its obvious importance to the public generally. In my estimation, he was empowered to consider this constitutional consequence, to ascribe significance to it and to refer to it in the interpretive statement in order to enlighten the electorate to the greatest extent possible within the inevitable constraints of time, space and language imposed by the election laws. I would therefore give great weight to the Attorney General’s intentions in this regard as a reasonable exercise of discretion and permit inclusion in the suggested interpretive statement of a more explicit reference to the amendment’s consequences upon public education funding. By failing to include such a reference in the majority’s precatory statement, the Court has, I fear, given its imprimatur to its exclusion. Hence, where the majority’s statement referred to the relationship between riparian land sales and public education, I would have added to that paragraph the following sentence:
If State claims are barred under the proposed amendment, the proceeds from the sale of such lands will not be available for said fund.
*48This addition would constitute a balanced presentation of the proposal and would underscore the Attorney General’s proper role in fashioning interpretive statements under our election laws.
To this extent, I dissent from the opinion of the Court.
For affirmance — Chief Justice WILENTZ and Justices PASHMAN, CLIFFORD, SCHREIBER and POLLOCK — 5.
Concurring in part, dissenting in part — Justice HANDLER— 1.

Monies now raised through the sale or lease of riparian lands are dedicated to the fund for public school education, a perpetual fund protected by the New Jersey Constitution and statute law. N.J.Const. (1947), Art. VIII, § 4; N.J.S.A. 18A:56-1 et seq. The amendment, which was adopted, will result in a substantive change of Art. VIII of the Constitution dealing with the subject of State taxation and finance.

State statutes authorize the Attorney General “to inform the voters of the effects” which a constitutional amendment will have upon other constitutional and statutory provisions dealing with the essential subject, N.J.S.A. 19:14-31, and to foster voter awareness of the interrelationship between the amendment and existing law, N.J.S.A. 19:14 — 29. This authority is consistent with his overall responsibility to act in the public interest. Cf. Evans-Aristocrat Industries, Inc. v. Newark, 75 N.J. 84, 95 (1977) (Attorney General has a role for “the protection of public rights”).

ln this instance the suggested interpretive statement set forth in the ■Court’s order of October 6, 1981 was adopted verbatim and certified by the Secretary of State for use on the ballot.