Court Opinion

ID: 8916421
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-27 05:15:46.660763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:09:02.066622
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
While I fully concur in the court’s opinion, I add this concurring statement to bring out an additional serious consequence of the alternative result. The section under attack in these cases was enacted by a vote of the people at large in a single referendum petition that included not only the regulatory scheme but the surrender by repeal of the Prohibition Ordinance, see Okla. Const., art. XXVII, §§ 1-11 (1981) (each section composed part of State Question No. 386, Referendum Petition No. 121 which was adopted at election held April 7, 1959), which had stood since statehood as the fundamental law of Oklahoma separately voted on by the people at large. The regulatory package was clearly the quid pro quo for the surrender after decades of dispute of this long held public standard. I have serious doubt that federal courts are at liberty glibly to sever and strike down one section of such an integrated state decision with its long and turbulent history, see Spokane Arcades, Inc. v. Brockett, 631 F.2d 135 (9th Cir.1980), aff’d, 454 U.S. 1022, 102 S.Ct. 557, 70 L.Ed.2d 468 (1981), reh’g denied, 454 U.S. 1165, 102 S.Ct. 1040, 71 L.Ed.2d 322 (1982), without striking down the whole and restoring the status quo ante whether any of the parties would desire such a result.