Court Opinion

ID: 9685629
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:53:39.481433+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:08.781355
License: Public Domain

O’Hara, J.
(dissenting). I am in respectful disagreement with my colleagues.
I perceive no impingement upon the constitutional right of initiative by the statute involved. Rather, it seems to me to be a legislative attempt to expedite the initiatory process by guaranteeing legislative action as early as possible in any given session. This fact is emphasized by the specific executive recommendation to the Second Special Session of the Seventy-Second Legislature, the legislative action by the bipartisan Joint Interim Committee, and the constitutionally-mandated recommendations of the attorney general. I quote what I consider relevant from the Senate and House Journal of the First and Second Extra Sessions of 1963 (Journal of the House, Second Extra Session, pp 19-20) containing the special message of the Governor:
“* * * Accepting his responsibilities under the new constitution the Attorney General has recommended areas where the Legislature must act. To the distinct credit of the Legislature, a Joint Interim Committee composed of Republicans and Democrats from both houses has been hard at work since June [1963] developing specific legislation necessary to meet immediate requirements necessary before January 1,1964 * # * . Thus, I submit for your consideration and legislative action the following *752subjects: * * * 8. Procedures for Initiative and Referendum.” (House Journal, supra)
I can only conclude from the foregoing that the legislature responded not to a “summons [of] legislative aid,” as that phrase is used in the Hamilton case, discussed later herein, but to the imperative constitutional edict that “the legislature shall implement the provisions of this section,” by continuing reliance upon what was correctly concluded to be a valid statute maintained by the saving clause of Article III, § 7, and remaining in full force and effect.
My total thesis is precisely this. The legislature is under a constitutional mandate to act upon initiatory legislation within 40 session days from the time the petition is received by the legislature. This is a race against fixed time. I do not understand how any race can be run without a starting time. That starting time was fixed by the legislature in the requirement that the petition be filed with the Secretary of State ten days before the constitutionally-fixed time for the convening of each legislative session.
Admittedly the legislature cannot thwart the initiatory process by unreasonable time demands for filing of the petition with the Secretary of State.
Persistent bench questioning on oral argument elicited a consensus response for counsel that a reasonable time to allow for both the necessary administrative action by the Secretary of State and legislative deliberation is permissible and necessary to avoid utter chaos in the subsequent elective process. Thus, the test is “reasonableness”, a concept in law as old as the common law itself. I regard the basis of the test to be a time reasonably related to the accomplishment of what must be done. With partic*753nlar reference to those factors which the chief judge points oat were absolutely necessary when the legislature met only in the odd-numbered years and there was a general spring election, I am moved to say that I am sure the Joint Interim Committee, and consequently the whole legislature, was likewise aware of the situation. It was still the legislative judgment that the 10-day provision should be retained. It is that judgment for which I cannot substitute a judicial judgment.
I note with increasing concern that courts view the concept of “reasonableness” in this context as a subjective judicial judgment, rather than a legislative determination. I am unsympathetic to the view. We are, in form, a representative government of three co-equal and co-ordinate branches. The normal method of statutory enactment is by the legislative process. Initiatory action is a safety device as is the referendum. They reserve to the people the right of direct action over the head of an unresponsive legislature. But this caveat abides; unresponsiveness may not be judicially assumed. Rather the converse is to be assumed. The instant issue was the subject of both legislative action, and initiatory action within the space of two years. Can it be said the electorate has been deprived of either representative legislative action, or direct action on this question?
There is a strong presumption of constitutionality of a legislative enactment. See Doyle v. Election Commission of City of Detroit (1933), 261 Mich 546. It is not the function of courts on review to look with critical eye for every suggestion of unconstitutionality. Rather it is their function to resolve each doubt in favor of constitutionality. I entertain no suggestion of unconstitutionality in the instant case, but if I did I would resolve it contrary to the result *754reached by my colleagues. An oligarchy of the judiciary is no less constitutionally repugnant than a legislative oligarchy.
We are cited in support of plaintiff’s petition, principally, Hamilton v. Secretary of State (1923), 221 Mich 541, appearing again at (1924) 227 Mich 111, and Yenter v. Baker (1952), 126 Colo 232 (248 P2d 311). The first citation is totally inapposite for it deals with the question of numerical sufficiency of signatures, an issue not involved here. The second Hamilton case with two Justices signing a “dissent” and a third concurring in that result, and two Justices writing a “majority” view and three Justices concurring in that result, if law at all, is inapplicable here. The case dealt with a constitutional provision (amendments of 1913 and 1941 to the 1908 Constitution) that prescribed the minutiae of the initiatory process. The case as earlier noted did not deal with a “summons [of] legislative aid”. There is sound basis to conclude that the very unwieldiness of trying to particularize in a constitution a procedural method of initiatory peition was what led the people through the constitutional convention to omit particulars and mandate legislative implementation.
Yenter, supra, is even less in point. In that case the legislature clearly impinged upon the constitution by enlarging upon a constitutionally-fixed filing time.
The greatest mischief that could possibly arise in this case is that this once-rejected initiatory legislation will miss being placed on the ballot again this fall (1970). It is however clearly eligible for representation at the general election in 1972.
If this indeed be a mischief, it were well to recall the sage observation of the late Mr. Justice Frank*755furter that there is not a judicial remedy for every michief in a democracy.
Plaintiffs presumptively knew the law when they began their signature drive; namely, that a statute valid on its face required filing with the Secretary of State ten days before the present legislative session began. That they chose to wait until mid-June of an election year to offer the petitions and thus miss one general election does not move me to hold the statute unconstitutional.
Mandamus should not issue.