Court Opinion

ID: 9561274
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:06:10.921678+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:42.417056
License: Public Domain

LINDE, J.,
concurring.
A proposed initiative must “embrace one subject only and matters properly connected therewith.” Or Const, Art IV, § 1(2) (d). I agree that the proposal before us passes that test. I write separately to draw attention to some questions about the usefulness of the test.
The quoted clause employs two distinct terms: “subject” and connected “matters.” The text implies that connected “matters” are something less than a “subject.” It does not say “one subject only and other subjects properly connected therewith.” The connected “matters” cannot be separate “subjects,” because then the proposal would have two subjects. From this one might infer that, whenever “matters” included in a proposal could intelligibly be enacted on their own, without another “subject” to which they are connected, these matters themselves are a separate subject and must be initiated as such. “Matters” means provisions ancillary to accomplishing the one substantive policy that is the “subject” of the measure.
*104Under this reading of the constitution, it is doubtful that the proposal before us qualifies to be put on the ballot, because the proposed limitation on increased assessments, the ceiling on tax rates, and the shift from a dollar-based limitation to a rate-based limitation of property taxes could each be a subject of an independent proposal rather than only a “matter properly connected” with a subject. It would make as much sense to describe the subject of this measure as a shift from an expenditure-based to an assessment-based limitation on property taxes, and the specified percentages as a “matter properly connected” with such a shift, as the reverse.
It therefore would focus on the wrong question, as the court’s opinion notes, to examine only whether the percentage rate limitations and the limitation on assessed values are “properly connected.” To repeat, the constitution does not allow combining two or more subjects in one measure if the subjects are “properly connected”; the constitution allows only one subject and ancillary “matters.” But characterizing as a separate “subject” any provision that could be enacted by itself rather than only as an ancillary “matter” would make the “one subject” rule too restrictive, far more restrictive than the experienced political leaders who put the rule into state constitutions throughout the country could possibly have intended by the phrase, because it would make impractical demands on most ordinary legislation. Although ability to stand alone is not the proper test, sponsors of initiative measures, the Secretary of State, and this court cannot escape the problem of identifying the “subject” of a measure by focusing on how well its separate parts are “connected.”1 But I question whether characterizing the “one subject” of a measure is a usable legal test for its constitutionality, or whether it simply compels endless conceptual manipulation, controversy, and litigation unless it is refined.
The Linnean system of classifying plants and animals offers a familiar illustration. A measure to control the anopheles mosquito deals with a particular genus. Try to control gypsy moths as well as mosquitos, and your “subject” skips past families and orders to the class of insects. Add *105rattlesnakes and ragwort, and the measure simply vaults past the separate plant and animal kingdoms to the “subject” of controlling “dangerous organisms,” or perhaps “pests.” Measures to preserve “endangered species,” “the environment,” or “public health,” or to prevent “pollution” are similar examples. “Regulation of insurance,” as in Lovejoy v. Portland, 95 Or 459, 188 P 207 (1920), is another.
The indeterminacy of the term “subject,” one of the most abstract words in the language, cannot be overcome by synonyms, paraphrases, and tautological formulas. It can either be replaced or supplemented by a formula that sets out some concrete goals or operational directives, or measures will be left to continual case-by-case decisions under standards so meaningless that it is difficult to avoid ad hoc administrative or judicial reactions to the merits of individual measures.
In fact, it is difficult to find proposals that could not be verbally brought under one “subject,” though common sense rebels. The majority opinion says, quite plausibly, that the subject of this measure is “ad valorem tax limitation.” Counsel at the oral argument, reaching for an outrageous example, suggested that the initiative to decriminalize marijuana offenses, also on the November ballot, could not have been combined with the tax limitation measure in one “subject.” But what if a proposed tax limitation measure provided that the lost revenue would be made up by another tax, say a tax on an activity now illegal, such as gambling or the cultivation and sale of marijuana, and in a “connected” step the measure repealed the existing prohibition of the activity? Would that really be so different from the combination sales tax, property tax and school finance measure referred to the voters in 1985?
The constitutional words being too abstract, courts rightly have sought their meaning in what the limitation to one subject was intended to accomplish or to prevent. See 1A Sutherland Statutory Construction 7-20, §§ 17.02-.04 (4th ed 1985). The majority quotes from Lovejoy v. Portland. There, the court examined the requirement of Article IV, section 20, that acts of the legislature have a single subject “which subject shall be expressed in the title.” The court identified two distinct purposes: one to curb what it called “log-rolling,” the other to avoid misunderstanding and concealment of the *106contents of an act if it dealt with two or more subjects. But the judicial task under a “one subject” formula is hardly eased by a test that calls on judges to discern whether a measure confused legislators who voted for it or whether a measure gained passage only by combining supporters of several provisions that could not muster majorities on their own. When long after a measure is enacted such an attack is leveled by a party more concerned with escaping the effect of the law than with the political process as such, it is not surprising that this court in 127 years has never invalidated a law under the “one subject” rule of Article IV, section 20.
Rules governing the germaneness of provisions combined in a single bill are appropriate constraints within the legislative process. They are likely to be routinely respected in daily practice, and objections can be and often are raised by points of order in the legislative body. When a majority overrides the objection, at least it acts with notice of the contents of the bill and upon majority support for combining its several parts. It is doubtful whether a court later should invalidate such an institutional decision of the legislature, and Oregon courts in fact have not done so.2
The initiative process, however, is quite different from that in the Legislative Assembly, and it poses greater institutional risks both for the internal rationality of measures and for the comprehension of the citizens who must vote on them. First, once the sponsors have drafted and submitted the text of a measure, there is no further opportunity to correct, refine, or clarify that text, even to fit it into existing *107statutes, no matter what obscurity, errors, or unintended implications the sponsors themselves or anyone else may discover in it.3 Second, there is nothing comparable to the hearings of legislative committees to raise questions and allow the presentation of different viewpoints in order to eliminate unacceptable aspects of a proposal and to produce an improved or at least defensible compromise with the help of staff members and other knowledgeable persons.4 Third, efforts to secure or to defeat passage of an initiative measure by the voters are bound to rely on slogans and oversimplified appeals that can be broadcast to the public at large by advertising techniques rather than on the give and take of debate among legislators chosen to represent, and sensitive to, constituents with divergent interests.
These differences are so substantial that they raised doubt whether under some circumstances replacement of the legislative process by the initiative would be inconsistent with the “Republican Form of Government” required for every state by Article IV, section 4, of the United States Constitution. See Kiernan v. Portland, 57 Or 454, 111 P 379, 112 P 402 (1910), Kadderly v. Portland, 44 Or 118, 74 P 710, 75 P 222 (1903).5 It is these differences, also, that recently led the Florida Supreme Court to hold an initiative proposal to a tighter “one subject” standard than a proposal that has gone through a normal deliberative process. Fine v. Firestone, 448 So2d 984 (1984).6 Although Oregon takes pains to provide *108carefully written explanatory ballot titles and to include both explanatory and argumentative statements about each measure in the official Voters Pamphlet sent to registered voters, the risks of mistake, confusion, and emotional responses to a single, yes-or-no choice divorced from the context of other laws or alternative measures cannot wholly be avoided.
I doubt that, if these risks are to be avoided, the “one subject” formula of Article IV, section l(2)(d), standing alone, can accomplish it. Nevertheless, we cannot relieve the Secretary of State, or whoever may be given this responsibility by the election laws, from deciding whether a proposed measure contains provisions aiming at such disparate substantive objectives that to bring them within one abstract “subject” subordinates political reality to a verbal fiction. I have no serious disagreement with the majority’s conclusion that the formulas stated in Article IV, section l(2)(d) and section 20, are so similar that the difference is not worth pursuing in this case, though perhaps their different functions could be fleshed out by legislation. The question for others than this court to consider is whether the objectives sought by the present “one subject” formulas are sufficiently clear to be more precisely stated in terms that sponsors of initiatives, the Secretary of State and, if this is deemed necessary, courts can apply.
Gillette, J., joins in this concurring opinion.

 In the spiritual drawn from Ezekiel 37:1-15, whether the thigh bone is connected to the backbone and it to the neck bone or vice versa, I suppose the narrowest definition of the song’s “subject” is the skeleton. Its intended subject is rather loftier.

 The Commission on Constitutional Revision in 1962 proposed substituting “bill” for “act” in the “one subject” requirement of Article IV, section 20. See State ex rel Fidanque v. Paulus, 297 Or 711, 720, 688 P2d 1303 (1984)(Linde, J., dissenting). As I there wrote:
“The rule limiting proposed laws to one subject is not concerned with constitutional limitations on the substance of public policies, such as tax limitations or the guarantees of individual rights. It is concerned with the lawmaking process itself. It aims to enhance the likelihood that distinct policies will be judged rationally on their individual merits rather than being packaged to attract support from legislators or constituencies with special interest in one provision and no worse than indifference toward other unrelated ones.
“Once the legislative process is completed, however, it is at least debatable whether an otherwise valid provision of law should be vulnerable to challenge years after enactment, by someone whose personal interest is not in the political process but in escaping the effect of the law. * * *”
State ex rel Fidanque v. Paulus, supra, 297 Or at 721.

 See, e.g., Rogers v. Roberts, 300 Or 687, 717 P2d 620 (1986)(Lent, J., concurring) (sponsors’ stated purpose cannot override what their chosen language would accomplish); State v. Quinn, 290 Or 383, 623 P2d 630 (1981)(declaring Oregon’s 1978 death penalty statute unconstitutional due, in part, to its failure to harmonize with the then existing criminal statutory scheme).

 Several states provide that before an initiative proposal is put on the ballot, the legislature has an opportunity to consider and enact a legislative version of the proposed measure, or to put its version on the ballot along with the version proposed by the initiative. See, e.g., Me Const, Art IV, Pt 3, § 18; Mass Const, Art XLVIII, Pts II, III, IV.

 Judicial examination of this issue has been rare since the United States Supreme Court held that federal enforcement of the requirement was lodged in Congress rather than in the federal courts. Pacific States Teleph & Teleg Co. v. Oregon, 223 US 118, 32 S Ct 224, 56 L Ed 377 (1912). But see VanSickle v. Shanahan, 212 Kan 426, 511 P2d 223 (1973) (reviewing Kansas constitutional amendment under US Const, Art IV, § 4.)

“It is apparent that the authors of article XI realized that the initiative method did not provide a filtering legislative process for the drafting of any *108specific proposed constitutional amendment or revision. The legislative, revision commission, and constitutional convention processes of sections 1, 2 and 4 all afford an opportunity for public hearing and debate not only on the proposal itself but also in the drafting of any constitutional proposal. That opportunity for input in the drafting of a proposal is not present under the initiative process and this is one of the reasons the initiative process is restricted to single-subject changes in the state constitution. The single-subject requirement in article XI, section 3, mandates that the electorate’s attention be directed to a change regarding one specific subject of government to protect against multiple precipitous changes in our state constitution. This requirement avoids voters having to accept part of an initiative proposal which they oppose in order to obtain a change in the constitution which they support. An initiative proposal with multiple subjects, in which the public has had no representative interest in drafting, places voters with different views on the subjects contained in the proposal in the position of having to choose which subject they feel most strongly about.”
Fine v. Firestone, 448 So2d 984 (1984).