Court Opinion

ID: 9606746
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:52:13.457638+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:32.068431
License: Public Domain

Flowers, Justice,

dissenting:

The people can be trusted to make, they have the right to make and they cannot constitutionally be re*529strained from making the choice as to their public officials. A majority of this Court today takes away the ballot of thousands of West Virginians. In so doing it has violated the Constitution of the United States, evaded its responsibility to interpret our own State Constitution, created new rules of procedure to arrive at a conclusion and played carelessly with official legislative documents.
For these reasons, which I will more fully detail below, I must exercise the prerogative preserved to one not in accord with the majority of the Court and respectfully dissent from its holding.
I
Federal Constitutional Violation
It has long been settled that State constitutional provisions must fall to the extent that they are in conflict with rights guaranteed under the Federal Constitution. Carrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. 89 (1965); Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 584 (1964); Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
A federal constitutional challenge has been made of the West Virginia Governors Succession Amendment and it has not been met. The challenge is dual. First, the respondent who was the incumbent at the passage of the amendment has individual rights which are protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. Secondly, qualified voters who, but for the restriction against his candidacy, would vote for the incumbent are denied both First Amendment guarantees of freedom of association and expression as well as Fourteenth Amendment rights to cast their votes effectively.
The second consideration leads me to the conclusion that a prohibition against any incumbent succeeding himself of necessity disenfranchises many of the majority who elected him and thus impermissibly restricts voter choice in an election where the incumbent is *530barred as a candidate. This position renders moot the other matters at issue in the proceeding and renders unnecessary a detailed discussion of the individual rights of the respondent Governor.
My position in this regard is compelled by the rationale of a unanimous Supreme Court in Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. 134 (1972). It was foreshadowed by the decision in Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23 (1968), and has been confirmed and specifically held to be applicable in a similar factual situation by the First Circuit Court of Appeals, in the 1973 case of Mancuso v. Taft, 476 F.2d 187 (1st Cir. 1973).
The majority opinion has correctly recognized the contention “that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution ... prohibits restrictions upon eligibility ... that tend to deny any group of citizens the effective exercise of their franchise.” But they fail to effectively answer it. The majority acknowledges the impermissibility of purposefully “limiting the franchise of any substantial group of citizens,” places the prospective voters for or against this incumbent in a class of those “incidentally” limited for a “valid public purpose,” distinguishes on a factual basis the Bullock,1 Dunn2 and Thompson3 cases without applying their rationale, then cites a Georgia Supreme Court case as authority for their position.
In a decision reached prior to the federal cases relied upon by the Respondent Moore, the Georgia Supreme Court held Georgia’s 1941 constitutional provision against incumbent succession safe from attack by Governor Lester Maddox who was elected in 1966. The decision was based on a strong “State’s Rights” stand on *531qualifications for office and a rejection of the personal constitutional rights of Maddox under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. While it is believed that the respondent here could far more successfully pursue his own constitutionally guaranteed rights than did Governor Maddox due to respondent’s incumbency when the amendment was passed and due to the development of federal case law since 1970, it is not necessary that this contention be developed here.
Finally the majority invokes a “balancing test” which concludes that “competitive ... elections” must prevail against “incidental disenfranchisement” of voters, a concept the source of which has not been made known.
While the factual basis for the recent federal cases is distinguishable from the instant case, the feature common to them all is a restriction of the right to vote. In Williams, the restriction of voting was effected by denying political parties access to the ballot, analogous to the instant case. In Bullock, the restriction was by denying candidate access to the ballot, identical to our case. In Mancuso, a 1973 decision to which the majority gives no attention and which closely parallels the case now before us, the Federal Circuit Court reviewed the recent decisions and found that a city charter which denied a city employee the right to be a candidate for the state assembly, impermissibly “regulates the citizen’s right to vote.”
The precusor of protection against indirect voter disenfranchisement was Williams where federal constitutional review was extended to the right to candidacy by guaranteeing a place on Ohio’s ballots to two additional political parties.
“... Although Williams was a right to candidacy case, the root of the dilemma was in the right to vote. The Court stated they were protecting the right of individuals to associate for the advancement of political beliefs, and the right of qualified voters, regardless of their political persuasion, to cast their votes effectively. Both *532these rights rank among our most precious freedoms.”4
In elaborating upon the fundamental freedom of franchise, the Court stated:
“... Similarly we have said with reference to the right to vote: ‘No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined.’
“... So also, the right to vote is heavily burdened if that vote may be cast only for one of two parties at a time when other parties are clamoring for a place on the ballot .. .”5
The “clamoring” parties in Williams which were guaranteed a place on Ohio’s ballot by Federal Court order were the Ohio American Independent Party which was too late in securing signatures of more than 15% of the voters of the State and the Socialist Labor Party which had only 108 members.
Four years later in Bullock, the Court unanimously and decisively struck down a candidate fee system, saying “... [T]he Texas system creates barriers to candidate access to the primary ballot, thereby tending to limit the field of candidates from which voters might choose ... .”6
“... In approaching candidate restrictions, it is essential to examine in a realistic light the extent and nature of their impact on voters .. ,”7
*533.. However, the rights of voters and the rights of candidates do not lend themselves to neat separation; laws that affect candidates always have at least some theoretical, correlative effect on voters ...
“Because the Texas filing-fee scheme has a real and appreciable impact on the exercise of the franchise, ... we conclude, ... that the laws must be ‘closely scrutinized’ and found reasonably necessary to the accomplishment of legitimate state objectives in order to pass constitutional muster.”8 (emphasis added)
The Court held that the State failed to justify the filing fee system and found that it “results in a denial of equal protection of the laws.” The constitutional offense was traced to “... excluding some candidates otherwise qualified and denying an undetermined number of voters the opportunity to vote for candidates of their choice. These salient features of the Texas system are critical to our determination of constitutional invalidity.”9
In a compelling and persuasive review of these cases, the First Circuit Court of Appeals in 1973 found a city charter provision which barred candidacy to any employee of the city was violative of the equal protection clause. Mancuso v. Taft, supra.
The circuit court identified the right to candidacy as “both a protected First Amendment right and a fundamental interest,”10 touching upon two fundamental freedoms — freedom of individual expression and freedom of association.
*534The court reasoned:
“In evaluating candidacy restrictions there are two interlocking interests, both fundamental, that must be considered. We naturally consider the rights asserted by the plaintiff in claiming the opportunity to become a candidate for public office. But whenever a state or city regulates the right to become a candidate for public office, it also regulates the citizen’s right to vote; the person or persons whose candidacy is affected may be the voters’ choice for public official ... ,”11
Upon this basis, therefore, the court found that “any legislative classification that significantly burdens that interest [the right to run for office] must be subjected to strict equal protection review.”12
The majority not only fails to respond at all to Man-cuso, the most recent and most direct case in point on the issue, but indicates that no “compelling state interest” need be shown to thus disenfranchise voters. It would commit itself to a less stringent test of whether the State candidate restriction has a “rational basis” which it characterizes as “incidental limitations on the franchise attendant upon the accomplishment of a valid public purpose.” Without citation of authority the majority declares that the West Virginia restriction passes their test.
The Williams and Dunn decisions as well as Mancuso’s clear interpretation of these and other Supreme Court decisions provide the basis upon which this Court and other courts must apply the more rigid test of “compelling state interest” when considering the constitutionality of candidacy restrictions which disenfranchise a substantial number of voters. 17 Wayne L. Rev. 1543 (1971).
*535As Justice Douglas noted in his concurring opinion in Williams v. Rhodes, supra, the “State has precious little leeway in making it difficult or impossible for citizens to vote for whomsoever they please.” No compelling state interest to support the restriction has been demonstrated by the relator and the reasons asserted by the majority in support of the less stringent rationale basis test are the paranoic remnants of the by-gone era (1879) which they cite for support.13
Notwithstanding a choice as to what test the State must meet if it hopes in any wise to restrict voting rights, no State interest whatsoever has been validly shown here for the West Virginia restriction. The legislation which ordinarily is the source of a recitation of purpose is absolutely silent on the matter.14 We have neither document nor reference given us to define the State purpose being served. The majority bravely volunteers some thoughts in this regard but they supply neither a rational nor compelling reason for the restriction. If this interest is so compelling, why haven’t we seen it applied to judges and legislators? The people have not been so inclined. On each occasion when they have been given the opportunity, they have lifted the bar on succession as high as the politicians would let them. They were given no choice as to unlimited succession for their governors or sheriffs but voted the most liberal choice offered them in successive instances.
The majority attempts to bolster its position by numbers, reciting that “over twenty” state constitutions impose restrictions upon gubernatorial succession, and by philosophical diversion, denoting the historic basis of the restriction of succession. If numbers counted, the Court in Brown v. Board of Education, supra, would have had our children still going to racially segregated schools. If the philosophic discourse of the majority has a basis in historic annals, it is certainly not relied upon in Maddox *536v. Fortson, 226 Ga. 71, 172 S.E.2d 595, cert. denied, 397 U.S. 149 (1970).
The majority makes reference to the Twenty-Second Amendment of the Federal Constitution in support of its position. The presidential limitation amendment is like Senatorial representation. The United States Senate does not have to follow the “one man, one vote” rule. The West Virginia State Senate does. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that result, the same as it here protects and shelters from State infringement the respective voting rights of our citizens.
The majority contends that limiting gubernatorial succession serves a “rational public policy” and enhances “the over all health of the body politic.” Their long discourse cites Maddox v. Fortson, supra, to support this supposition. The cited case contains absolutely no such language and expresses no such theory.
Finally, the majority dismisses all constitutional offense in the anti-succession feature of the West Virginia Amendment by announcing “a balancing test” which it contends furthers, rather than frustrates, the policy of the Fourteenth Amendment. This “... balancing test ... weighs the enlargement of the franchise by guaranteeing competitive primary and general elections against the incidental disenfranchisement of those favorably disposed to one individual, ...” We are invited to “See” Williams and the Wayne Law Review for this proposition. I find nothing in either source that even remotely suggests such a rule.
Such a rule is neither logical nor otherwise defensible. Competition is not promoted at elections by disqualifying candidates and voters. Even if we could be assured that healthy competition would result from the calculated exclusion of voters or candidates, the means of achieving that competition are abhorrent. Elections are not spectator sports held for the amusement of onlookers and the exercise of politicians, some of whom are periodically banned to keep the competition keen and *537“the show” interesting. Elections are for the benefit of the voters whose rights cannot be dismissed as “incidental” nor “balanced” out of primacy. In the words of Justice Black, “... the men who drafted our Bill of Rights did all of the ‘balancing’ that was to be done in this field.”15
The effect of the majority’s decision is, therefore, to deny unconstitutionally the voters the First Amendment right to associate for the advancement of political beliefs and unwarrantedly to abridge their corresponding right to freedom of individual expression. Correla-tively it infringes upon the First Amendment rights of the respondent Governor by validating and enforcing a prohibition which precludes his right of association by his candidacy with his party and his supporters, irrespective of their political affiliations.
II
Interpretation of the West Virginia Constitutional Amendment
The majority opinion today has erased every reasonable opportunity to construe this amendment in favor of the right of the people to exercise freedom of choice in their selection of the Republican candidate for the office of Governor. They make it impossible for the amendment to be reconciled with any theory of validity under Section I of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The majority has treated long-established rules of constitutional construction as being inconsistent with and antagonistic to the intention of the electorate. They gratuitously engrafted an intention of the electorate with reference to the incumbent which cannot be found anyplace in the record before us.
*538The majority does not tell us the source which enables them to divine the intention which they attribute both to the legislative drafters of the Governors Succession Amendment and to the electorate which approved it.
The majority arrogates unto itself a prescience which becomes all the more mystifying when it is realized that, under their interpretation, the people of West Virginia are credited with a desire and intention to disenfranchise themselves when elsewhere, under the most recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court, the thrust has been to expand rather than restrict the right of franchise.
The majority has elected to ignore or refused to apply all rules of constitutional construction favorable to enfranchisement. They acknowledge that every question with reference to eligibility must be resolved most strongly in favor of eligibility; and then, they refuse so to resolve it. They acknowledge that a retrospective application of a constitutional provision is not favored; and then they proceed to declare in favor of retrospective application to disenfranchise a portion of the electorate. They ignore the rule of construction that one should not be denied the right to be a candidate unless his ineligibility is expressly declared. Possibly the majority is troubled by their failure to find language expressly declaring ineligibility. They declare the will of the people, under questionable circumstances, but refuse to permit the people an opportunity to say what they meant.
Thus, every reasonable avenue of conformity with the doctrine of expanding franchise under the United States Constitution has been closed by the majority to the people of West Virginia in the upcoming and in succeeding elections.
Of six cases that have been found throughout all the nation and in all its recorded legal history, five of them in various ways have concluded that the incumbent could run again notwithstanding what appeared to be constitutional or statutory obstacles against it. Only the *539Lester Maddox case which did not stretch legal credulity has previously concluded otherwise.
Ill
The Scope of Mandamus
The Court takes this occasion to once again broaden the scope of the remedy of mandamus. While I can become reconciled to the virtual death of quo warranto as a means of testing entitlement to office, we have gone beyond our legitimate authority in two respects.
We have ordered a public officer to show cause why he should not perform an act prior to the earliest date which by the statute he can legally perform it. We thus consciously and directly suspend the statute. This Court has no such power without concluding the Act to be unconstitutional.
Secondly, we ordered a respondent to show cause why he should not perform a duty he did not have. In so doing we corrupted a process to the point where lawyers may be excused for wondering whether W. Va. Code, 53-1-5, as amended, still requires a showing of a clear and nondiscretionary legal duty on the part of an officer. My only response is “I hope so,” but if you come forth advancing the “glory of the Anglo-American common law” relied upon by the majority, your noncompliance with the rules may be overlooked.
I am grateful for the candor of the majority in acknowledging that they created a “special rule.” I likewise share their desire that the eligibility of candidates be determined so that a void or voidable election will not result. But there were no exigencies in this case which justified the premature and misdirected “show cause” orders.
IV

Legislative Irregularity

Finally, I agree with the majority that the Governors Succession Amendment was properly adopted by the *540voters of this State, but I am not certain by what means the majority concluded they could ignore the wording in the official Journal of the House of Delegates. The journal is the official record of each house of the Legislature. We should have some rule to guide us when we set out to determine whether the wording of resolution or the journal is to prevail.
The issue presented here is predicated upon a variance in language between the resolution passed in the House and the language of the resolution passed in the Senate. The Governor contends that the engrossed resolution passed in the House contained the word “eligible” as indicated in the Official Journal of the House of Delegates. That resolution was communicated to the Senate and passed, but the word “ineligible” appeared in the Senate-approved version of the House resolution. The Governor contends that because of the failure of the House to adopt the Senate “amendment” to its resolution, the resolution framing the Governors Succession Amendment was not constitutionally adopted and consequently improperly submitted to the voters for ratification.
The sole question here is the weight to be accorded to the journal entry. The law of this State accords a presumptive validity to the printed acts of the Legislature. The strongest presumption, however, is in favor of a bill that has been duly enrolled and bears evidence of the action of the Legislature and Executive branches by virtue of their signatures. Charleston National Bank v. Fox, 119 W. Va. 438, 194 S.E. 4 (1937).
Where there is a variance between a printed act and the enrolled bill, the enrolled bill controls. Charleston National Bank v. Fox, supra. In either case the presumptions accruing in favor of these forms of enactment may be overcome by clear and convincing proof. State ex rel. Heck’s Discount Centers, Inc. v. Winters, 147 W. Va. 861, 132 S.E.2d 374 (1963); State v. Heston, 137 W. Va. 375, 71 S.E.2d 481 (1952); Charleston National Bank v. Fox, supra.
*541No conflict between the printed acts and the enrolled bill is here alleged. The only ambiguity appearing is between the printed acts and the engrossed resolution as printed in the House Journal. The entry in the journal is the extrinsic evidence in this case and may be properly considered under the Fox rule. It is insufficient, however, to constitute “clear and convincing” proof when weighed in light of the form of the resolution appearing in the Senate Journal, in the Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1970, and in the form ratified by the voters of this State in the 1970 General Election. Particularly because there was no discrepancy when the question was put to the voters, and since this was a constitutional amendment needing ratification of the citizens and not a bill which needed only the signature of the Governor to become law, I am persuaded that the variance in the Journal of the House of Delegates, occurring at a preliminary and not a final stage of adoption, did not invalidate an otherwise proper adoption.

Conclusion

This Court cannot select a Governor for our State. The only clear authority to bar one from this office rests with the people of West Virginia. We have today taken their charters, the State and Federal Constitutions, their grant of power to us and used these charters to disenfranchise many of our citizens. We have exercised the authority of this Court without employing reason. We have used our power without recognizing the source of that power. We have said to many who would go to the polls to vote for the incumbent Governor, “Make another choice.” We had no just reason to so limit them. We have told them to exclude from their consideration the one candidate among all sixteen about whom they know the most.
We do not enhance the image of justice by our conclusion today. We would do better to demonstrate that this State’s highest Court yields to the source of its power, the people, every reasonable exercise of their rights. *542They can be trusted to ably exercise those rights but should they, through the “inertia” which the majority fears, fail to ably act, the choice has rested where it must in a democratic society, with the people. The forum of an election was available, it was convenient to use it, it represented the ultimate temporal legal authority to decide the matter. The majority could not restrain its overwhelming desire to act instead.
Justice Wilson authorizes me to say that he joins in my dissent to the holding in this case and to the opinions expressed in points I and II above.

 Bullock v. Carter, supra.

 Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330 (1972).

 Thompson v. Mellon, 107 Cal. Rptr. 20, 507 P.2d 628 (1973).

 17 Wayne L. Rev. 1543, 1552 (1971).

 Williams v. Rhodes, supra at 31.

 Bullock v. Carter, supra at 143.

 Ibid.

 Id,. at 143-44.

 Id. at 149.

 Mancuso v. Taft, supra at 196.

 Id. at 193.

 Id. at 196.

 Gorrell v. Bier, 15 W. Va. 311 (1879).

 17 Wayne L. Rev. 1543, 1549 (1971).

 Konigsberg v. State Bar, 366 U.S. 36, 61 (Black, J., dissenting, 1961).