Court Opinion

ID: 9576390
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:23:57.038758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:06:48.849770
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice MULLARKEY,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. In my opinion, the provisions of Commerce City’s charter providing for binding interest arbitration in collective bargaining agreement negotiations between the City and its police officers violate article XXI, section 4 of the Colorado Constitution. The majority’s conclusion that the binding interest arbitration provision is constitutional is contrary to both the text of article XXI, section 4 and our precedent.
I.
The facts underlying this dispute are set forth in the majority’s opinion. I recount only those most relevant to my analysis.
A recent amendment to Commerce City’s charter requires the City to engage in collective bargaining with its police officers. In the event negotiations between the City and the police officers fail, the charter requires that the parties submit to binding interest arbitration.
To facilitate arbitration, the City Council must create a permanent panel of three or more qualified arbitrators. This panel represents the pool from which the parties select a single arbitrator to hear a particular dispute. Detailed qualifications are specified in the charter amendment. For example, a candidate for the permanent panel must have served as a neutral hearing officer or arbitrator in disputes between labor and management for at least three years and have conducted at least five hearings per year in two of the three years preceding his or her selection for the permanent panel. The City Council may add or remove arbitrators to the permanent panel by vote, provided it always *140retains at least three arbitrators on the panel.
In the event the parties must submit to binding interest arbitration, the charter provides a process for selecting the single arbitrator from the permanent panel who will preside over the arbitration hearing. Both the City and the police officers are presented with a list of the names of the arbitrators on the permanent panel. Both parties then take turns striking names from the list until they have taken an equal number of turns and only one or two names remain. If one name remains, that arbitrator is selected to hear the dispute. If two names remain, the City’s mayor selects one of the two arbitrators to hear the dispute.
The arbitrator selected to hear the dispute is authorized to bind Commerce City to the police officers’ final offers on disputed issues of negotiation. The arbitrator’s decisions are subject only to limited judicial review.
II.
The issue in this case is whether this decision-making process comports with article XXI, section 4 of the Colorado Constitution. Article XXI, section 4 provides in relevant part:
Every person having authority to exercise or exercising any public or governmental duty, power or function, shall be an elective officer, or one appointed, drawn, or designated in accordance with law by an elective officer or officers, or by some board, commission, person or persons legally appointed by an elective officer or officers, each of which said elective officers shall be subject to the recall provisions of this constitution....
Colo. Const, art. XXI, § 4. This provision was added to the Colorado Constitution in 1912 and was part of the comprehensive reform effort that added the initiative, referendum, and recall provisions to our constitution. See Art. XXI, §§ 1-4, 1913 Colo. Sess. Laws 672, 672-77.
As the majority notes, we previously have addressed the applicability of article XXI, section 4 to binding interest arbitration between a government entity and its employees. The majority observes that, in our most recent decision on this issue, Regional Transportation District v. Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, 830 P.2d 942 (Colo.1992) (RTD), we permitted delegation of governmental power to an arbitrator where “the ‘selection of the arbitrator [was] by a politically accountable government official.’” Maj. op. at 137 (quoting RTD, 830 P.2d at 948). The majority distinguishes our decision in RTD from our earlier decisions in Greeley Police Union v. City Council of Greeley, 191 Colo. 419, 553 P.2d 790 (1976), and City of Aurora v. Aurora Firefighters’ Protective Ass’n, 193 Colo. 437, 566 P.2d 1356 (1977), holding that delegations of power to arbitrators in binding interest arbitration violated article XXI, section 4. “In both of those cases, the original list of potential arbitrators was submitted by the [American Arbitration Association (AAA)] and the final selection of the arbitrator(s) was made by the AAA after a striking process.” Maj. op. at 137.
I generally agree with the majority’s statement of our precedent construing article XXI, section 4. I disagree, however, with the majority’s application of the law to the facts of this case and with the standard it establishes for analysis of delegations of governmental power under article XXI, section 4.
III.
I interpret article XXI, section 4 to require that the entire process of appointing a person authorized to exercise a governmental power be performed exclusively by politically accountable officials so that those officials can be held accountable through the recall process. As I will explain below, this ensures that any exercise of governmental power is performed on behalf of and in the interests of the people.
Thus, I conclude that the people directly or through their elected officials and the appointees of such officials must establish the legal authority and any qualifications for a position whose occupant will exercise governmental power. Elected officials or their appointees then must have exclusive responsibility for *141screening applicants for that position. Final selection of the person who will have authority to exercise governmental power also must be performed solely by elected officials and their appointees.
A.
I note first that article XXI, section 4 directs its attention to persons actually authorized to exercise a governmental power. Thus, I find that the City Council’s naming of individuals to the pool of potential arbitrators is not the constitutionally relevant appointment under article XXI, section 4. Rather, the relevant appointment is the selection of the actual arbitrator who will preside over binding interest arbitration between the City and the police officers.
1.
On its face, the relevant provision of article XXI, section 4 applies to “[e]very person having authority to exercise or exercising any public or governmental duty, power, or function.” Colo. Const, art. XXI, § 4. Persons not authorized to exercise a public or governmental duty, power, or function are not within the terms of the provision.
Article XXI, section 4 further provides that persons authorized to exercise a governmental power, if not themselves elected officials, “shall be ... appointed, drawn, or designated in accordance with law.” Id. I interpret this phrase to mean that a person authorized to exercise a governmental power must be appointed, drawn, or designated as a person authorized to exercise that power, not merely as a candidate who may obtain such authority should he or she receive further approval.
This interpretation of “appointment” is supported by our precedent. In Mesa County School District No. 51 v. Goletz, 821 P.2d 785, 787 (Colo.1991), we defined “appointment” as the “designation of a person, by the person or persons having authority therefor, to discharge the duty of some office or trust.” We recognized two components to an appointment. “First, the person making the designation must be vested with the authority to do so. Second, the appointment must be for the purpose of discharging the duty of some office or trust.” Goletz, 821 P.2d at 787 (emphasis added).
The arbitrator selected to preside over the binding interest arbitration between the City and the police officers has authority to exercise a governmental power, namely to bind the City to terms and conditions of employment between the City and the police officers. Furthermore, selection of a single person from the pool for the purpose of investing that person with the power to bind the City to terms of employment with the police officers constitutes an appointment for the purpose of discharging a particular office. Accordingly, article XXI, section 4 applies to an individual who is selected to be the arbitrator presiding over a particular dispute.
In contrast, an individual whom the City has named to the pool but not selected to preside over binding interest arbitration in a particular case has no authority to exercise a governmental power. Such an individual’s authority to exercise a governmental power is contingent on the City Council’s decision not to remove him or her from the pool and, should a dispute arise, on the decisions of the City Council and the police officers not to strike his or her name from the list of arbitrators. Moreover, the City Council’s selection of an individual for membership in the pool does not qualify as an appointment or designation under article XXI, section 4, because the purpose of that selection is not to vest that individual with authority to exercise a governmental power. Consequently, such an individual does not fall within the provisions of article XXI, section 4.
Accordingly, by its terms, article XXI, section 4 applies only to an individual actually appointed for the purpose of arbitrating a dispute and exercising the power to bind the City to terms of employment with the police officers. It does not apply to arbitrators merely appointed to the permanent panel.
2.
Our precedent supports my conclusion that the selection of the arbitrator authorized to exercise a governmental power, and not merely the creation of a pool of candidates *142who may be selected, is the relevant appointment for purposes of analysis under article XXI, section 4. In Greeley Police Union and Aurora Firefighters’, we held that delegations of governmental power to arbitrators violated article XXI, section 4 not only because a third party, the AAA, created the list of potential arbitrators that could be selected, but also because the AAA made the final selection of the arbitrators actually authorized to preside over the dispute. In both of these cases, we did not focus on the creation of the list of potential arbitrators who might be appointed to hear a case. Rather, we placed our concern where it reasonably belonged: with the actual selection of an arbitrator authorized to exercise a governmental power. See Greeley Police Union, 191 Colo, at 422, 553 P.2d at 792 (stating that ultimate decision-making authority must remain in the hands of persons who are accountable to the public). This principle is consistent with the purpose of the constitutional provision at issue here: to encourage elected officials and their appointees to exercise governmental power in the interests of the people who elected them, lest they be recalled from office.
Thus, unlike the majority, I find that the City Council’s exclusive control over the membership of the pool of potential arbitrators does not itself resolve whether the arbitration provisions of Commerce City’s charter are constitutional under article XXI, section 4. Rather, we must look to whether the actual selection of the single arbitrator authorized to bind the City to terms of employment between the City and the police officers satisfies constitutional requirements.
B.
1.
Article XXI, section 4 requires that a person authorized to exercise a governmental power be appointed, drawn, or designated “by an elective officer or officers, or by some board, commission, person or persons legally appointed by an elective officer or officers, each of which said elective officers shall be subject to the recall provisions of this constitution.” Colo. Const, art. XXI, § 4. We have interpreted this aspect of article XXI, section 4 to mean that only “politically accountable” officials may appoint persons authorized to exercise a governmental power. See RTD, 830 P.2d at 947-48.
The test for whether an officer is politically accountable is whether he or she is an elected official or can trace his or her appointment through a chain of legal appointments to an elected official. The test for whether an appointment is one by a politically accountable official is whether elected officials and their appointees bear the exclusive responsibility for deciding who is authorized to exercise governmental power. This means that the authorization of the exercise of governmental power, the specification of any qualifications on who may exercise that power, and the selection of which person will exercise that power all must be performed by elected officials and their appointees or by the electorate itself.
For example, in RTD we explained why an arbitrator’s appointment complied with the requirements of article XXI, section 4:
The arbitrator was appointed by the Director. The Director is appointed by the Executive Director of the Department of Labor, who is appointed by the Governor, with the consent of the senate, and serves at the pleasure of the Governor. The Governor holds an elective office and is subject to recall under the Colorado Constitution, article XXI, section 4. Both the General Assembly’s authorization of the Director to order arbitration, and the Director’s appointment of the arbitrator, comply with the requirements of article XXI, section 4.
See RTD, 830 P.2d at 947-48 (citations omitted). In stating that both the General Assembly’s authorization of the appointment and the appointment itself complied with article XXI, section 4, we indicated that all decisions regarding which person was authorized to exercise the governmental power were made by politically accountable officials. See id.
In contrast, we held that the procedures for selecting arbitrators in Greeley Police Union and Aurora Firefighters’ violated article XXI, section 4. In those cases, the authority and qualifications of the arbitrator’s *143position were promulgated by politically accountable officials. Yet the AAA, a private organization, was authorized to select the initial pool of candidates for the position and to make the final decision of which candidate would fill the position. See Aurora Firefighters’, 193 Colo. at 439-40, 566 P.2d at 1357; Greeley Police Union, 191 Colo. at 422, 553 P.2d at 791. Thus, the selection process was not performed exclusively by politically accountable officials.
2.
Our decisions requiring that persons authorized to exercise a governmental power be appointed by a politically accountable official do not address the question why article XXI, section 4 requires such political accountability. Only if we answer that question will we have a solid basis for analyzing the many fact patterns under which future eases will arise. As I suggested, the answer lies in the placement of this requirement in the recall article of the constitution. Because the recall procedure allows voters to remove elected officials from office during their tenures, it provides an ongoing assurance that elected officials and their appointees will exercise governmental power on behalf of and in the interests of the people.
Article XXI, section 4 states a principle that is not limited to the right of recall. A central tenet of representative democracy is that elected officials act on behalf of and are accountable to the people who elect them. See Protect Our Mountain Environment, Inc. v. District Court, 677 P.2d 1361, 1364 (Colo.1984); Greeley Police Union, 191 Colo. at 422, 553 P.2d at 791-92; Dearborn Fire Fighters Union v. City of Dearborn, 394 Mich. 229, 231 N.W.2d 226, 235 (1975); Salt Lake City v. International Ass’n of Firefighters, 563 P.2d 786, 790 (Utah 1977). The desire to hold office and to avoid recall motivates elected officials to act in the interests of the people and to appoint officials who will do the same. Thus, because the officials are politically accountable to the people, the people have a greater assurance that their government officials will exercise their authority in the interests of the people.
The Colorado Constitution explicitly requires that all persons exercising governmental power be appointed by politically accountable officials. By tying the exercise of governmental power to political accountability ánd the recall provision, article XXI, section 4 ensures that exercises of governmental power will be in the interests of the people.1
IV.
A.
The majority reasons that the City Council’s exclusive control over appointment to the permanent panel “provides the political accountability we require under article XXI, section 4 and distinguishes this arbitration system from the systems we struck down in Greeley Police Union and Aurora Firefighters’.” Maj. op. at 138. I disagree.
As I have noted above, the relevant appointment in this case is not the selection of the permanent panel but the selection of the arbitrator authorized to bind the City to employment terms between the City and the police officers. Thus, although I do not dispute that the City Council is solely accountable for the membership of the permanent panel, I find it necessary to examine whether it is politically accountable for the final selection of the arbitrator authorized to exercise governmental power.
Article XXI, section 4 requires that a politically accountable official appoint the arbitrator who will exercise the governmental power to bind the City to terms of employment with the police officers. This ensures that (1) the arbitrator who exercises governmental power will be the arbitrator that the voters, through their elected officials, have chosen as the person best suited to represent their interests; and (2) the voters, through the recall process, can hold elected officials responsible for the arbitrator’s decisions.
*144The striking process prescribed by Commerce City’s charter permits the police officers to exclude particular persons from presiding over a dispute when doing so is in their best interests, regardless of whether exclusion is in the interests of the people. The process removes governmental decisions “from the aegis of elected representatives, placing them in the hands of an outside person with no accountability to the public.” Greeley Police Union, 191 Colo. at 422, 553 P.2d at 791-92. Thus, by allowing the police officers to strike potential arbitrators from the list, the people are deprived of full control over the selection of the representative who will best represent them. Because the use of the arbitrator will arise only when the negotiations have come to an impasse, the police officers are in an adversarial position with respect to the elected officials and the people they represent. In other words, the interests of the police officers are directly adverse to the interests of the people at the point in time when the arbitrator is selected. The very purpose of the striking process from the police officers’ perspective is to eliminate those persons most likely to represent (i.e.favor) the interests of the people as opposed to the interests of the police officers.
The arbitration provisions of Commerce City’s charter are contrary to the principle of recall in a representative democracy and frustrate the central purpose of article XXI, section 4. Accordingly, I find that the arbitration provisions of Commerce City’s charter do not provide sufficient political accountability to ensure that the people may appoint the arbitrator of their choice to represent their interests and hold their elected officials accountable if that arbitrator is not appointed.
B.
The majority reasons that because the City Council has exclusive control over the membership of the permanent panel, it “has exclusive control over which arbitrators hear a case.” Maj. op. at 138. As such, the majority circumvents the requirement that the relevant appointment — the one that invests the arbitrator with authority to exercise a governmental function — be performed entirely by politically accountable officials.
I disagree with the majority’s reasoning. Although the City Council does have exclusive control over which arbitrators it appoints to the permanent panel, it does not have “exclusive control over which arbitrators hear a case.” Id. Rather, the striking process prescribed by Commerce City’s charter injects the police officers, a private party, into the process of selecting the arbitrator who is authorized to exercise governmental power to determine the terms of the police officers’ employment with the City.
The majority does not explicitly state its reason for concluding that the City Council’s exclusive control over the composition of the panel is the same as exclusive control over the arbitrator who hears a particular case. Nevertheless, I infer that this conclusion must rely on one of two assumptions: (1) that among individuals appointed to the permanent panel, the City Council has no preference for a particular arbitrator to preside over a specific dispute; or (2) that all persons appointed to the permanent panel are authorized to bind the City to employment terms in disputes that may arise between the City and the police officers.
The first assumption cannot be correct. The individuals on the permanent panel will not have identical experience, training, ability, or familiarity with the issues underlying a particular case. During a given negotiating session, an arbitrator may be required to address issues that touch on his or her personal strengths or weaknesses. At least in some cases, the City Council will have a special interest in delegating or denying authority to a particular person on the panel. In short, not all arbitrators will be equally suited to hear every dispute.
Section 21.12(e) of the Commerce City Charter, which provides the City Council power to strike names from the list of permanent arbitrators, expressly recognizes that, in a given dispute, the City Council may prefer some arbitrators on the permanent panel over others. If the City Council could have no preference between arbitrators on the permanent panel, such a provision would be unnecessary.
*145The second assumption is also incorrect. Appointment to the permanent panel is merely a condition precedent to an arbitrator’s power to preside over a case. An individual has no power to preside over a case unless the City Council retains him or her on the permanent panel and, if a dispute arises, neither the City Council nor the police union strikes his or her name from the list of arbitrators. Thus, the City Council has not authorized all of the arbitrators on the permanent panel to bind the City to terms of employment with the police officers.
I am not persuaded by the majority’s conclusion that the City Council’s exclusive con-tool over the membership of the permanent panel gives it exclusive control over the arbitrator who is appointed to hear a given case. Control over the initial list of potential arbitrators is relevant only insofar as it maintains control by politically accountable officials over final selection of the arbitrator who will have authority to exercise governmental power.
In this case, the voters of Commerce City passed the charter amendment providing for collective bargaining and binding interest arbitration. This clearly satisfies the requirement that the legal authority and qualifications for the arbitrator be promulgated by a politically accountable body. Next, the City Council, a politically accountable body, appointed members of the permanent panel, thereby establishing the pool of candidates who could be authorized to bind the City to terms of employment with the police officers.
The problem in this case is that, when a dispute arises, the police officers are given the power to narrow the pool of candidates, thereby participating in the selection process. The police officers’ power to strike names from the list of arbitrators on the permanent panel amounts to a veto that results in a new, smaller pool of candidates for the final position. On the one hand, a strike constitutes the removal of a single candidate from the list. On the other, however, it represents the selection of those remaining who ultimately may receive the authority to hear the dispute as the arbitrator.
Thus, part of the selection process is unconstitutionally delegated to a private party, and the purpose behind requiring that persons authorized to exercise governmental power be appointed by politically accountable officials is frustrated. In RTD, the voters could rest assured that the arbitrator appointed to hear the dispute would represent their interests, because the Governor ultimately was responsible for the selection of the arbitrator and could be held politically accountable for his selection. Here, the City Council only has exclusive control over the membership of the pool. Because the City Council does not have exclusive control over the final selection of the arbitrator who will hear a dispute, Commerce City’s voters have no way to ensure that the single arbitrator selected from the pool will be the arbitrator of their choice. The arbitration provision of Commerce City’s charter essentially allows voters, through the City Council, to nominate three or more candidates for the arbitrator who will represent their interests in a binding arbitration hearing without permitting them to select the single representative who will exercise governmental power on their behalf. This frustrates the purpose behind article XXI, section 4.
V.
Article XXI, section 4 places the responsibility to appoint persons authorized to exercise governmental power — not merely the responsibility to create a list of candidates that a third party may appoint — exclusively in the hands of politically accountable officials. Under the Commerce City charter, the City Council and the police officers both participate in the selection of the arbitrator who exercises the power to bind the City to terms of employment with the police officers. Thus, the arbitrator authorized to bind the City to terms of employment between the City and the police officers is not one appointed by a politically accountable official within the requirements of article XXI, section 4. Such a delegation of the City Council’s power violates the constitution.
Accordingly, I would affirm the trial court’s order.
Justice KOURLIS joins in this dissent.

. The policy in favor of delegating governmental power only to persons who will exercise it on behalf of the people is also expressed in article V, section 35 of the Colorado Constitution and our cases interpreting that provision. See Colo. Const, art. V, § 35; Town of Holyoke v. Smith, 75 Colo. 286, 226 P. 158 (1924).