Court Opinion

ID: 9768596
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:09:28.973853+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:42.144646
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION
HUGHES, Justice.
I respectfully dissent.
The simple question presented by this appeal is whether the ballot used at the November 1966, election, regarding Proposition 7, adequately described the purport of the proposed Amendments to our Constitution.
The sponsors of H.J.R. 13 which authorized submission of these proposed Amendments to the Constitution were careful to *694describe the import of these Amendments to their colleagues when they wrote the caption to such resolution, which I quote:
“Proposing an Amendment to Sections 2 and 4 of Article VI of the Constitution of the State of Texas so as to repeal the provision making payment of the poll tax a requirement for voting and so as to authorize the Legislature to provide for the registration of all voters.”
True to the caption, the body of H.J.R. 13 provided for two radical changes to the Constitution.
These two proposed changes were (1) repeal of the poll tax as a requirement for voting (2) the annual registration of all voters.
The ballot used to submit these two proposed Constitutional changes to the electorate described only the first of such changes.
I believe, as held in Whiteside v. Brown, 214 S.W.2d 844, Tex.Civ.App., Austin, writ dismissed w.o.j., that to be valid the ballot used in elections held to vote on amendments to the Constitution must describe the amendment “in such terms as to give a clear idea of the scope and character of the amendment in question,” or, stated differently, the language on the ballot must identify the amendment and show its “character and purpose.” 1
In Brown we held that the wording of the ballot was sufficient even though some of the provisions of the proposed amendments were omitted and in so holding, we stated:
“Some of the details and provisions, including the one to which appellants direct our attention, were omitted. This is a necessary consequence of the failure to print the amendment, in extenso, upon the ballot. It must have been presumed that the voter would familiarize himself with the contents of the proposed amendment before entering the ballot box, otherwise the legislature would have required a full copy on the ballot.
It is not shown that any voter was misled or deceived by the form of submission of this amendment. No one who had previously read the amendment could have been misled or deceived by the ballot used.”
The majority opinion quotes only the last sentence of the first paragraph of the above quotation from Brown. This is a quotation out of context, and misleading. We were clearly referring to details of the amendments because we had just held, in the preceding paragraph that “The primary object of the amendment, as disclosed by the ballot, was to rearrange and levy taxes for the purpose of financing the construction and equipment of buildings and other permanent improvements at state institutions of higher learning. This was its intent, import, theme and subject matter, and, hence, its scope.”
Is the annual registration of all voters a mere detail of the dead issue of removing the requirement that a voter otherwise qualified must have timely paid his poll tax before offering to vote?
I quote from the majority opinion:
“The only changes in annual registration proposed in House Joint Resolution No. 13 were (1) no payment required, which was stated on the ballot, (2) final date for registration each year subject to legislative action, and (3) registration made universal, with no exceptions. The first change was fully stated on the bal*695lot. The other changes were details, not major changes, and it was not necessary to include them on the ballot by which the voters would decide whether to repeal the poll tax as a requirement for voting.”
These “details” assumed great importance as reflected by these comments of the majority:
“In the light of events taking place late in 1965 and through May of 1966, the paramount issue changed before the election in November, 1966. Necessity for repealing the provision for payment of the poll tax as a requirement for voting no longer existed, except to effect orderliness in the Constitution by removing a requirement no longer enforceable. Attention was focused upon registration aspects of the proposed change because payment or not of the poll tax had become moot. * * *
Widespread publicity was shown to have been given, by newspapers and other news media, to the opposition of the Texas AFL-CIO to annual registration and to its suit to enjoin the placing of Proposition No. 7 on the ballot. Some of the publicity related to the opposition of the League of Women Voters to Proposition No. 7 because it would require annual registration. The Texas AFL-CIO informed its membership in September and October, 1966, through its official newspaper that Proposition No. 7 would provide for annual voter registration. * * *
With the main question moot by court decision, annual registration received wide notice, even though it was not an innovation, having been in the Constitution 64 years. The relation of annual registration to Proposition No. 7 was widely published by news media all over the state for several months before the election.”
This was certainly a lot of ballyhoo for a sideshow.2 Our history refutes the notion that the registration of voters was a detail and not an issue of major importance in the November 1966 election.
The Texas Constitution of 1876 provided in Article VI, Section 4, that “no law shall ever be enacted requiring a registration of the voters of this State.” In 1887 an Amendment proposing to provide registration of voters in cities of ten thousand or more population and in such counties as the Legislature might deem advisable was rejected by the voters. In 1891 an amendment granting authority for registration of voters in such cities but omitting any reference to counties was approved. As late as November 5, 1963, a majority of voters were “AGAINST the amendment of the Constitution of the State of Texas so as to repeal the provision making payment of the poll tax a requirement for voting and so as to authorize the Legislature to provide for the registration of all voters.”3
The principal theme of the majority opinion seems to be that since the Constitutional provisions relating to the poll tax as a requirement for voting provided, in effect, an annual registration of voters, nothing new was added to the Constitution by the voter registration provisions contained in the proposed amendment.
If we concede that such was the effect of the Constitutional provisions in the Constitution relating to the poll tax as a requirment for voting,4 then it follows as surely *696as night follows day that when the “well informed” electorate voted in November 1966 to repeal the poll tax as a requirement for voting it repealed the annual registration of voters which was effected by this requirement.
The Legislature recognized that if the Supreme Court of the United States held invalid our laws making payment of a poll tax a requirement for voting that we would be without any method of registering voters when it enacted S.B. 1, p. 1, General and Special Laws, 59th Leg., First Called Session providing for the registration of voters in the event of such occurrence by declaring in the emergency clause to such Act, “The necessity for immediate enactment of a voter registration law in order to avoid having to conduct elections without voter registration lists, arising from the recent judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas that the provisions of Texas law requiring payment of a poll tax as a condition for voting are invalid * * * ” creates an emergency etc.
The trial judge incisively described the inadequacy of the ballot used in submitting proposed amendment No. 7 when he said:
“ * * * To me this is telling the voters that something is being removed from the Constitution, but there is no suggestion that something is being written into the Constitution.”
The observation of the trial judge is literally and legally true and no amount of political sophistry can demonstrate its falsity.
The majority cites only two cases as bearing on its judgment, Brown by this Court, the principles of which it ignores, and Railroad Commission v. Sterling Oil and Refining Company, 147 Tex. 547, 218 S.W.2d 415.
Sterling was not an election contest, however the Court passed upon the validity of an amendment to the Constitution where the insufficiency of the ballot was raised. In sustaining the validity of the ballot the first of many authorities cited to support its ruling was our opinion in Brown.
The majority seems to imply that compliance with publication requirements relating to proposed constitutional amendments cures all. This is patently erroneous. The law requires certain publication of the proposed amendment. It also requires a ballot which describes the scope and character of the proposed amendment. These requirements complement each other. Substantial compliance with both requirements is prerequisite to a fair or lawful election.
If Proposition 7 on the November 1966 election ballot is sustained and accomplishes the incorporation into the Constitution the proposed amendments in full, then the electorate of Texas was offered and got a pig in a poke. It got one amendment fully exposed; it got another amendment in a bag.
The question has not been presented and I express no opinion on whether the November 1966 election had the sole effect of repealing the poll tax as a requirement for voting.
After the decision of the majority, two of the State’s leading newspapers, the Houston Post and the Houston Chronicle, carried stories of the decision. The Chronicle, 4-12-67, gave the story this caption: “COURT UPHOLDS VOTE ABOLISHING POLL TAX.” The Post, 4-13-67, gave the story this caption: “JURISTS RULE FOR ANNUAL REGISTRY.”
The captions to these stories illustrate, I believe, the dual nature of H.J.R. 13 and that each of its proposals was of major importance.
I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.

. The Port Worth Court of Civil Appeals in Turner v. Lewie, 201 S.W.2d 86, writ dism., w. o. j., in a city charter amendment election case stated the test or rule in this language:
“The ballot should contain a description of the proposition submitted in such language as to constitute a fair portrayal of the chief features of the proposed law, or amendment, in words of plain meaning, so that it can be understood by persons entitled to vote. 18 Am. Jur., p. 298.”

. Actually, the fact of public discussion of this matter is wholly irrelevant. If public discussion validates an unlawful election, then lack of public discussion would invalidate a lawful election. The absurdity of these propositions is obvious.

. S.J.U. No. 1, 58th Leg. General and Special Laws, p. 1797.
The quoted language is taken from the ballot form prescribed by the Legislature.

. It must be remembered that the Constitution only authorized the registration of voters in cities containing a population of 10,000 or more inhabitants.