Court Opinion

ID: 9544535
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:56:39.306685+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:08.625984
License: Public Domain

LAVENDER, Chief Justice,
concurring in part, dissenting in part:
I concur in that part of the majority opinion which holds that article 5, section 6 of the Oklahoma Constitution is applicable to Initiative Petition. No. 314 and that the proof of the number of invalid signatures is so far not sufficient to invalidate the petition for that reason (lack of sufficient signatures). The petition had to have 194,353 signatures. The evidence shows it has 195,-405 valid signatures. I would allow the contestants’ application for additional time to review signatures. In the short period the contestants had (twenty-one days), they were able to check only twenty of the seventy volumes comprising Initiative Petition No. 314. Contestants’ efforts resulted in the apparently successful challenge of 2,221 signatures. It is reasonable to believe that if contestants were allowed thirty additional days to check signatures they would be able to turn up the additional 1,053 they would need to establish their contention that the petition contains insufficient signatures.
In requesting the contestants to complete their proof by the time the matter was submitted in oral argument it was anticipated that, if the court determined the matter was a resubmission and required the greater numbers of signatures because of article 5, section 6, the contestants’ proof would be sufficient to resolve the matter before the ballot deadline. Subsequent events demonstrated that not enough time had been allowed the contestants for them to fairly develop and present their evidence.
Because the matter of sufficient signatures could not possibly be resolved in time to allow State Question 550 to be put on the November 4,1980, ballot, I concurred in the court’s order directing that the petition and the state question presented thereby not be placed on the November 4 ballot.
I agree also with the majority view regarding the treatment of the term “legal voter” as used in the Constitution.
I respectfully disagree with the court’s holding that Initiative Petition 314, as it presents State Question 550, violates article 24, section 1 of the Constitution because it contains more than one “general subject matter.”
In my view, the one general subject matter of Initiative Petition 314 is the control of alcoholic beverages and may include properly not only the question of on premises sales for consumption together with licensing, but whether certain restrictions regarding advertising should be adopted, and whether franchising agreements by brewers of strong beer should be allowed.
The restriction of article 24, section 1 as to the one general subject limitation, assuming it is applicable to the exercise of the people’s right of the initiative (which may be contra to article 24, section 3), should never be strictly construed so as to inhibit the people in their right to initiate constitutional amendments.
*615The constitutional article involved, particularly section 3 thereof, casts some doubt as to whether the one general subject limitation of the second paragraph of article 24, section 1 is even applicable to measures to amend the Oklahoma Constitution when they are being offered by the people as separate from legislatively referred measures. Section 3 provides:
This article shall not impair the right of people to amend this Constitution by a vote upon an initiative petition therefor.
Article II, section 1 of the Oklahoma Constitution provides:
All political power is inherent in the people; and government is instituted for their protection, security and benefit, ánd to promote their general welfare; and they have the right to alter or reform it, provided, such change be not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.
A review of our own cases as well as authorities from other jurisdictions which have constitutional provisions similar to our article 24, section 1 establishes that the more liberal interpretation represents the better supported view, and the view of the majority of the states which have considered the problem.
The first Oklahoma case involving the problem, Rupe v. Shaw, 286 P.2d 1094 (Okl.1955), concerned a proposal to amend the Constitution referred to the voters by the Legislature. The “gist” of the referred proposal appears on page 1096 of the Reporter. It involved the following questions, all of which were submitted together: (1) amend three sections of article 10, (2) provide ad valorem taxes for public schools, (3) place certain restrictions thereon, (4) limit consideration thereof in state guaranteed school program, (5) authorize additional use of the levy heretofore made for erection of public buildings, (6) increasing the schools’ debt limits for certain purposes, (7) removing limitations on certain contracts beyond current year, (8) adding two new sections to article 10 to provide additional funds for buildings for school districts, and (9) for buildings and capital improvements at certain state institutions.
Many of the above questions could easily have been submitted as separate propositions. Some of the questions undoubtedly would be popular with some segments of the voters and some not. This package of proposals was held to not be violative of article 24, section 1 — the one general subject requirement.
Citing cases from other jurisdictions, this court said such limitations on the right of the people to vote amendments to the Constitution “are to receive a liberal, rather than a narrow or technical construction.” The court found the various provisions sufficiently related as to constitute a single scheme and said “matters germane to the same general subject indicated in the amendment’s title, or within the field of legislation suggested thereby, may be included therein.”
After examining the various provisions, the court observed with regard to them,' “they show that the general subject and purpose of the proposed constitutional amendment was to enable the State, as well as its school districts, to surmount previous limitations and inadequacies in their constitutional authority for raising funds.” And, “the details provided for its accomplishment ... may be regarded as incidents.” By referring to Dunlap v. Board of Co. Comm’rs, 85 Okl. 295, 205 P. 1100 (1922) and similar cases, the court considered article 5, section 57 of the Oklahoma Constitution, which requires legislation to have one subject matter. The court in the Dunlap case held a statute related “primarily to only one general subject, namely, public roads” which act provided for the sale of land to secure federal aid and also empowered county commissioners to designate roads as state highways. The case of In re Lee, 64 Okl. 310, 168 P. 53 (1917), which dealt with the act which created the Supreme Court Commission — which contained a provision for a docket fee in lieu of previous cost deposit required by law — only related to one subject matter. Reference to other ease law produced the quotation on page 1100 of 286 P.2d “to constitute duplicity of subject, an act must embrace two or more *616dissimilar and discordant subjects, that by no fair intendment can be considered as having any legitimate connection with or relation to each other” and “it is enough that they are connected with and related to a single subject in popular signification.”
In 1962, in rejecting a claim that an initiative petition was invalid because it contained more than one general subject matter, this court reaffirmed the position taken in Rape v. Shaw, supra, “this provision of the Constitution is to receive a liberal rather than a narrow or technical construction. It is a cardinal rule that such a restrictive provision shall not be so construed as to hamper and unreasonably restrict legislation.” In re Initiative Petition No. 271, 373 P.2d 1017, 1019 (Okl.1962).
Considering this court’s tradition of viewing liberally the restrictions of article 5, section 57 of the Oklahoma Constitution, as it affects acts of the Legislature, In re Lee, supra, I cannot understand why the court today imposes a strict interpretation of article 24, section 1, Oklahoma Constitution, to the fundamental right of the people to amend the Constitution.
I reject as too strict the standard adopted by the 1934 Arizona case of Kerby v. Luhrs, 44 Ariz. 208, 36 P.2d 549, 94 A.L.R. 1502, and now being advanced as the standard by which Oklahoma initiative petitions shall be measured in the future. Specifically, referring to the text of that case, 36 P.2d at 554:
[I]f any one of the propositions ... is not such that the voter supporting it could reasonably be expected to support the principle of the others, (other propositions) then there are in reality two ... amendments ... within the constitutional prohibition.
And again in the same opinion it is said, applying the above “test,”
[Here] there are at least three distinct propositions .. ., no two of which are necessarily required for a proper operation of the third. [Emphasis mine.]
Additionally, Kerby v. Luhrs involved a provision of the Arizona constitution which is much more restrictive of the right of the initiative than our article 24, section 1. The Arizona constitutional provision applied to invalidate the petition in that case follows:
Article 21, § 1: “. .. If more than one proposed amendment shall be submitted at any election, such proposed amendments shall be submitted in such manner that the electors may vote for or against such proposed amendments separately.”
In fact, on 36 P.2d page 553 the Arizona court quotes an earlier case with approval:
“[T]hey (the various proposals)- shall be submitted separately, ... even though they may pertain to the same general object or purpose.”
Compare our article 24, section 1 which provides in part:
No proposal ... shall embrace more than one general subject ....
Furthermore, the Kerby case is distinguishable on the facts of that case. There three sections of an article were being amended. One of the proposals had to do with tax on the copper mining industry; another provided how the tangible property of public utilities could be assessed for tax purposes, and yet a third proposal created a constitutional Tax Commission for Arizona. While of course all of these proposals related in a remote way to the subject of taxation, they were obviously not germane to a single general purpose or subject, but apparently they would have been invalidated even if they had been because of the strict “test” of the Arizona court heretofore referred to in this opinion at the beginning of the discussion of this case.
Turning to cases from other jurisdictions, research shows that the liberal view of state constitutional provisions similar to our article 24, section 1 has been adopted in other states. The following quotations are from State v. Helmer, 169 Minn. 221, 211 N.W. 3 (1926):
This provision is always liberally construed to avoid unduly hampering legislative action; and doubts concerning the sufficiency of the title of an act are resolved in favor of its sufficiency.
211 N.W. at 3-4. And,
“It matters not that the act embraces technically more than one subject, one of *617which only is expressed in the title, ... so that they are not foreign and extraneous to each other, but ‘blend’ together in a common purpose evidently sought to be accomplished by the law.... ”
“The term ‘subject,’ as used in the Constitution is to be given a broad and extended meaning, so as to allow the Legislature full scope to include in one act all matters having a logical or natural connection .... ”
211 N.W. at 4. And,
[A]ll matters treated of should fall under some one general idea, be so connected or related to each other, either logically or in popular understanding, as to be part of, or germane to' one general subject.
See also, C. Thomas Stores Sales System v. Spaeth, 207 N.W. 9 (Minn.1941); Blanton v. Northern Pac. Ry. Co., 215 Minn. 442, 10 N.W.2d 382 (1943); and Fugina v. Donovan, 259 Minn. 35, 104 N.W.2d 911 (1960). In the Fugina case it is pointed out that such a constitutional provision requires the separate submission of proposed amendments having different objects and distinct purposes not dependent upon or connected with each other, and simply because the various provisions could be submitted separately is no reason to require them to be “if they are rationally related to a single purpose, plan, or subject.”
In the 1977 Minnesota case of Wass v. Anderson, 312 Minn. 394, 252 N.W.2d 131 the term “logrolling” was defined. The inclusion of “different measures, dissimilar in character, ... united together with the sole view, by this means, of compelling the requisite support to secure their passage is a practice known as ‘logrolling.’ ” The fact that some one or more of the provisions included as a part of the same general subject matter had been unsuccessfully introduced in a previous session of the Legislature was not logrolling. The combining of different and disconnected subjects is what is prohibited.
See also New Jersey Ass’n on Correction v. Lan, 80 N.J. 799, 403 A.2d 437 (1979); State v. Steinwedel, 180 N.E. 865 (Ind.1932); and In the Matter of Estate of Wisely, 402 N.E.2d 14 (Ind.1980).
As I read Kerby, it provides that if the voter would not reasonably be expected to vote the same way for both propositions, then there are two separate propositions and must be submitted separately. The Kerby case goes even further. If one (or more) propositions are not necessary for the proper operation of the other, then there are two (or more) propositions involved and they must be submitted separately, regardless of whether the “separate” propositions are germane to an overall general integrated reform measure.
I was impressed by the views of the California Supreme Court in the recently decided case of Amador Valley Joint Union High School District v. State Board of Equalization et al., 22 Cal.3d 208, 149 Cal.Rptr. 239, 583 P.2d 1281 (1978), wherein the California court considered the state’s constitutional provision which provided: “An initiative measure embracing more than one subject may not be submitted to the electors or have any effect. Art. II, § 8, subd. (d))”:
Petitioners assert that each of the four separate elements of article XIII A might not have been approved had each element appeared separately on the ballot. They speculate that various classes of voters may have favored some, but not all, of these elements; petitioners would require a showing that each of the several provisions of an initiative measure is capable of gaining approval by the electorate, independent of the other provisions. We are unable to accept such a contention, concluding that petitioners’ proposed single-subject test is far too strict, and lacks support in authorities. Aside from the obvious difficulty of ever establishing satisfactorily such “independent voter approval,” this standard would defeat many legitimate enactments containing isolated, arguably “unpopular,” provisions reasonably deemed necessary to the integrated functioning of the enactment as a whole. We avoid an overly strict judicial application of the single-subject requirement, for to do so could well frustrate legitimate efforts by the people to accomplish integrated reform measures.
*618Applying the tests as above outlined to Initiative Petition 314, S.Q. 550, I would hold that the various provisions referred to therein pertaining to the importation, transportation, distribution, advertising, and sale in both package stores and on-premises location of alcoholic beverages and the licensing therefor, the collection and distribution of the revenue from issuing the licenses, the hours of operation and criminal penalties for violations all are reasonably germane to the one general subject of Petition No. 314, State Question 550 which is the control of alcoholic beverages within the State of Oklahoma.
The fact that these provisions were separately supported by different groups or that the inclusion of one or more of them with the provision having for its purpose the allowance of the sale of liquor for consumption on the seller’s premises may result in the adoption of franchising or more liberal advertising rules is, after all, immaterial. Also the petition should not be invalidated simply because some of the provisions would not perhaps be approved if submitted separately. By fair intendment it can be said these provisions have a legitimate connection with each other and with the general subject of the petition, I would therefore uphold the right of the people of Oklahoma to have such issues determined by a vote thereon assuming, of course, the petition has the requisite valid signatures thereon.