Court Opinion

ID: 9613676
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:19:06.678905+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:30.840284
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Chief Justice,
concurring in result.
The court declares today that the petition under consideration — which would impose limitations upon the legislature’s power to raise new taxes — qualifies for submission to a vote of the electorate. I concur in the court’s judgment only insofar as the court declares that the measure is not vulnerable to protestants’ presubmission procedural challenges. But I recede from the court’s review of the measure for conformity to the “Republican Form of Government” guaranteed by Art. 4, § 4, U.S. Const.1 Remaining bound by my continued and unswerving commitment to the teachings of Threadgill,2 I would not undertake to review the measure’s provisions for conformity to constitutional norms. Threadgill teaches that conformity of a measure’s content to constitutional norms may not be judicially examined in advance of the initiative petition’s adoption. Permissible preadoption constitutional challenges are only those which address fatally vitiating infirmities in the initiative process itself.3 The electorate’s effort at legislating directly should not be scrutinized by attacks other than those which affect the petition’s compliance with some sine qua non sub*782mission requirement. Furthermore, the court's review of protestants’ guarantee-clause claims is without any support in federal jurisprudence. Even if guarantee-clause issues were justiciable, there are no authoritative federal-law standards by which we can gauge conformity to the fundamental-law mandate for a “republican form” of government.
I
A
TODAY’S PRESUBMISSION REVIEW OFFENDS THE “PRUDENTIAL” RULE OF NECESSITY
I consider today’s presubmission review of the measure’s conformity to the constitution — i.e., whether the measure imposes limitations upon the legislature’s taxing power that would either destroy the state financing scheme or violate the federal-law guarantee of a republican form of government — to offend the time-honored prudential rule. This is so because constitutional challenges to legislation before it becomes law are to be disallowed.4 No necessity exists for presubmission resolution of the constitutional validity of these content-based challenges to the petition; they do not impair the initiative petition’s legal fitness for submission to a vote by the people.
In presubmission stages (a) we cannot be sure that when the petition is submitted for a vote the electorate will adopt the measure as law and (b) there is not then a lively controversy in which antagonistic adversaries press for testing a legal norm’s validity against the backdrop of facts unfolded when the measure came to be applied as law.5 Where there is no forensic scenario in the context of which challenged law is to be enforced, courts will not assess the attacked norm’s constitutional soundness in vacuo.6 Any departure from these basic teachings of Threadgill creates an impermissible burden on the people’s fundamental-law power to initiate and pass measures that may change the state’s constitution as well as her statutes.7
*783B
NO ONE HAS STANDING TO CHALLENGE THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF AN INITIATIVE PETITION’S SUBSTANTIVE PROVISIONS UNTIL THEY ARE APPLIED AS EFFECTIVE LAW
Standing, the legal right of a person to challenge the conduct of another in a judicial forum,8 may be raised at any level of the judicial process or by the court on its own motion.9 Standing must be predicated on interest that is “direct, immediate and substantial.”10 The concept of standing focuses on whether the party invoking the court’s jurisdiction has a legally cognizable interest in the outcome of the controversy.11 A party seeking relief must show actual or threatened injury of some kind.12 The inquiry is whether the party has in fact suffered injury to a legally protected interest within the contemplation of statutory or constitutional provisions.13
In pre-adoption stages no one has standing to assert a content-based challenge to an initiative or referendum petition, which is unrelated to any sine qua non requirement for submission.14 No one can be adversely affected by a measure until it has been applied or enforced as effective law. No showing of actual or threatened injury can be made before the measure becomes effective law. Only a person against whom effective law has been applied would have standing to challenge its constitutionality. A petition may be declared ineligible for a vote of the electorate only when it is fraught with a fatal impediment to its submission.15 A defect in the form of the petition that would operate to render it unfit for submission is the kind of fatal flaw a citizen may assert and have standing to press. This is so because, in such instances, we know in advance of submission that, if adopted, the petition would have no legal effect as law.
In short, once an initiative petition passes muster under the threshold test for submission 16 to a vote of the people no constitutional attacks addressed to the measure’s substantive provisions may be judicially entertained in preelection stages. All such attacks must await the measure’s adoption and its application in the context of a lively postadoption controversy be*784tween antagonistic adversaries with legal standing to press challenges.
II
GUARANTEE-CLAUSE ISSUES HAVE NEVER BEEN HELD JUSTICIABLE BY THE U.S. SUPREME COURT — THE HIGHEST COURT WITH THE POWER TO PRONOUNCE FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL JURISPRUDENCE
The U.S. Constitution provides that “[t]he United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.”17 The guarantee clause is the only constitutional clause which the U.S. Supreme Court has held to be judicially unenforceable.18
The most significant case in the clause’s development is Luther v. Borden,19 where the Court first announced in 1849 the principle that federal courts will not enforce guarantee-clause claims. In this seminal case the Court refused to decide which of two factions in a Rhode Island political upheaval was the proper government. The Court found that the guarantee clause treats the issue of a state government’s legitimacy as a political question entrusted to Congress. In turn, Congress affirms a state’s republican form of government by admitting the state’s senators and representatives “into the councils of the Union.” 20
Sixty years later in Pacific States Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Oregon,21 the Court laid to rest all challenges to the constitutional validity of initiative and referendum under the guarantee clause. There, the Court re*785fused to find the initiative was unrepubli-can, holding that the political branches have the exclusive task of monitoring the guarantee clause and that the courts could not enforce it.
In Colegrove v. Green22 the Court once again refused to take jurisdiction of a case involving an attack on the malapportionment of congressional districts. The Court rested its judgment23 on the principle that “[violation of the great guaranty of a republican form of government in States cannot be challenged in the courts.”24
The Court reaffirmed in Baker v. Carr25 its Luther and Pacific States jurisprudence that the republican-form guarantee is non-justiciable. Baker involved a challenge to the apportionment of the Tennessee state legislature.26 The decision premised non-justiciability on the lack of “judicially manageable standards” by which to judge congressional or state action.27 Legislative reapportionment, the Court held, must be measured by equal protection standards instead.
In City of Rome v. United Stated28 the Court once again reaffirmed its commitment to the nonjusticiability notion. Relying on Baker, the Court refused to address the merits of a guarantee-clause claim because the “issue is not justiciable.” Our own jurisprudence recognizes the guarantee clause’s nonjusticiability.29
*786In sum, the U.S. Supreme Court — the highest court with the power of judicature over federal constitutional standards — has never held guarantee-clause claims to be justiciable. The only permissible sanction the Court has recognized for a state’s failure to conform to the guarantee clause is Congress’ refusal to seat the senators and representatives, which is, of course, a purely political solution.30 No precedent hence exists for today’s review of the initiative measure before us for conformity to the guarantee clause.31
Ill
A
THERE ARE NO JUDICIALLY ENFORCEABLE STANDARDS OF REPUBLICANISM
Assuming that guarantee-clause claims are justiciable, I would not attempt to review them without any authoritative federal judicial parameters for gauging institutional norms of state government for their conformity to the strictures of the guarantee clause. The task of measuring the limit of permissible nonrepublicanism is difficult because the Court has neither enforced the clause nor acted decisively in this matter.32 The phrase “republican form of government” does not have a fixed content either in law or in political science. There is no federally enshrined ideal to serve as a yardstick. Absent any guideposts, I would be loath to tell the people what encroachments may or may not be permitted on the constitutional guarantee of republicanism in form.33
B
U.S. SUPREME COURT GUARANTEE-CLAUSE JURISPRUDENCE PROVIDES NO CLEAR MANDATE TO STATE COURTS
By force of the Supremacy Clause34 state courts are bound by the U.S. Supreme Court’s jurisprudential exposition of federal law.35 We cannot give the federal constitution a different sweep of meaning from that which the highest federal tribunal accords it.36 On matters of federal constitutional validity, we follow U.S. Supreme Court standards. If justiciability is questionable and no parameters for measuring it exist, it is our duty to decline review until the U.S. Supreme Court has given us sufficient guidance. In short, on federal constitutional law matters we must relinquish our own notions of propriety and follow the U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence.
*787SUMMARY
Because of my undiminished commitment to Threadgill’s teachings and because judicial review of guarantee-clause claims is without any federal jurisprudential warrant, I would not today examine the measure for conformity to constitutional norms or to the republican form of government. The only options available as a remedy against invasive initiative power are (a) to curb — as Justice Mosk suggests37 — the people’s power to create chaos by constitutional amendment defining areas of regulation that lie outside the reserved power of initiative or (b) to act judicially and invalidate an actually adopted, measure when it visits crippling damage to the operations of government by causing institutional paralysis.
This measure is fit for submission and I concur in the result of today’s decision.

.The terms of Art. 4, § 4, U.S. Const., provide in pertinent part:
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence." (Emphasis added.)

. Threadgill v. Cross, 26 Okl. 403, 109 P. 558 (1910).

. My commitment to Threadgill, supra note 2, is reported in several prior decisions. See In re Initiative Petition No. 347 State Question No. 639, Okl., 813 P.2d 1019, 1037 (1991) (Opala, C.J., concurring); In re Initiative Petition No. 349 (No. 76,437, February 20, 1991) (Opala, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); In re Initiative Petition No. 341, Okl., 796 P.2d 267, 275 (1990) (Opala, V.C.J., concurring in result); In re Initiative Petition No. 317, Etc., Okl., 648 P.2d 1207, 1222 (1982) (Opala, J., concurring in the judgment); In re Initiative Petition No. 315, Etc., Okl., 649 P.2d 545, 554-555 (1982) (Opala, J., concurring in result).

. The prudential rule of necessity, adhered to today by all state and federal courts, holds that constitutional issues must not be resolved in advance of strict necessity. In re Initiative Petition No. 347 State Question No. 639, supra note 3 at 1027; Smith v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., Okl., 732 P.2d 466, 467 n. 3 (1987); I.N.S. v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 937, 103 S.Ct. 2764, 2776, 77 L.Ed.2d 317 (1983); Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 347, 56 S.Ct. 466, 483, 80 L.Ed. 688 (1936) (Brandéis, J., concurring); see also Schwartz v. Diehl, Okl., 568 P.2d 280, 283 (1977); Dablemont v. State, Department of Public Safety, Okl., 543 P.2d 563, 564-565 (1975).

. One reason given by Justice Grodin (formerly of the California Supreme Court) in his book, In Pursuit of Justice (Univ. of Cal.Press 1989) at 106, for moving “cautiously in considering a preelection challenge to an initiative is that the decisional process is likely to be enhanced if evaluation of the challenge is deferred until after the election. Considerations relevant to the constitutional issue may develop in the course of the campaign itself.... Moreover, the timing of a preelection challenge seldom leaves room for the studied consideration appropriate to decision of an important legal issue.” Other legal commentators have observed: "Most courts will not entertain a challenge to a measure’s substantive validity before the election. A minority of courts, however, are willing to conduct such review. Arguably, pre-election review of a measure's substantive validity involves issuing an advisory opinion, violates ripeness requirements and the policy of avoiding unnecessary constitutional questions, and is an unwarranted judicial intrusion into a legislative process.” Gordon and Magleby, Pre-Election Judicial Review of Initiatives and Referendums, 64 Notre Dame L.R.298, 302 (1989); see in this connection Grossman, The Initiative and Referendum Process: The Michigan Experience, 28 Wayne L.Rev. 77, 111 (1981); Note, The Judiciary and Popular Democracy: Should Courts Review Ballot Measures Prior to Elections?, 53 Fordham L.Rev. 919, 921-22 (1985).

. Smith v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., supra note 4.

. The constitutional provisions governing the initiative and referendum are Art 5, §§ 1-8, Okl. Const. Section 1 provides:
“The Legislative authority of the State shall be vested in a Legislature, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives; but the people reserve to themselves the power to propose laws and amendments to the Constitution and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the Legislature, and also reserve power at their own option to approve or reject at the polls any act of the Legislature." (Emphasis added.)
In Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Smith, Okl., 610 P.2d 794, 807 (1980), we stated that Art. 5, §§ 1, 2 and 7, together "comprise an initiative *783system whereby both the people and the Legislature may propose legislation independently, and neither can block the effort of the other during the process....” Our teaching in Smith applies with equal force to bar judicial as well as legislative interference with initiative process. Courts should be loath to impose judicial restraint on the electorate’s power to make law. As the Arizona Supreme Court aptly remarked in State v. Osborn, 16 Ariz. 247, 143 P. 117, 118 (1914), to place court-imposed restrictions "would be tantamount to claiming the power of life and death over every initiated measure by the people. It would limit the right of the people to propose only valid laws, whereas the other lawmaking body, the Legislature, would go untrammeled as to the legal soundness of its measures.”

. State ex rel. Cartwright v. Okl. Tax Com’n, Okl., 653 P.2d 1230, 1232 (1982); Matter of Adoption of Baby Boy D, Okl., 742 P.2d 1059, 1062 (1985).

. Matter of Estate of Doan, Okl., 727 P.2d 574, 576 n. 3 (1986).

. Underside v. Lathrop, Okl., 645 P.2d 514, 517 (1982); Democratic Party of Oklahoma v. Estep, Okl., 652 P.2d 271, 274 n. 13 (1982); Matter of Estate of Doan, supra note 21 at 576.

. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S.Ct. 691, 703, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962); Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 100, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 1953, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968); Application of State ex rel. Dept. of Tramp., Okl., 646 P.2d 605, 609 (1982).

. O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 493-494, 94 S.Ct. 669, 675, 38 L.Ed.2d 674 (1974).

. Matter of Adoption of Baby Boy D, supra note 8 at 1062; Independent School Dist. No. 9 v. Glass, Okl., 639 P.2d 1233, 1237 (1982).

. For an initiative to pass the threshold test it must (a) be in substantial compliance with the sine qua non procedural requirements for submission, (b) address but a single subject [In re Initiative Petition No. 344, Okl., 797 P.2d 326, 330 (1990); In re Initiative Petition No. 342, Okl., 797 P.2d 331, 333 (1990)]; and (c) embrace content appropriate for lawmaking by the people [In re Supreme Court Adjudication, Etc., Okl., 534 P.2d 3 (1975) ]; see also in this connection In re Initiative Petition No. 347, supra note 3 (Opala, C.J., concurring).

. The measure need only pass a threshold test to qualify for submission, see supra note 14.

. See supra note 14.

. Art. 4, § 4, U.S. Const., supra note 1.

. See in this connection Heaton, The Guarantee Clause: A Role For The Courts, 16 Cumberland L.Rev. 477, 478 (1986). The guarantee clause was first invoked in response to a series of rebellions against state or national authority between 1793 and 1843 when several brief episodes of violence flared up in the states, culminating in the 1842 Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island. See infra note 19; Wiecek, The Guarantee Clause of the U.S. Constitution 78-85, (1972 Cornell University Press).

. 48 U.S. (7 How.) 1, 12 L.Ed. 581 (1849). The issues pressed in Luther grew out of Dorr’s rebellion of 1842. As the 1633 Charter of Rhode Island contained no provision for amendment and allowed only limited suffrage, dissatisfied citizens elected representatives to attend a constitutional convention, which, in turn, proposed a new state government. The new government was adopted by a majority vote of the adult male population, and its governor-elect Dorr tried unsuccessfully to uphold its authority by force. Thereafter, the issue was joined in a trespass action on the question whether officials of the charter government had acted pursuant to martial law to suppress an insurrection against the state government. The ultimate issue was which of the two competing governments was legitimate and lawful. Describing the question as political, the Court refused to decide the contest. See Wiecek, supra note 18 at 85-129.

. Luther v. Borden, supra note 19, 48 U.S. (7 How.) at 41, 12 L.Ed. at 599.
In several post-Luther opinions the Court has held guarantee-clause claims nonjusticiable political questions. Baker v. Carr, supra note 11; Highland Farms Dairy, Inc. v. Agnew, 300 U.S. 608, 57 S.Ct. 549, 81 L.Ed. 835 (1937); Cochran v. Louisiana State Bd. of Educ., 281 U.S. 370, 50 S.Ct. 335, 74 L.Ed. 913 (1930); Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington, 243 U.S. 219, 37 S.Ct. 260, 61 L.Ed. 685 (1917); Ohio ex rel. Davis v. Hilde-brandt, 241 U.S. 565, 36 S.Ct. 708, 60 L.Ed. 1172 (1916); O’Neill v. Learner, 239 U.S. 244, 36 S.Ct. 54, 60 L.Ed. 249 (1915); Pacific States Tel & Tel. Co. v. Oregon, 223 U.S. 118, 32 S.Ct. 224, 56 L.Ed. 377 (1912); Kiernan v. Portland, 223 U.S. 151, 32 S.Ct. 231, 56 L.Ed. 386 (1912).
Even in the few early cases in which the Court considered guarantee-clause cases on the merits, there is not a single precedent in which an act or statute was invalidated. See e.g. Michigan ex rel. Kies v. Lowrey, 199 U.S. 233, 26 S.Ct. 27, 50 L.Ed. 167 (1905); Forsyth v. Hammond, 166 U.S. 506, 17 S.Ct. 665, 41 L.Ed. 1095 (1897); In re Duncan, 139 U.S. 449, 11 S.Ct. 573, 35 L.Ed. 219 (1891); Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162, 22 L.Ed. 627 (1875).

.Supra note 20. Pacific States involved a challenge to the practice of enacting legislation by citizen initiative. In Oregon the people had used the initiative to enact a license tax on telephone company gross receipts within the state. In Pacific States the Court never reached the merits of the claim, concluding as it had in Luther, supra note 11, that guarantee-clause questions are "political in character” and thus "solely committed by the Constitution to the judgment of Congress." Pacific States, supra note 20, 223 U.S. at 133, 32 S.Ct. at 224. This matter, the Court said, was "absolutely foreclosed.” 223 U.S. at 143, 32 S.Ct. at 228.

. 328 U.S. 549, 66 S.Ct. 1198, 90 L.Ed. 1432 (1946).

. Justice Frankfurter delivered the Court’s judgment and not its opinion because only two other justices concurred in his opinion; one justice concurred in result, three others dissented, one was absent and another member of the Court had recently died. Wiecek, supra note 18 at 272.

. Colegrove v. Green, supra note 22, 328 U.S. at 556, 66 S.Ct. at 1201, citing Pacific States, supra note 20.

. Supra note 11.

. The Court cited Luther for the proposition that the guarantee provided no standards for a court to judge the validity of a state government. Acknowledging that a "permanent" military government would "obviously” be unrepublican, the Court suggested that even at this extreme, responsibility for enforcement of the guarantee clause would lie only with Congress and not with the courts. Baker v. Carr, supra note 11, 369 U.S. at 222, 82 S.Ct. at 712-713 n. 48.

. After thoroughly reviewing the decisions dealing with the guarantee clause, the Court observed that it has long "refused to resort to the Guaranty Clause ... as the source of a constitutional standard for invalidating state action.” Baker v. Carr, supra note 11, 369 U.S. at 223, 82 S.Ct. at 713. The Court noted that guarantee-clause claims involve those elements which define a political question and, for that reason and no other, are nonjusticiable. While in Baker the Court intimates there may be instances in which the guarantee clause might be implicated, it does not say the guarantee clause is justiciable.
Shortly after Baker, in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964), the Court held on equal protection grounds that certain apportionment plans in Alabama were unconstitutional. Reynolds reaffirmed two fundamental points in Baker, supra note 11, i.e., that reapportionment issues are fundamentally equal protection issues and that the guarantee clause is irrelevant to the problems of reapportionment.
In Gregory v. Ashcroft, — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 2395, 115 L.Ed.2d 410 (1991), the Court referred to the guarantee of a republican form of government in discussing "the States’ constitutional power to establish the qualifications” "of their most important government officials.” Id., — U.S. at-and-, 111 S.Ct. at 2401 and 2402. There, the Court was dealing with a preemption problem: whether Congress’ 1974 amendment of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 — which extended the Act’s substantive provisions to include the states as employers — took states out of the arena of legislating mandatory retirement age for its state judges. The Court held that judges were not included within the Act’s definition of an employee. Unless Congress clearly removes states from that arena, the Court announced, there is no federal preemption under the Supremacy Clause, Art. 6, U.S. Const. Preemption deals with congressional power to legislate to the exclusion of the states on subjects upon which Congress has the power to make law — i.e., bankruptcy, interstate commerce and Indian commerce power. Congress draws its power from the federal constitution which limits its authority to properly reserved subjects. Id., Ill S.Ct. at 2400. No preemption problem is presented by the initiative measure under consideration here. Ashcroft lends no support to the notion of guarantee-clause claims’ justiciability.

. 446 U.S. 156, 182 n. 17, 100 S.Ct. 1548, 1564, 64 L.Ed.2d 119 (1980).

. Brown v. State Election Board, Okl., 369 P.2d 140, 149 (1962), citing Colegrove v. Green, supra note 22; Pacific States Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Oregon, supra note 20; Luther v. Borden, supra note 19.

. See, e.g., Luther v. Borden, supra note 19; Pacific States Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Oregon, supra note 20; Colegrove v. Green, supra note 22; Baker v. Carr, supra note 11.

. For state and lower federal court decisions that have disregarded the rule of nonjusticiability see, e.g., In re Interrogatories Propounded by Senate, Etc., 189 Colo. 1, 536 P.2d 308 (1975); People of City of Thornton v. Horan, 192 Colo. 144, 556 P.2d 1217 (1976); Vansickle v. Shanahan, 212 Kan. 426, 511 P.2d 223 (1973); Heimerl v. Ozaukee Cty., 256 Wis. 151, 40 N.W.2d 564 (1949); Hoxie School Dist. v. Brewer, 137 F.Supp. 364 (E.D.Ark.1956). If the avenue of relief must come from the Congress, we are without any warrant to usurp the congressional power. The jurisprudence of state and lower federal courts is neither authority to nor persuasive upon this court.

. Neither Baker v. Carr, supra note 11, nor other Supreme Court jurisprudence has provided us with any standards or parameters for review of the Guarantee Clause.

. We will not anticipate federal constitutional jurisprudence in advance of necessity. Brown v. State Election Board, supra note 29 at 152.

. Art. 6, cl. 2, U.S. Const.; McLin v. Trimble, Okl., 795 P.2d 1035, 1044-1045 n. 5 (1990) (Opala, V.C.J., dissenting).

. United States v. Home Federal S. & L. Ass’n of Tulsa, Okl., 418 P.2d 319, 325 (1966); Dean v. Crisp, Okl.Cr., 536 P.2d 961, 963 (1975); McLin v. Trimble, supra note 34 at 1044-1045 n. 5 (Opala, V.C.J., dissenting); see also Walker v. Maruffi, 105 N.M. 763, 737 P.2d 544, 547 (App.1987).

. When we invoke the federal constitution, our power cannot be any greater than that of the U.S. Supreme Court. While state courts have the same power to make federal constitutional jurisprudence that federal courts have, they cannot exceed it. Until the Court tells us that the guarantee clause is enforceable and gives us a standard for gauging conformity to it, we cannot ourselves fashion a federal constitutional remedy.

. Kennedy Wholesale v. Bd. of Equalization, 53 Cal.3d 245, 279 Cal.Rptr. 325, 332, 806 P.2d 1360, 1367 (Cal.1991) (Mosk, J., concurring).