Court Opinion

ID: 9516460
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 23:42:55.221225+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:20.955123
License: Public Domain

STRINGER, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I would answer the certified question in the negative.
There is no dispute that appellants fulfilled the procedural requirements for placing the proposed term limits amendment on the November 8, 1994 ballot. Consequently, I believe the appropriate standard of constitutional review is the same as the standard applicable to a duly enacted legislative statute — the proposed amendment is presumed constitutional. See State v. Hamm, 423 N.W.2d 379, 380 (Minn.1988); Guilliams v. Commissioner of Revenue, 299 N.W.2d 138, 142 (Minn.1980). Accordingly, it may not be stricken unless the challenging party demonstrates that it is in violation of the constitution beyond a reasonable doubt. See Hamm, 423 N.W.2d at 380; In re Tveten, 402 N.W.2d 551, 556 (Minn.1987); City of Richfield v. Local No. 1215, Int’l Ass’n of Fire Fighters, 276 N.W.2d 42, 45 (Minn.1979).
Article VII, § 6 of the Minnesota Constitution is the starting point for determining whether the City of Minneapolis, as a home rule charter city, was required to place appellants’ proposed term limits amendment on *311the November 8, 1994 ballot. Article VII, § 6 of the Minnesota Constitution provides:
Eligibility to hold office. Every person who by the provisions of this article is entitled to vote at any election and is 21 years of age is eligible for any office elective by the people in the district wherein he has resided 30 days previous to the election, except as otherwise provided in this constitution, or the constitution and law of the United States.
Minn. Const, art. VII, § 6 (emphasis added). Following the “exception” clause to the next step, we are lead to Article XII, § 3 of the Minnesota Constitution:
Local Government; legislation affecting. The legislature may provide by law for the creation, organization, administration, consolidation, division and dissolution of local government units and their functions, for the change of boundaries thereof, for their elective and appointive officers including qualifications for office and for the transfer of county seats. A county boundary may not be changed or county seat transferred until approved in each county affected by a majority of the voters voting on the question.
Minn. Const, art. XII, § 3 (emphasis added).
The legislature, then, has constitutional authority to establish qualifications for elective office. Further, I am in agreement with the majority that if the legislature has authority to impose qualifications for elective office, so too does the City of Minneapolis as a home rule charter city. In State ex rel. Town of Lowell v. City of Crookston, 252 Minn. 526, 91 N.W.2d 81 (1958), we held
[t]he general rule is that, in matters of municipal concern, home rule cities have all the legislative power possessed by the legislature of the state, save as such power is expressly or impliedly withheld. The adoption of any charter provision contrary to the public policy of the state, as disclosed by general laws or its penal code, is also forbidden. The power conferred upon cities to frame and adopt home rule charters is limited by the provision that “such charter shall always be in harmony with and subject to the constitution and laws of the state.” But these limitations do not forbid the adoption of charter provisions as to any subject appropriate to the orderly conduct of municipal affairs, although they may differ from those of existing general laws. The adoption of such a charter is legislation.
Id. at 528, 91 N.W.2d at 83 (quoting Minn. Const, art. IV, § 36) (citations omitted).
My point of departure from the majority is first, its failure to even consider that appellants’ proposed amendment does not impose an eligibility or qualification standard for assuming or holding elective office at all. The proposed charter amendment provides in pertinent part:
Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, no person may file to be a candidate for election to a term that would cause the person to serve more than eight consecutive years in the office of Mayor or eight consecutive years in the office of City Council.
(emphasis added). The plain language of the proposal simply prohibits “filling] to be a candidate for election ⅜ * * ”, a prohibition that clearly leaves other avenues open for achieving the office — for example, through write-in vote or, in some circumstances, by appointment. If the proposed amendment were in fact an eligibility standard in violation of Minn. Const, art. VII, § 6, unless encompassed by a constitutional exception, it would prohibit the taking of office entirely. That is not at all the proposal we have here.
Next, sealing the fate of appellants’ effort to obtain a public vote on their proposal, the majority proceeds to narrowly define “qualification” for office under Minn. Const, art. XII, § 3 as “an element of performance requiring a particular ability” on the part of the candidate for office. Because the term limits provision does not relate to “a particular ability,” so the majority concludes, it must be an eligibility requirement, thus falling outside the parameters of Minn. Const, art. XII, § 3, and “manifestly unconstitutional.” The majority’s entire analysis therefore turns on the narrow definition it accords the terms “eligible” and “qualification.”
The plain meaning of the terms “eligible” and “qualification” suggests the terms are *312virtually interchangeable. In its recent decision striking down an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution that prohibited the name of an otherwise eligible candidate for Congress from appearing on the general ballot if that candidate had already served a specified number of terms, the United States Supreme Court framed the issue in terms of “whether the Constitution forbids States from adding to or altering the qualifications specifically enumerated in the Constitution.” United States Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, — U.S. —, —, 115 S.Ct. 1842, 1847, 131 L.Ed.2d 881 (U.S., 1995) (emphasis added). Indeed, the Court explicitly refers to term limits as qualifications. Id., — U.S. at —, 115 S.Ct. at 1844 (“[t]erm limits, like any other qualification for office, unquestionably restrict the ability of voters to vote for whom they wish.”). Similarly, the Court repeatedly uses the term “qualifications” to refer to the age and residence requirements for membership in the United States Congress. Id., — U.S. at —, 115 S.Ct. at 1845 (citing the “Qualifications clauses” U.S. Const, art. I, § 2, cl. 2 (establishing membership requirements applicable to the House of Representatives); U.S. Const, art. I, § 3, cl. 3 (establishing membership requirements applicable to the Senate)); see also id., — U.S. at —, 115 S.Ct. at 1849 (viewing Constitutional Convention debates as “manifesting the Framers’ intent that the qualifications in the Constitution be fixed and exclusive.”) (emphasis added); id., — U.S. at —, 115 S.Ct. at 1849 (holding “[w]e thus conclude now, as we did in Powell [v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 89 S.Ct. 1944, 23 L.Ed.2d 491 (1969) ] that history shows that, with respect to Congress, the Framers intended the Constitution to establish fixed qualifications.” (footnote omitted)). The Court ultimately holds that the challenged term limits amendment imposes an additional and unconstitutional “qualification” upon Congressional candidates, that would effect a fundamental change in the Federal constitutional framework. Id., — U.S. at —, —, 115 S.Ct. at 1845.
Moreover, a dictionary definition of the term “eligible” incorporates the term “qualified.” See, e.g., Black’s Law Dictionary 521, 1241 (6th ed. 1990) (defining “eligible” as “fit and proper to be chosen; qualified to be elected * * * * ” and defining “qualified” as “adapted; fitted; entitled; * * * eligible * * * *.”) (emphasis added)); see also Webster’s Third New Int’l Dictionary 736, 1858 (3d ed. 1961) (defining “eligible” as “fitted or qualified to be chosen or used * * * ” and defining “qualified” as “fitted (as by endowments of accomplishments) for a given purpose: competent, fit * * * eligible * * * *.”) (emphasis added)). Common usage of the two terms simply does not warrant the bright line distinction in definition the majority gives them, and certainly falls short of the applicable reasonable doubt standard.
Finally, a petition to place a term limits amendment to the City Charter on the ballot is the exercise of one of the most fundamental rights of self-governance — the right of initiative. See generally Richard B. Collins & Dale Oesterle, Structuring the Ballot Initiative: Procedures that Do and Don’t Work, 66 U.Colo.L.Rev. 47, 53-60 (1995) (discussing the history and aims of the initiative process and referring to initiatives as forms of “direct democracy”). Any curtailment of that right should be exercised with great caution. The majority would deny the right of the voters of the City of Minneapolis to east their ballots on this important issue, hinging its determination on an all too narrow definition of the term “qualification.” I disagree. I do not believe respondents have met their burden of proof of demonstrating manifest unconstitutionality beyond a reasonable doubt.