Court Opinion

ID: 9765655
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:12:18.543989+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:54:09.363959
License: Public Domain

GONZALEZ, Justice,
dissenting.
Pattilou Dawkins, a member of the MHMR board, is free to be a candidate for President of the United States, United States Senator, member of Congress, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Railroad Commissioner, county judge, county commissioner, mayor, and numerous other offices. Today, however, the Court declares that Ms. Dawkins is not free to run for the Texas Legislature.
The Court states that it is compelled and duty bound to follow what seems to me to be a ridiculous judicial gloss contained in this court’s past interpretations of an ambiguous provision of the Texas Constitution. I would overrule or modify the decisions relied on by the Court and hold that an MHMR board member does not hold a “lucrative office” as defined by article III, section 19 of the Texas Constitution.1 Furthermore, the fact that section 19’s prohibition affects certain offices and not others raises some serious equal protection and First Amendment questions regarding its constitutionality. The Court did not address these constitutional questions, because Ms. Dawkins did not raise them. However, in an appropriate case, we will have to address them.
I believe that the Court has erred by relying on improvident precedent to give article III, section 19 an overbroad interpretation fraught with constitutional problems.
Article III, section 19 provides that:
No judge of any court, Secretary of State, Attorney General, clerk of any court of record, or any person holding a lucrative office under the United States, or this State, or any foreign government shall during the term for which he is elected or appointed, be eligible to the Legislature.
(emphasis added).
In the over 100 years that this provision has been in existence, the Texas Legislature has not adopted a comparable provision to bar candidacy for any other office.
The fundamental issues in this case depend on how we interpret the scope of the prohibition under article III, section 19. The broadest interpretation of this provision would disqualify someone from running for the legislature if he or she holds a “lucrative” office which, according to the Court, is one for which the legislature denominates payment as “compensation” rather than “reimbursement.” This simplistic analysis of the constitutional provision is the basis for today’s inequitable holding. Thus, the legislature’s choice of words, not the amount of money involved, determines whether a job is “lucrative.” If the legislature designated $30,000 remuneration for an office as reimbursement, then that job would not be “lucrative,” and the officeholder could run for the legislature. But if the legislature designated $1 as payment for a particular position, and called it compensation, then that office is “lucrative” and prohibits candidacy. I object to hinging the right of public spirited officeholders like Ms. Dawkins to run for the legislature on the legislatively-selected label placed on an office’s remuneration.2
*452If possible, we should adopt an interpretation of section 19 that preserves the principle, recently reiterated by this court, “that constitutional provisions which restrict the right to hold public office should be strictly construed against ineligibility.” Brown v. Meyer, 787 S.W.2d 42, 45 (Tex.1990); see also Sears v. Bayoud, 786 S.W.2d 248, 251 (Tex.1990). We can construe section 19 to preserve Brown v. Meyer’s directive by applying section 19 only to those offices which are the holder’s principal, if not exclusive, occupation. Compensation is relevant in that these offices provide a livelihood so that the officeholder can dedicate his or her efforts exclusively to the work required. The MHMR board of which Ms. Dawkins is a member meets about four times a year, and the $30 per diem she receives does little to change the essentially charitable nature of her service. Under this preferable interpretation of section 19, Ms. Dawkins would not be prohibited from running. We should permit neither sketchy history nor poor precedent to steamroll Ms. Dawkins’ rights; but the Court does just that.
The Court states that the amendment’s history supports the Court’s result, asserting that section 19 is descended from a 1707 English statute that prohibited employees of the Crown from serving in the House of Commons. Majority opinion at 448. That statute, however, essentially proscribed dual officeholding; it said nothing of the rights of a Crown employee to run for the House of Commons. The policy advanced by this historical reference seeks, as the Court notes, to preserve the separation of powers by preventing dual office-holding. This policy argument neither fits this case nor supports the Court’s decision to deny Ms. Dawkins’ candidacy. For Ms. Dawkins is not seeking to hold two offices at the same time. Reading the Texas Constitution as a whole, which we must do, reveals that article III, section 19 is not principally a prohibition against dual office-holding, because that problem is addressed by other articles of our constitution. Tex. Const, art. XVI, §§ 12, 33, 40. These other constitutional provisions would compel Ms. Dawkins, upon election to the legislature, to resign her position with MHMR. These provisions also indicate that section 19 must stand for something other than separation of powers.
The United States Supreme Court analyzed article III, section 19 in Clements v. Fashing, 457 U.S. 957, 102 S.Ct. 2836, 73 L.Ed.2d 508 (1982). Clements involved several justices of the peace running for the legislature. They challenged section 19 on First Amendment and equal protection grounds, and a plurality of the court held that section 19 did not violate the United States Constitution. 457 U.S. at 971, 102 S.Ct. at 2848. The court concluded that a rational predicate for the “temporary” denial of candidacy existed due to: 1) Texas’ interest in maintaining the integrity of the judiciary; 2) the likelihood that the demands of a political campaign would tempt a judge to devote less than was required by his or her current office; and 3) the need to discourage a judge from leaving office before the end of the term. 457 U.S. at 968, 102 S.Ct. at 2846. These three purposes are ill-served (or irrationally served) by the group of officeholders covered by section 19. Only those officeholders whose terms happen to overlap with the legislative term are prohibited from running for the legislature. Those whose terms do not overlap with that of the legislature are left free to campaign for the legislature while remaining in office. See Chapa v. Whittle, 536 S.W.2d 681 (Tex.Civ.App.—Corpus Christi 1976, no writ).
Additionally, if these are legitimate state interests, then why do they only apply to officeholders who run for the legislature and not to those running for other offices? And why do these interests only limit the rights of an officeholder whose term overlaps the legislative term? And what of a federal judge who is appointed to a lifetime position; is he or she forever precluded from running for the state legislature, despite resignation from the judicial post. What if an officeholder like Ms. Dawkins waives compensation? In my opinion, it is very questionable whether the classifications embodied in section 19 have any *453meaningful relationship to the state interests expressed in Clements.
The plurality in Clements carefully limited its holding to the case before it. In short, it found a sufficient state interest in maintaining the integrity of the judiciary to satisfy an equal protection analysis; but the plurality pointedly observed that such an interest would not necessarily be as compelling when applied to other state officeholders. Clements, 457 U.S. at 966 n. 3, 968 n. 5, 102 S.Ct. at 2845 n. 3, 2846 n. 5.
The dissent in Clements was not as charitable. In particular, it questioned whether our court’s decision in Lee v. Daniels, 377 S.W.2d 618 (Tex.1964), created equal protection and First Amendment problems and whether the state interests advanced by the amendment as interpreted would pass even minimal scrutiny. 457 U.S. at 980 n. 4, 102 S.Ct. at 2852 n. 4 (Brennan, J., dissenting). Justice Brennan commented that section 19, as interpreted in our prior opinions, served no purpose but to function as a legislative incumbent’s protection “act.” Clements, 457 U.S. at 979, 102 5,Ct. at 2852. He concluded that “[t]he only conceivable state interest in barring these candidacies would be the impermissible one of protecting Texas legislative seats against outside competition.” Id. I agree; and because such a policy cannot have been the intent of the framers and ratifiers of our constitution, we must reexamine whether this provision as interpreted by existing precedent frustrates rather than effectuates the framers’ conceivable intent.3
In 1964, this court rendered two decisions within a week of one another whose misguided interpretations of section 19 unfortunately shape today’s holding. See Willis v. Potts, 377 S.W.2d 622 (Tex 1964); Lee v. Daniels, 377 S.W.2d 618 (Tex.1964). First, the court held in Lee that even after an officeholder resigns from office, the candidate is not eligible to run for the legislature if the term of the original office overlaps with the legislative term. 377 S.W.2d at 619-20. This ludicrous decision had an unfortunate impact on this case. Ms. Dawkins stated at oral argument that, but for our holding in Lee, she would have resigned from the MHMR board before announcing her candidacy for the legislature. Thus, I would remove this unwise impediment to elective office and overrule Lee and its progeny.
Second, this court held in Willis v. Potts that a “lucrative” office is one in which an officeholder receives any “compensation,” no matter how insignificant. 377 S.W.2d at 627. In Willis, a city councilman who received ten dollars per day compensation, not to exceed $520 in total, was determined to be ineligible to run for the Texas Senate. 377 S.W.2d at 627. The councilman argued that the per diem was not adequate to compensate him for the time he spent discharging his duties, and therefore he did not hold a “lucrative office” within the meaning of the constitution. Willis, 377 S.W.2d at 623. The court disagreed and determined that he was ineligible under the amendment without considering the underlying purpose of the amendment and the nature of the office involved. The court cited with approval Baker v. Board of Comm’rs, a 1900 Wyoming Supreme Court case. 9 Wyo. 51, 59 P. 797 (1900). Perhaps ten dollars a day in 1900 was “lucrative,” but it is ridiculous to assert such by today’s standards. In my opinion, Willis and its predecessors and progeny should be overruled. See, e.g., Kirk v. Gordon, 376 S.W.2d 560 (Tex.1964); Burroughs v. Lyles, 142 Tex. 704, 181 S.W.2d 570 (1944).
The Court has concluded that precedent compels today’s decision. While the doc*454trine of stare decisis shapes this court’s decision-making, it does not render our rules immutable.4 To the contrary, there are rare occasions when “[t]here are justifiable escapes and liberations from the rigidities and inflexibilities of stare decisis.” United States v. Cocke, 399 F.2d 433, 448 (5th Cir.1968). In the words of Justice Cardozo:
Through one agency or another, either by statute or by decision, rules, however well established, must be revised when they are found after fair trial to be inconsistent in their workings with an attainment of the ends which [the] law is meant to serve. The revision is a delicate task, not to be undertaken by gross or adventurous hands, lest certainty and order be unduly sacrificed, yet a task also not to be shirked through timidity or sloth.
Cocke, 399 F.2d at 448 (quoting Cardozo, The GROWTH of the Law 120 (1924)).
In my opinion, this case favors a rare departure from the doctrine of stare deci-sis. Reflexive reliance upon the doctrine forces the Court to reach an unjust and irrational result, and to grant a judgment which it is loath to render. If the Court is not willing to reconsider whether we wrongly decided our earlier decisions on this question, we will forever be burdened with these misguided holdings. In most situations, if the legislature disagrees with the law we announce, it may simply pass a new statute. If necessary, the legislature can submit a proposal for a constitutional amendment to the people. As previously noted, there is in this case, understandably no motivation for incumbents in the legislature to muster the necessary two-thirds vote to allow the people of Texas to vote on whether to annul section 19. If stare deci-sis is viewed as precluding further review, unless the United States Supreme Court decides that the provision as applied violates the United States Constitution, we are forever condemned to repeat our original mistake.5
Though I think the Court has reached the wrong result, I concur with one point in its opinion. Ms. Dawkins asserts that her expenses exceeded any remuneration and therefore the position is not “lucrative.” I agree that this “net profit” test would prove to be an unworkable standard. The amount of “net profit,” or even the total amount of compensation, cannot be a litmus test to determine whether a particular position is a lucrative office; but it may be indicative of whether the office is one intended to be within the prohibition of article III, section 19. For example, a Railroad. Commissioner with an appropriated salary of over $74,000, and whose duties contemplate sustained day-to-day effort, clearly is precluded from running for the legislature while still in office. At the other extreme, Ms. Dawkins, who receives $30 per day for a few days’ service per year, would not come within the prohibition.
Finally, our goal is to give effect to the original intent of article III, section 19, if it can be discerned. We must perhaps rhetorically ask whether the people of Texas truly intended to delay the entry into the legislature of public spirited persons who serve on State boards for only token compensation. Permitting Ms. Dawkins to remain on the ballot would not produce any injurious or unjust consequences. Since we can give constitutional effect to section 19 without violating our stated presumption against finding a potential candidate ineligible to run, we should allow Ms. Daw-kins’ candidacy and liberate our elective process from the unwise precedents this court has previously and imprudently imposed.
*455I am convinced that today’s decision sadly will deprive us of the service of persons who have a demonstrable public spirit without appreciably advancing any significant state interest. Although I am aware that we should not abandon precedent lightly, I am also convinced that we need not endure bad law in order to pristinely preserve the doctrine of stare decisis. Since, we can more precisely tailor our interpretation of article III, section 19 to advance legitimate state concerns, thereby giving greater effect to the constitutional rights of candidates and voters, we should do so.
For the foregoing reasons, I would grant Ms. Dawkins’ petition for writ of mandamus.
HIGHTOWER, J., joins this opinion.

. The Court laments the harshness of its holding by stating that "the power to change such a result by amending our constitution lies not in our hands, but in the hands of the sovereign people of the State of Texas.” Majority opinion at 450. However, in all likelihood, the sovereign people of the State of Texas will never have the opportunity to repeal this provision. It takes the affirmative vote of two-thirds of both houses for a proposed amendment to be submitted to the people for a vote; and since there is no incentive for incumbents to increase the pool of their possible competition, the reality is that such a bill would die in committee. See Tex. Const, art. XVII, § 1.

. Under today's holding, if Ms. Dawkins, rather than being on the board of MHMR, was Assistant Chief of Protocol for the government of Kuwait for $1.00 per year or the Vice-Consul of Liechtenstein for the same remuneration, she would be ineligible to run for the legislature.

. If incumbent protection was the intent of this provision, it is illegitimate and cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny. The Court states that *‘[t]he intent behind article III, section 19 [is] to holster the separation of powers....” Majority opinion at 448. The Court cites no primary authority for this statement. In reality, the true purpose of article III, section 19 is unclear, and the Court is forced to admit as much upon concluding that "Ms. Dawkins’ interpretation of article III, section 19 runs counter to what we perceive to he the intent of the framers_” Majority opinion at 449. Because the Court cannot cite any historical analysis of the debates or other evidence of the framers' intent, the Court is forced to guess what that intent might have been.

. As the court noted in Gutierrez v. Collins, 583 S.W.2d 312, 317 (Tex.1979):
[T]he doctrine of stare decisis does not stand as an insurmountable bar to overruling precedent. Stare decisis prevents change for the sake of change; it does not prevent any change at all. It creates a strong presumption in favor of the established law; it does not render that law immutable. Indeed, the genius of the common law rests in its ability to change, to recognize when a timeworn rule no longer serves the needs of society, and to modify the rule accordingly,

. When the trail down the mountain comes to a cliff, it is time to search for a new trail, and we ought to do this ourselves without having it done for us by the United States Supreme Court.