Court Opinion

ID: 9774030
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:07:09.092039+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:49:48.633433
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, dissenting. I believe the ballot title is sufficient and I would deny the injunction. The proponents have obtained the requisite number of signatures (assuming their validity) within the time limits set by law. The popular name and ballot title are notably free of slanted phrasing or partisan coloring. True, the proposed amendment is long and complex and every detail is not covered, but there is no indication the ballot title does not fairly and adequately inform the voter of the scope and import of the proposal. It should be approved. The two deficiencies of the ballot title cited by the majority are, one, its length and, two, its failure to fully inform the voters concerning the composition of the Ratepayers Utility Board (RUB). The proposal itself is long, perhaps too long, but nowhere do I find precedent for the view that length alone can be so crucial as to put the proposal in jeopardy of the courts, as opposed to the voters. I disagree that Newton v. Hall, 196 Ark. 930, 120 S.W.2d 364 (1968) can be read as holding the length of the ballot title poses “a serious objection.” The challenge there was to the brevity of the ballot title, not its length, and we upheld it in that case even though it was longer than this one (735 words against 707). Justice Frank G. Smith, author of Newton v. Hall, observed that the length of the ballot title “like this opinion,” rather than its brevity, was the more serious question, noting that a voter could not read many such ballot titles in the 5 minutes allowed him in the voting booth. But that casual language, rendered in a lighter vein, should hardly be treated as a precedent for the proposition that length itself can render a ballot title defective. Justice Smith’s words were not even dictum, but merely a polemic response to an appellant who was arguing that the ballot title was incomplete. The troubling thing about the majority opinion is an inability to settle on whether the ballot title is too long or too short. In one breath, it suggests the voters cannot intelligently consider a ballot title of such length in the 3 minutes allowed by Ark. Stat. Ann. § 3-1221 (Repl. 1976) for voting machine occupancy, at the same time finding it fatally defective because it omits essential details about the Ratepayers Utility Board. But we have told the public again and again that the ballot title need not be exhaustive or elaborate and, indeed, should not be. In Coleman v. Sherrill, 189 Ark. 843, 75 S.W.2d 248 and Walton v. McDonald, 192 Ark. 1155, 97 S.W.2d 81 (1936), we said: “It may be observed that if the ballot title were intended to be so elaborate as to set forth all the details of the act, the publication or advertisement might, for that very obvious reason, be omitted. Perhaps, no set rule or formula can be announced as to what a ballot title shall contain, but it may be safely stated that, if it shall identify the proposed act and shall fairly allege the general purposes thereof, it is sufficient.” (My italics.) In Reynolds v. Hall, 222 Ark. 478, 261 S.W.2d 405, we upheld the ballot title saying a ballot title need not contain a synopsis of the act nor even explain to the voter that a tax is imposed by the proposal. In Newton v. Hall, supra, language of Chief Justice McSherry was cited with approval: “It never has been understood that the title of a statute should disclose the details embodied in the Act. It is intended simply to indicate the subject to which the statute relates. . . . When the general subject is indicated no matters of detail need be mentioned in the title.” (See Baltimore v. Stewart, 92 Md. 535, 48 Atl. 165). By this opinion we are abandoning the mandate of our cases that Amendment 7 be given a liberal construction in determining the sufficiency of the ballot title in favor of a narrow interpretation. Becker v. Riviere, 270 Ark. 219, 604 S.W.2d 555 (1980). The likely consequence is that sponsors of future proposals will be discouraged in the attempt and, hence, this useful part of our political system weakened. How will proponents of future proposals know which details we will select as essential to the ballot title when we have said repeatedly the only requirements are that it shall be complete enough to convey an intelligible idea of the scope and import of the proposal and free of partisanship and any misleading tendency, whether of amplification, or omission, or fallacy? Bradley v. Hall, 220 Ark. 925, 251 S.W.2d 470 (1952). Our cases can be interpreted as holding that mere omissions from the ballot title are not fatal, so long as they are not misleading or deceptive. The majority concedes the good faith of the sponsors of this proposal yet denies them access to the ballot notwithstanding the prior approval of the ballot title by the Attorney General, who made changes of his own. We have held his approval to be significant and worthy of added consideration. When that occurs we will deny the proposal a place on the ballot only where the deficiencies are obvious. Mason v. Jernigan, 260 Ark. 385, 540 S.W.2d 851 (1976) and Fletcher v. Bryant, 243 Ark. 872, 422 S.W.2d 698 (1968). I cannot find this ballot title to be clearly deficient simply because of its length or because of the absence of every detail respecting the selection of the Ratepayers Utility Board. Our system contemplates that the elective process itself will provide a vital part of the political dialogue by which the voter becomes informed on ballot issues and by which he comes to a decision as to how he will vote. The right to change laws under Amendment 7 procedures belongs to him and we ought to be reluctant indeed to deprive him of it. When we deny, on slender grounds, the electorate the right to pass on Amendment 7 proposals, however dubious we might be of the proposal, we do a disservice to a fundamental concept of self-government. Purtle, J., joins in this dissent.