Court Opinion

ID: 9607956
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:03:56.404309+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:42.032988
License: Public Domain

DURHAM, J.,
concurring.
This is the first ballot title challenge decided under the 1995 amendment to ORS 250.035 and 250.085, which *238replaced the former “question” element of a ballot title with separate statements describing the results of “yes” and “no” votes on the measure. Or Laws 1995, ch 534, § 1.
In Rooney v. Kulongoski (Elections Division #13), 322 Or 15, 25, 902 P2d 1143 (1995), a majority of this court held that ORS 250.085 (1993), which required this court to review and, if necessary, modify ballot titles prepared by the Attorney General, did not offend the separation of powers principle described in Article III, section 1, of the Oregon Constitution. That section provides:
“The powers of the Government shall be divided into three seperate (sic) departments, the Legislative, the Executive, including the administrative, and the Judicial; and no person charged with official duties under one of these departments, shall exercise any of the functions of another, except as in this Constitution expressly provided.”
Justice Unis dissented in Rooney, concluding that drafting and certifying a ballot title for an initiative measure is not a judicial fimction and, for that reason, is not a duty that the legislature can impose on officers of the judicial branch of government. Rooney, 322 Or at 55 (Unis, J., dissenting). I joined Justice Unis’ dissent.
The 1995 amendment to ORS 250.085 contains the same flaw that Justice Unis identified in Rooney in his discussion of the former version of that statute. For at least two reasons, the rationale expressed in the majority opinion in Rooney is not a sufficient answer to the separation of powers problem that infects the 1995 amendment to ORS 250.085. First, Rooney’s conclusion that, in drafting and certifying a new ballot title, the court is carrying out only “classic adjudicatory functions,” 322 Or at 29, contradicts the court’s premise for its discussion of the separation of powers issue, i.e., “that the preparation of a ballot title is a legislative function.” Id. at 25 (emphasis added). One may debate the Rooney court’s suggestion that drafting a new ballot title for an initiative measure resembles the judicial function of granting a remedy in an adjudication. However, the reasoning process that produced the majority’s conclusion, which those two quoted passages exemplify, simply fails to withstand analysis.
*239Second, the Rooney majority concluded that ballot titles are helpful to the initiative process and, for that reason, the statutory requirement in ORS 250.085 that the court redraft and certify a new ballot title is valid “law not inconsistent” with Article IV, section l(4)(b), of the Oregon Constitution, which provides:
“Initiative and referendum measures shall be submitted to the people as provided in this section and by law not inconsistent therewith.”
Rooney, 322 Or at 25. Unlike the Rooney majority, I am unwilling to read that section to authorize the legislature to adopt legislation compelling judicial officers to perform a nonjudicial function in violation of Article III, section 1. Under that section, only by authority of an express provision of the constitution may a judicial officer perform a nonjudicial function. The “law not inconsistent” clause of Article IV, section l(4)(b) is not such an express provision.
For the reasons expressed above and in Justice Unis’ dissent in Rooney, I continue to believe that the current version of ORS 250.085 violates the separation of powers principle in Article III, section 1. However, the majority regards Rooney as controlling on that question. Until a majority of this court modifies its view or the legislature modifies the statutory scheme, a repetition of my dissenting opinion would serve no constructive purpose. Accordingly, I concur in the majority’s result.