Court Opinion

ID: 9756634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:43:19.917875+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:56:58.411282
License: Public Domain

LEDERBERG, Justice,
dissenting.
I am of the opinion that the state committees of political parties do not have the statu*733tory authority to nominate, after the filing deadline, candidates for office except in the event of the death, removal from the jurisdiction, or disability of a nominee subsequent to a primary election. Because none of these circumstances obtained in the instant ease, the petition for certiorari should have been denied.
Prior to June 1, 1988, Rhode Island had in place precisely the mechanism that the majority claims is embodied in G.L.1956 (1988 Reenactment) § 17-12-2(3). General Laws 1956 (1981 Reenactment) § 17 — 14^17.1, as amended by P.L.1983, ch. 243, § 1 provided in pertinent part:
“Filling vacancy upon failure to qualify. — In the event no one qualifies for an office to be voted upon at any such primary, the state committee of that party or a duly authorized subcommittee thereof in the ease of state officers and the appropriate city, town, ward or district committee or any duly authorized subcommittee thereof in the case of candidates for the other offices covered by Section 17-15-7, may file with the appropriate authority provided by chapter 17 of this title the name of its nominee for said office * *
Contrary to the statement in the majority’s opinion that it is not possible to determine the intent of the General Assembly evidenced by its repeal of this statute, there exists in this instance clear documentation of the legislative intent that served as the basis for the State Board of Elections’ decision. In 1987 a special legislative commission reported on the length of the election process in Rhode Island and addressed the then-existing practice of withdrawals and filling of vacancies. The report stated:
“The Commission feels that the labyrint-hian provisions of the present law providing for withdrawals and filling of vacancies at various stages of the election process have no legitimate purpose. Candidates should genuinely intend to be candidates and filings and withdrawals amount to political games and serve no public purpose. All these provisions in the election law, except one, should be eliminated. The only provision that should remain is the provision for filling of vacancies in the case of a candidate’s death, incapacity, or moving from the district.” Report of the Commission to Study the Length of the Election Process, 3-4 (January 27, 1987).
After the commission released its report and after legislation was submitted to implement its recommendations, the General Assembly repealed § 17-14-17.1 on July 1, 1987, to be effective June 1, 1988. P.L.1987, ch. 389, § 7, § 12. Since that date, the State Board of Elections (board) has upheld the Legislature’s intent by not allowing state committees to fill the nominations for an office after the local committee has failed to do so in a timely fashion unless the vacancy resulted from the death, absence from the jurisdiction or disability of the original nominee. The majority’s opinion reverses seven years of consistent implementation of that intent by the board and instead introduces uncertainty and disruption into the election process.
The circumstances in which a state committee may appoint a candidate are clear. General Laws 1956 (1988 Reenactment) § 17-15-38, as amended by P.L.1991, ch. 173, § 1, provides in pertinent part:
“Vacancies among nominees. — Whenever the nominee of a party for a particular office dies after the primary or removes him or herself from the jurisdiction of or as a candidate for the office for which the nominee seeks election or becomes physically or mentally disabled, the state committee of that party or a duly authorized subcommittee thereof in the case of state officers, and the appropriate city, town, ward, or district committee or any duly authorized subcommittee thereof in the case of candidates for the other offices covered by § 17-15-7, may file with the appropriate authority the name of its nominee for the office * * *.”
Since the repeal of § 17-14-17.1, the board has not permitted state committees to make nominations for an office upon the failure of candidates of their parties to file or to qualify for public office. The General Assembly, in its repeal of § 17-14-17.1, has made clear that vacancies may be filled only in the event of the extraordinary circumstances listed in § 17-15-38.
*734Basic to the rules of statutory construction is the principle that statutes affecting related subjects should be interpreted to provide consistency (In re Falstaff Brewing Corp., 637 A.2d 1047, 1051 (R.I.1994)) and to effectuate the purposes intended by the Legislature. Nascimento v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 115 R.I. 395, 346 A.2d 657 (1975). The ruling of the State Board of Elections clearly accomplished these objectives. Section 17-12-2(3) must be read together with § 17-15-38. This court assumes that the Legislature intended that statutes in pari materia be construed together to be consistent and to effectuate the policy of the law. Rhode Island State Police Lodge No. 25 v. State, 485 A.2d 1245, 1247 (R.I.1984). When these statutes are interpreted together, it is apparent that § 17-12-2(3) addresses the filing of a nomination by the state committee of a political party before the nomination deadline, whereas § 17-15-38 addresses the filing of a nomination when certain specific events occur after the deadline. To hold, as the majority does, that § 17-12-2(3) permits the filing of a nomination after the deadline has passed, is to make § 17-15-38 surplusage, inasmuch as a state committee, according to the majority, would already possess the powers listed in that statute. The majority has in effect transmogrified § 17-12-2(3) into the repealed § 17-14-17.1. The plain language of § 17-12-2(3), however, does not permit a state committee to make such appointments beyond the deadline established by the board pursuant to its statutory authority under G.L.1956 (1988 Reenactment) § 17-14-11, as amended by P.L.1991, ch. 277, § 2. Section 17-12-2(3) merely authorizes a state committee to make nominations for any local office for which no nomination has been made. Section 17-12-2(3) does not permit a state party to step in and make nominations after the established deadline, nor does it grant the power to fill vacancies, as § 17-14H7.1 had done. In the case at bar, the nominations were made, but they were not timely and hence were not certified to the Secretary of State’s office.
The majority’s stated “principal concern” that voters of the town of Jamestown would be “disenfranchised” unless presented with a “choice among candidates endorsed by the major political parties” is far from convincing. For many years, substantial numbers of offices in general elections have not offered voters a “choice” of candidates from the “major” parties. Moreover, because an independent candidate for President in 1992 garnered 23 percent of the Rhode Island votes for President and a Cool Moose Party candidate for Governor in 1994 won 9 percent of the vote, the majority’s implication that only Democratic and Republican candidates qualify for consideration as candidates of a “major party” fails to recognize recent electoral history and raises the spectre of an “equal protection” melee among the parties in their scramble for placement on the ballot.
In any case, the voters of Jamestown have not been “disenfranchised.” Any rights that arguably may be at stake are not those of the voters but of the rejected candidates, who might claim that their rights to candidacy were infringed. Courts, however, have generally upheld requirements for candidacy such as filing deadlines and the collection of nominating signatures.1 Jamestown voters are clearly not disenfranchised by having only one candidate for certain offices, an occurrence that is frequent in Rhode Island elections. The voters may vote for a listed candidate, may write in a candidate of their choice, or may not vote for any candidate, irrespective of the number of candidates for a given office.
This is not a case of deciphering a “legislative intent to disenfranchise voters,” clearly an unconstitutional result. Rather, this is a case in which the Legislature set forth minimal requirements for candidacy for office which a group of candidates failed to meet.
In its ruling today, the majority returns the voters of Rhode Island to a time when “filings and withdrawals amount[ed] to political games and serve[d] no public purpose.” Report of the Commission at 3. The majori*735ty’s holding will allow a state committee to place a name on the ballot at any time before an election — a day, a week, a month or an hour. Any semblance of predictability or stability in the election system has been destroyed. Candidates with whom the voters are unfamiliar can suddenly appear on the ballot, at any time, in a ghostly fashion, with no forewarning and at the whim of a state committee or, practically speaking, the party chair. The majority’s de facto resurrection of § 17-14-17.1 in the form of the transmu-tated § 17-12-2(3) is an invitation to Democratic, Republican, Independent and other parties’ state committees to ignore filing deadlines and attempt to gain as much political advantage as possible by manipulating the nominating process. The General Assembly had created strict and explicit rules to avoid such occurrences. Unfortunately, the majority rejects the Legislature’s considered decision and instead substitutes its own view of how the process should take place.
In Malinou v. Board of Elections, 108 R.I. 20, 26, 271 A.2d 798, 801 (1970), this court pointed out that “The Rhode Island constitution vests in the General Assembly the exclusive jurisdiction over the manner of conducting elections.” After recognizing this constitutional authority, the court concluded:
“This court is duty bound to give due regard to the election laws of this state and give them full force and effect. * * * If the result appears to some to be harsh, the remedy is to be found in the state house not the courthouse." (Emphasis added.) Id. at 35, 271 A2d at 805.
The Democrats’ unfortunate lapse in handing their papers to the Clerk of the Board of Canvassers for the Town of Jamestown before 4:00 p.m. on March 6, 1995, made that party slate ineligible in the 1995 election. Denial of candidacy is a harsh result, but this court should not rewrite the state election laws in order to grant absolution. As this court has pointed out, forgiveness should be found at the State House where the Legislature has the legitimate authority to remedy the candidates’ plight.
Therefore, I respectfully dissent with respect to the majority’s interpretation of § 17-12-2(3), although I concur with its assumption that the members of the Republican Town Committee had standing to invoke the jurisdiction of the board.

. The majority opinion does not distinguish between the requirement to meet a filing deadline and the failure to gather the requisite number of signatures on nomination papers, or to comply with any of the rules for candidacy — rules with which the failure to comply obligatorily leads to a similar "disenfranchisement."