Court Opinion

ID: 9707428
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:11:28.069006+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:32.683230
License: Public Domain

Todd, Justice
(dissenting).
I must dissent from the majority opinion in so far as it holds that that portion of the amendment adopted by the Minnesota voters in 1970 dealing with age requirements to hold public office does not violate the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution. The amend*384ment in question was submitted to the voters of Minnesota pursuant to L. 1969, c. 996, which reads as follows:

“An act proposing an amendment to Article VII, Section 1 and Section 7, of the State Constitution to reduce the age requirement for voting to 19 years and establish an age requirement for elective public office.

“Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota:
“Section 1. There is hereby proposed to the people of the state for their approval or rejection an amendment to Article VII, Sections 1 and 7, of the Constitution to reduce the age requirement for voting from 21 to 19 years and provide an age requirement of 21 years to hold elective public office, which sections if amended will read as follows:
“Section 1. Every person of the age of (TWENTY-ONE) 19 years or more who has been a citizen of the United States for three months and who has resided in this state six months and in the precinct for thirty days next preceding an election shall be entitled to vote in that precinct, and the place of voting by one otherwise qualified who has changed his residence within thirty days preceding the election may be prescribed by law.
“Sec. 7. Every person who by the provisions of this article shall be entitled to vote at any election and is twenty-one years of age shall be eligible to any office which now is, or hereafter shall be, elective by the people in the district wherein he shall have resided thirty days previous to such election, except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, or the Constitution and law of the United States.
“Sec. 2. The proposed amendment shall be submitted to the people at the general election for the year 1970 in the manner provided by law. The question to be submitted to the people is:
“ ‘Shall the Constitution of the State be amended to reduce the age requirement for voting from 21 to 19 years and provide an age requirement of 21 years to hold elective public office?
“ ‘Yes-
No-’
“Approved June 6,1969.”
The stated purpose is to lower the voting age to 19 years and to establish an age requirement of 21 years for elective public office. The act is directed solely to art. 7, §§ 1 and 7, of our constitution. The act makes no reference to art. 4, § 25, of our constitution which provides as follows:
“Senators and representatives shall be qualified voters of the State, *385and shall have resided one year in the State and six months immediately preceding the election in the district from which they are elected.”
It must be presumed that the legislature was fully cognizant of all the provisions of our constitution at the time of the adoption of L. 1969, c. 996. To hold that art. 4, § 25, was included in the question submitted to the voters of Minnesota, and passed upon by them, involves a stretching of judicial interpretation beyond any bounds that I know of or would be willing to concede.
As a result of the actions of the legislature and the vote of the people of Minnesota, we have attempted to amend our constitution to provide an age requirement of 21 years for elective public offices in the State of Minnesota with the exception that voters will be qualified at the age of 19 to run for election to the offices of state representative and state senator. Such a classification seems totally to fail the requirements of reasonableness established by the United States Supreme Court. Rinaldi v. Yeager, 384 U. S. 305, 308, 86 S. Ct. 1497, 1499, 16 L. ed. 2d 577, 580 (1966). See, also, Developments in the Law — Equal Protection, 82 Harv. L. Rev. 1065.
The right to hold public office has been held to be a fundamental right. Turner v. Fouche, 396 U. S. 346, 362, 90 S. Ct. 532, 541, 24 L. ed. 2d 567, 580 (1970). Where fundamental rights are involved, the state, not the person claiming infringement, has the burden of showing a compelling governmental interest in the classification adopted, and, absent such a showing, the state action is unconstitutional even if there is a reasonable basis for the classification. Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618, 89 S. Ct. 1322, 22 L. ed. 2d 600 (1969). See, also, Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 84 S. Ct. 1362, 12 L. ed. 2d 506 (1964).
Nor can I agree with the statement of the majority that, since the amendment applies equally to all citizens of the state, there is no discrimination against any class or group. In McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184, 191, 85 S. Ct. 283, 288, 13 L. ed. 2d 222, 228 (1964), Mr. Justice White, speaking for the court, said:
“Judicial inquiry under the Equal Protection Clause, therefore, does not end with a showing of equal application among the members of the class defined by the legislation. The courts must reach and determine the question whether the classifications drawn in a statute are reasonable in light of its purpose * * *.
“Normally, the widest discretion is allowed the legislative judgment in determining whether to attack some, rather than all, of the manifestations of the evil aimed at; and normally that judgment is given the benefit of every conceivable circumstance which might suffice to char*386acterize the classification as reasonable rather than arbitrary and invidious.”
Applying these rules of law to the instant case, I can conceive of no reasonable basis for establishing within the class of 19- and 20-year-old voters, authorized by the amendment to our constitution, a prohibition against holding all the various public offices within the State of Minnesota, except the offices of state representative and state senator. It would seem to require substantial mental gymnastics to claim that the office of city councilman in our various municipalities requires the maturity of a person aged 21 while requiring that our state legislators need be only 19.
For these reasons I would hold that that portion of the amendment adopted by the voters of our state which purports to change art. 7, § 7, is violative of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and is therefore invalid.
I would hold that appellant is entitled to have his name placed on the ballot for election to the office of city council in the city of St. Cloud. Since appellant is 19 years of age, I do not reach or discuss the effect of the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted July 7, 1971, which lowered the voting age to 18.
As stated in the majority opinion, the time element in this case precludes a thorough and complete discussion of all the constitutional elements involved, or a complete review and citation of all the authorities considered in rendering this opinion.