Court Opinion

ID: 9579212
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:52:40.505272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:34:35.643620
License: Public Domain

DE MUNIZ, J.,
dissenting.
ORS 260.695(4) prohibits any person from wearing a political badge, button or other insignia in a polling place. Article II, section 8, authorizes the legislature to keep elections free from “all undue influence therein, from power, bribery, tumult, and other improper conduct.” The majority decides that “other improper conduct” must be “active, demonstrably coercive conduct” and that displaying a political button or badge is a “mere passive display [.]” 140 Or App at 600. Therefore, the majority concludes, a political badge or *608button cannot constitute “other improper conduct,” and ORS 260.695(4) is “not a statute of the sort specified in Article II, section 8.” 140 Or App at 599.1 dissent.
The majority reasons from the faulty premise that a written word or symbol is passive. The buttons at issue here amply demonstrate otherwise. In the context of the 1992 election, the buttons were “fighting words” fully intended to evoke strong positive and negative reactions in viewers. Nonetheless, the majority concludes that, because the message of a badge or button is not oral, it cannot “effect undue influence by impeding, intimidating, or impermissibly inducing the exercise of the franchise.” 140 Or App at 600. With all due respect, that determination is one that the constitution permits the legislature, not the courts, to make.
The majority’s historical analysis does not persuade me otherwise. The majority concludes that, because political badges existed at the framing of the constitution but were not regulated, they cannot later be subject to restriction. The plain language of Article II, section 8, however, speaks of “other” conduct. Wearing a political badge is “other” conduct. The majority holds, however, that ejusdem generis requires that that conduct must necessarily partake of the coercive quality of “power, bribery, [and] tumult.”1 However, “power” and “tumult” are not the kind of specific enumerations ordinarily encompassed by ejusdem generis. See State of Oregon v. Brantley, 201 Or 637, 271 P2d 668 (1954) {ejusdemgeneris, especially applicable to criminal statutes, was applied to construe criminal statute relative to uttering a forged instrument reading “false, altered, forged or counterfeited record, writing, instrument or matter whatever”); Skinner v. Keeley, 47 Or App 751, 757, 615 P2d 382 (1980) (ejusdem generis applied to lien statute phrase “promissory note or other personal obligation”).
*609If Article II, section 8, is read, as it should be, in the context of Article II, it is not necessary to resort to principles of statutory construction. Article II governs elections, and section 15, along with section 8, addresses how elections should be conducted. Section 15 provides that “in all elections by the people, votes shall be given openly, or viva voce, until the Legislative Assembly shall otherwise direct.” As respondent states, that section
“gives the legislature unique authority in two respects. First, it authorizes the legislature to vary a constitutionally prescribed method of conducting elections. Second, it recognizes that the legislature may legitimately determine that ‘open advocacy in the polls is not consistent with the constitutional goal of ‘free suffrage.’ Article II, section 15 reflects the framers’ understanding that the legislature would have greater latitude to balance free expression at the polling place against the goal of free and fair elections.”
I agree with respondent that the same understanding is evident in Article II, section 8. Section 8 gives the legislature the authority to regulate speech, which it otherwise would not have, if the speech is in the environment of the polling place.
Petitioner assumes that Article I, section 8, “trumps” the grant of authority in Article II, section 8. However, our function is to harmonize Article I and Article II. In re Fadeley, 310 Or 548, 560, 802 P2d 31 (1990). I agree with respondent that that harmony is not difficult here: The framers intended that the legislature would have greater latitude in regulating the manner in which elections would be conducted than it would otherwise have. I would hold that ORS 260.695(4), which is limited to how elections are conducted, is constitutional even though it minimally restricts political expression.
Because ORS 260.695(4) comes within the authority granted the legislature under Article II, section 8, it is for the legislature, not us, to determine whether “passive” advocacy has any role- in the polling place. The legislature could conclude that exhibiting political buttons or badges within the polling place is “improper conduct” that could unduly influence a voter’s decision in casting a ballot. The majority errs in *610substituting its judgment for that of the legislature by holding that the influence of “such expression in the polling place * * * cannot be deemed constitutionally ‘undue.’ ”2 140 Or App at 600.
Warren, Deits, and Riggs, JJ., join in this dissenting opinion.

 It is not completely clear just what kind of “conduct” the majority deems coercive, although the suggestion is strong that it must be physical: Mid-19th century polling places were “characterized by boisterous public political advocacy.” 140 Or App at 601. Under the majority’s reasoning, it appears that no written expression could be regulated, irrespective of the size or message.

 The majority provides a “parade of horribles” as to practices that it concludes that the legislature could impose “under the dissent’s deferential approach!.]” 140 Or App at 601. None of that parade is before us.