Court Opinion

ID: 9782127
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 18:00:34.505847+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:14:46.049647
License: Public Domain

WINFREE, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
1. I agree with the majority that the superior court correctly concluded that omis*735sions in the initiative petition summary rendered it inaccurate.1 I write further on this point to emphasize that regardless of an initiative’s subject matter, if the initiative regulates conduct and creates criminal penalties for a violation of the new code of conduct, the petition summary must, as a matter of law, generally describe both the regulated conduct and the potential penalties for misconduct. Any purported regulation of conduct must include consequences, otherwise it is meaningless; the penalties for criminalized conduct are therefore as main a feature of an initiative as the conduct itself. And in this case the penalty is significant — the proposed law would authorize up to a $1,000 fine, five year's imprisonment, or both, which means that the crime created by the initiative is by definition a felony. A petition summary simply cannot be impartial if it describes conduct sought to be regulated, but does not describe the penalties for failure to conform to the new code of conduct.
2. The harder question in this case is what happens when a lieutenant governor certifies an initiative and provides a defective petition summary for circulation to potential signers. In a perfect world any questions about a petition summary would be resolved prior to printing and circulating petition booklets for signatures. Because we do not live in a perfect world, a brief chronology will place events in perspective.
3. The initiative application was submitted in May 2009. On July 2 the Department of Law sent a 17-page review of the application to the lieutenant governor, recommending approval of the application and proposing the petition summary that is in question.2 That same day the lieutenant governor certified the initiative, adopted the summary recommended by the Department of Law, and advised the sponsors that they would have one year from the time the petition booklets were printed and made available to them to obtain the necessary signatures to put the initiative on the ballot. It appears that the petition booklets were made available to the sponsors on July 13.
Alaska Statute 15.45.240 allows an aggrieved party to bring suit within 30 days of a lieutenant governor’s certification of an initiative, and Planned Parenthood of Alaska and Susan Wingrove (collectively “Planned Parenthood”) did so on July 31. Planned Parenthood raised a number of arguments about the petition summary, including that the summary was defective. Planned Parenthood sought injunctive relief, including orders that the initiative petition not be circulated for signatures and that the initiative not be placed on a ballot.3
Planned Parenthood filed its motion for injunctive relief on August 14. On August 27 Planned Parenthood and the lieutenant governor filed a stipulation to convert the motion into one for summary judgment. The superi- or court approved the stipulation on September 10. The sponsors did not move to become a party until September 15, and the court granted that motion on September 29. At that time, the sponsors apparently had over one-third of the necessary signatures to put the initiative on the ballot. The lieutenant governor and the sponsors filed cross-motions for summary judgment, and, as a result of the parties’ scheduling agreements, briefing was finally completed on November 3. At some point thereafter the case was *736reassigned to Superior Court Judge Frank A. Pfiffner, and he set oral argument on the summary judgment motions for February 24, 2010. Oral argument was held as scheduled; Judge Pfiffner took the matter under advisement. On March 12 the lieutenant governor certified that the sponsors had submitted sufficient petition signatures to place the initiative on the August 2010 ballot. Judge Pfiffner entered his decision on March 16, and final judgment was entered March 31. Planned Parenthood appealed, and, after an expedited briefing schedule, we heard oral argument on May 20 with the understanding that a decision was required by a date in early June for purposes of printing the August 2010 election booklets and ballots.
4.With this chronology in mind I return to my earlier question, now phrased somewhat differently: what happens when a lieutenant governor certifies an initiative and, after the sponsors obtain sufficient petition signatures to place the initiative on the ballot, it is determined that the petition summary used to obtain the petition signatures was defective?
As the majority explains, this question implicates two important but competing policies.4 It is the Alaska Constitution that gives the people the right to “propose and enact laws by the initiative,”5 and public policy requires courts to afford that right great protection.6 But our Constitution also contains a countervailing check and balance. Serving as a screening function, an initiative must be presented to the public for a demonstration of sufficient support to allow it to go to the voters on the ballot,7 and the legislature has clarified that the presentation to the public must be impartial.8 Public policy requires courts to honor this screening function to ensure both informed lawmaking and that only initiatives with sufficient public support are allowed on the ballot.9
5. Here the petition was signed by the requisite number of supporters and thus seemingly meets the public support requirement. But the petition contained a summary that failed to meet the disclosure standards necessary for informed lawmaking; the summary was not accurate and impartial. In short, (1) we cannot know for certain that the initiative would have had sufficient support had it been fairly presented to petition signers for “informed lawmaking,” and (2) a strict adherence to the screening function would seem to mandate that the initiative not be allowed on the ballot.10
6. In Faipeas v. Municipality of Anchorage we held that a municipal referendum petition that was not accurate and fair was not “legally acceptable”11 and, despite enough signatures to demonstrate sufficient public support for the referendum, we stayed the municipal election pending resolution of an appeal of the municipal clerk’s certification decision.12 Today the majority dissects Faipeas to create a meaningless distinction *737and then concludes that some initiative petition summaries that are not accurate and fair can be legally acceptable for purposes of placing initiatives on the ballot.
The majority begins with the statement in Faipeas that requiring clear and honest petition summaries “is necessary ‘[t]o guard against inadvertence by petition-signers and voters and to discourage stealth by initiative drafters and promoters.’”13 The majority dissects this into separate categories of “inadvertence” and “stealth,” determines as a matter of law that a lieutenant governor could never be involved in stealth-like conduct, and concludes, therefore, that because this case involves a statewide initiative with a petition summary authorized by the lieutenant governor, the only issue of concern is “inadvertence by petition-signers.”14
The majority accepts the argument that we can substitute our own view of “informed lawmaking” and “sufficient public support” for the standards set out in article XI, section 3 of the Alaska Constitution and AS 15.45.090(a)(2) by determining “the likelihood that, and the degree to which, the ... deficient petition summary contributed to petition-signer inadvertence.”15 The majority further accepts the argument that we should then consider the degree of hardship that invalidating signatures or allowing the initiative to go forward would cause initiative sponsors and opponents, as well as our own determination whether the initiative, if fully and properly explained to potential petition signers, would have had sufficient public support to go on the ballot.16
My view of judicial restraint leaves me unable to agree that a court should entertain this new line of inquiry or create a substitute for what has been to date an express constitutional and statutory standard for determining sufficient public support. I therefore dissent with respect to this issue.
First, it is true that here the summary was prepared by a lieutenant governor based on advice from the Department of Law and there is no question of bad faith or an intent to fool petition signers. But a mistake was made, and both the superior court and this court agree that the mistake rendered the petition summary not accurate and impartial. Whether caused by design or mistake or by a lieutenant governor or sponsors, an inaccurate and biased petition summary is capable of fooling petition signers. Does a superior court now have to find not only that a petition summary was misleading, but also that it was intentionally misleading, to bar an initiative from the ballot? And why should any distinction matter? If a court can cure a misleading petition summary by modifying it for ballot purposes, why isn’t the inquiry into petition-signer inadvertence and the hardship analysis appropriate in virtually every context of a defective petition summary or defective municipal initiative?
Second, the majority describes a new class of misleading petition summaries — those that are “not ... misleading” enough to “substantially misrepresent the essential nature” of the initiative and, therefore, in the appropriate case, might not warrant barring the initiative from the ballot.17 My response is that by definition, the petition summaries in this class are not misleading and no judicial intervention of any kind should even be necessary. I agree with Planned Parenthood on this point — a petition summary either meets our existing standards or it does not, and a petition summary cannot fall below those existing standards but be excused because it falls only a little bit below those standards. Once the court determines a petition summary is misleading, as the superior court did and we have done in this case, the inquiry should end.18
*7387. The majority’s reliance on McAlpine v. University of Alaska19 and Alaska Action Center, Inc. v. Municipality of Anchorage20 is misplaced. In both McAlpine, a statewide initiative case, and Alaska Action Center, a municipal initiative case, there were no questions about the screening process.21 Consequently, we did not consider whether the statewide petition summary or the municipal initiative failed the “informed lawmaking” or “sufficient public support” standards set by article XI, section 3 of the Alaska Constitution or AS 15.45.090(a)(2).22 In both cases the issues were whether, on pre-election review for constitutionality, a portion of the initiative should be severed as violative of the article XI, section 7 prohibition against appropriation by initiative, and, if so, whether the remaining portion should go forward to an election.23
After concluding in McAlpine that the initiative included an unconstitutional appropriation,24 we adopted a rule that “when the requisite number of voters have already subscribed to an initiative,” a court should sever the impermissible provisions from the initiative and allow it to go forward to an election if
(1) standing alone, the remainder of the proposed bill can be given legal effect; (2) deleting the impermissible portion would not substantially change the spirit of the measure; and (3) it is evident from the content of the measure and the circumstances surrounding its proposal that the sponsors and subscribers would prefer the measure to stand as altered, rather than to be invalidated in its entirety.[25]
Applying that test, we allowed the remaining portion of the initiative to go forward to the election.26 Later, in Alaska Action Center, we determined that a portion of the initiative was unconstitutional, applied the McAlpine test, and concluded that the remaining portion of the initiative bore “little resemblance to the original proposal and should not appear on the ballot.”27
It is true that in this context we consider the subscribing signers’ intent in deciding whether to allow an already screened but subsequently limited initiative to go forward to an election. But it is a giant leap from there to establishing a new rule that we will look to the subscribing signers’ intent in deciding whether to excuse an initiative from the express constitutional and statutory screening process altogether. In my view the analysis and remedy here far exceed those authorized by our precedent.
8. This may be, as the majority notes, the first time this situation has come before us.28 But unless the legislature changes the initiative process to require that initiative challenges be resolved before petitions are circulated for signature, it will not be the last. This situation certainly has arisen and will continue to arise in the municipal initiative context;29 the majority’s suggestion that somehow the new framework does not apply to municipal initiatives is not persuasive.30 *739And I can envision other similar scenarios— what will happen when initiative sponsors have almost all of the necessary signatures but are prevented by some force of nature or other circumstances outside their control from obtaining those last few signatures within the requisite time period? Why would they not be entitled to have the court determine the likelihood that the sponsors otherwise would have succeeded and balance that with the hardships, instead of having to start all over again? Once the court has moved from enforcing express constitutional and statutory standards to using them as mere guidelines for ad hoc judgments, there is no telling where on the ensuing slippery slope a line ultimately will be drawn.
9. I readily agree that the result I advocate — requiring that a new petition be circulated for signatures — is harsh. It is evident that the sponsors would have obtained sufficient signatures on the petition within the requisite time period even if a fair and impartial summary had been presented in the petition booklets. It is unquestionably unfair that the sponsors should suffer the consequences of a mistake by the Department of Law. But the facts and circumstances of this particular case do not justify the creation of a new legal framework that will lessen incentives for accurate and impartial petition summaries and will change the constitutionally based screening standard from a bright-line rule to the varying views of judges.
The initiative is an important tool for citizen law making. But no initiative should be presented on an election ballot if it has not met the existing constitutional and statutory screening standards. If an initiative petition summary used to gather signatures is not legally acceptable, the initiative should be barred from the ballot and a new petition circulated with an accurate and impartial summary as the Alaska Constitution and AS 15.45.090(a)(2) require. Because the petition summary in this case was not legally acceptable, I would bar the initiative from the ballot.

. Order, ¶¶ 12-13.

. Nowhere in the Department of Law’s comprehensive review and summary of the proposed initiative is there any mention of the fact that the initiative would create felony liability for doctors who violate the proposed law.

. Two oddities of the current initiative process are revealed at this juncture of the case. First, petition booklets apparently are distributed for circulation before the time has passed for a challenge to the initiative or the petition summary. As a result, the one-year period for collecting signatures on the petition runs concurrently with the time necessary to resolve potential challenges to the initiative. Therefore, initiative sponsors are at risk that their efforts to collect signatures will be nullified if a challenge is successful. Second, there is no statutory procedure for expedited consideration of an initiative challenge. As a direct result of these oddities, the final resolution of the initiative challenge in this case comes after the sponsors successfully obtained enough signatures on the petition to place it on the ballot. This is undesirable, at best, and the legislature may wish to consider appropriate statutory implementation to avoid future problems of this nature.

. Order, ¶ 14.

. Alaska Const, art. XI, § 1; see also AS 15.45.010.

. Order, ¶ 14 (citing Yute Air Alaska, Inc. v. McAlpine, 698 P.2d 1173, 1181 (Alaska 1985) (quoting Municipality of Anchorage v. Frohne, 568 P.2d 3, 8 (Alaska 1977))).

. Order, ¶ 14 (citing Alaska Const, art. XI, § 3; Citizens for Implementing Med. Marijuana v. Municipality of Anchorage, 129 P.3d 898, 901 (Alaska 2006)) ("The signature-gathering requirement ensures that only propositions with significant public support are included on the ballot.”) (citation omitted); and Faipeas v. Municipality of Anchorage, 860 P.2d 1214, 1219 (Alaska 1993) (stating, with respect to a referendum, that "[a] substantial showing of popular disapproval is required”).

. AS 15.45.090(a)(2).

. See Citizens for Implementing Med. Marijuana, 129 P.3d at 901 (stating that " 'initiative petitions ... should be presented clearly and honestly’ ” in light of "the 'public interest in informed lawmaking' " (quoting Faipeas, 860 P.2d at 1221)) (emphasis in original); Faipeas, 860 P.2d at 1219-20 (citation omitted) (noting that signature-gathering requirement ensures expense of election is warranted by sufficient public support).

. See, e.g., Faipeas, 860 P.2d at 1215-16, 1218 (holding that referendum petitions that are not accurate and fair are not "legally acceptable” and staying election until resolution of appeal of municipal clerk's certification decision).

. ⅛ at 1218.

. Id. at 1215-16.

. Order, ¶ 15 (quoting Faipeas, 860 P.2d at 1221 (quoting Yute Air Alaska, 698 P.2d at 1189 (Moore, J., dissenting))).

. Order, ¶ 15.

. Order, ¶ 15.

. Order, ¶¶ 15-20.

. Order, ¶ 21.

.Nonetheless, I am compelled to make two comments. First, I find it contradictory that the majority would agree, as a matter of law, that a petition summary for an initiative that criminalizes conduct must include information about the relevant criminal penalties, but still determine that the failure to meet that legal standard is “not ... misleading” enough to "substantially misrepresent the essential nature” of the initiative. Second, once a judge determines that a *738petition summary is "not ... misleading” enough to "substantially misrepresent the essential nature” of the initiative, what countervailing factor in the balancing test described by the majority could possibly lead to a conclusion that the initiative should not go on the election ballot?

. 762 P.2d 81 (Alaska 1988).

. 84 P.3d 989 (Alaska 2004).

. McAlpine, 762 P.2d at 84-96; Alaska Action Ctr., 84 P.3d at 991-95.

. McAlpine, 762 P.2d at 84-96; Alaska Action Ctr., 84 P.3d at 991-95.

. McAlpine, 762 P.2d at 87-96; Alaska Action Ctr., 84 P.3d at 995.

. McAlpine, 762 P.2d at 87-91.

. Id. at 94-95 (footnotes and citations omitted).

. Id. at 95-96.

. Alaska Action Ctr., 84 P.3d at 993-95 (citing in part McAlpine, 762 P.2d at 95 n. 26).

. Order, ¶ 16.

. Cf. Faipeas, 860 P.2d at 1218-21 (staying election pending resolution of appeal and addressing challenge that referendum petition, which had circulated and collected the required number of signatures, was biased and partisan).

. The majority sends a mixed message by relying on Alaska Action Center, a municipal initiative case, as support for its adoption of new standards for statewide initiative petitions. Order, ¶¶ 9 n. 16, 18 nn. 50-51.