Court Opinion

ID: 9510272
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 21:54:31.055323+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:58.993741
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE NELSON
specially concurs.
¶43 Having now had the benefit of extensive briefing and oral argument on the issue, I agree that my concurrence in Greens at Fort Missoula v. City of Missoula (1995), 271 Mont. 398, 897 P.2d 1078, did not correctly interpret the phrase “any act of the legislature.” I am satisfied that the word “act” as used in that phrase was clearly contemplated by the framers of Montana’s Constitution to be synonymous with “law” or with a bill which has been enacted into law. Moreover, in the case at bar, it is also clear that the electors’ constitutional right of referendum on the matter of the water meters was preserved in that the electors, having been given due notice and opportunity to be heard (as set out in the Court’s opinion), had the ability to challenge by referendum the various water-improvement-project resolutions passed by the Whitehall Town Council. In my view, Ordinance 4.00 simply implemented administratively the legislative act that had been accomplished in the resolutions. Accordingly, I concur.