Court Opinion

ID: 9633297
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:42:12.714833+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:32.808020
License: Public Domain

OP ALA, Justice,
concurring.
Today the court condemns as unfit for submission to the electorate the initiative measure here under consideration, which calls for a vote on whether the Oklahoma Legislature should be “instructed” to (a) apply that the U.S. Congress call a national constitutional convention for the purpose of (b) submitting to the States a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution whose provisions would impose congressional office term limits. The court’s sentence of nullity rests not on federal law but on the measure’s unfitness for submission under the standards that govern the State’s initiative process. Because I accede to the court’s view that the use of Oklahoma’s initiative process must be confined to those measures which on their adoption by the people become binding as this State’s law, I concur in today’s pronouncement.
The entire initiative before us — i.e., the declaration of state public policy that (a) congressional office terms be limited and (b) a national constitutional convention be sought in furtherance of this policy aim — is nothing more or less than a demand for a plebiscite.1 It utterly fails to satisfy the state constitution’s standards for a true initiative. Even if it were adopted, the measure could never become recognized, perceived or applied as part of this State’s corpus of law. Measures that would be ineffective as state law may not be proposed by the State’s initiative process. To allow this measure’s submission would (a) be nothing more than a charade lulling the electorate into a false belief that their will on this issue could be translated into effective political action, and (b) contribute to increased disillusionment and further growth of popular cynicism about unresponsive government and its devious legal process.
Today’s pronouncement does not clip the people’s political wings, leaving them sans hope for achieving the desired change. What the court holds is that the proponents’ recourse is not through the state initiative process, but by political action — i.e., through lobbying state and federal lawmakers and through the ballot box — by voting out of *198office those officials who fail to take appropriate action on the issue. The proponents’ freedom of political action remains utterly unimpaired by today’s opinion.
I
THE PROVISIONS OF ARTICLE 5 OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AND THEIR MEANING UNDER EXTANT U.S. SUPREME COURT JURISPRUDENCE
The proponents’ obvious objective is to initiate the process that would bring about a national constitutional convention for the purpose of submitting to the states an amendment to the federal constitution whose provisions would impose congressional office term limits. By the initiative in contest state legislators are instructed to advance the proponents’ cause by an application calling upon the Congress to convene a national constitutional convention. Should a state lawmaker fail to do as instructed, the words “FAILED TO COMPLY WITH CONSTITUTIONAL INSTRUCTION ON TERM LIMITS” shah be placed next to his name on ballots to be used in future elections.
Article 5, U.S. Const., provides that constitutional amendments may be proposed only by the vote of two thirds of both Houses of Congress or by application of the legislatures of two thirds of the states.2 This process secures “deliberation and consideration before any change can be proposed.”3 Recent federal constitutional jurisprudence, U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton,4 declares that the legislatures of the United States and of the fifty states (and territories) are themselves powerless to place a limit on the term of office held (or to be held) by members of the Congress. The only legally effective method for imposing a limit on the terms of a congressional officeholder is through the Art. 5 amendment procedures. Early federal constitutional jurisprudence teaches that the electorate’s reserved power of the state initiative and referendum cannot be extended to the process of ratifying federal constitutional amendments. By its pronouncement in Hawke v. Smith5 the Court holds that a state constitutional provision, which allows or requires the referendum process to be used for the ratification of amendments proposed to the U.S. Constitution, stands in conflict with Art. 5, U.S. Const. Because the power to ratify an amendment is derived from the U.S. Constitution, neither courts nor legislative bodies (state or federal) may alter the textually prescribed process. Two years later in Leser v. Garnett6 the Court, once again, condemned as unconstitutional any measure which attempts to place in the hands of the state electorate the power to ratify amendments proposed to the U.S. Constitution. Leser pronounces that the act of a state legislature in ratifying a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution is an exercise of a purely federal function. The procedural regime of the federal constitution trumps any barriers sought to be erected by the electorate of a state.
A recent Arkansas initiative on congressional office term limits expresses a goal similar to that pressed for by the document *199before us today.7 The measure instructs Arkansas’ state legislators and congressional delegates to use all the powers of their respective offices to propose and secure a U.S. constitutional amendment that would limit congressional office terms. The Arkansas Supreme Court, in Donovan v. Priest,8 held the measure offensive to the amendatory process of Art. 5, U.S. Const., and hence clearly contrary to the state’s initiative process. The U.S. Supreme Court stayed on November 2, 1996 the effect of the Arkansas court’s pronouncement during the pendency of certiorari proceedings.9
Unlike the Arkansas court, which based its opinion on federal law, this court declares today that the measure is unfit for submission under the adequate and independent standards of Oklahoma’s initiative process.10 That fundamental-law regime is limited to facilitating effective changes in the state constitution or in the body of state statutory law. The measure in contest goes clearly beyond these parameters.
II
SUBMISSION OF THE PROPOSED MEASURE WOULD PUT OKLAHOMA AT RISK OF DISAPPROVING ACTION BY THE U.S. CONGRESS ACTING IN THE EXERCISE OF ITS ENFORCEMENT POWERS UNDER THE GUARANTEE CLAUSE OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION11
The U.S. Constitution provides that “[t]he United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Govemm*200ent.”12 The Guarantee Clause is a major constitutional norm which the U.S. Supreme Court has held to be judicially unenforceable.13 Our own jurisprudence recognizes the Guarantee Clause’s nonjustieiability.14 Although the clause is nonjusticiable, it is nonetheless enforceable by action of the U.S. Congress exercising its power to deny an offending state’s congressional delegation its seat in the federal lawmaking assembly.15
The proposed measure calls for “instructing” the members of the state legislature to use “all of their delegated powers” to apply to the Congress for a national constitutional convention for the purpose of proposing a congressional office term limit amendment. The measure’s critical statement for the support of these limits, which one of the dissents would have this court declare fit for submission, is clearly subject to condemnation as calling for an impermissible plebiscite. That offending section’s text is:
Section 2 — Public Policy of OHahoma Regarding Federal Term Limits.
It is hereby declared to be the Public Policy of the State of OHahoma that the terms of office of Members of the United States Congress should be limited to three terms for members of the House of Representatives and two terms for Members of the Senate, and the United States Constitution should be amended to so provide.
The only legitimate lawmakers for our State are (1) the legislators sitting in both houses of her assembly and (2) the people who invoke their fundamental-law power of initiative and referendum to affect state law. The proposed measure goes beyond the parameters of state constitutional initiative and referendum. It is an attempt to force a plebiscite upon the proponents’ federal-law objective. This court cannot place its imprimatur upon the use of the state initiative either for public opinion polls16 or for a pure plebiscite. A contrary action — one that would approve submission of the measure in context — would recast this State’s political system into a form vulnerable to attack for offending basic republicanism. It would put this State at risk of (a) losing congressional accreditation for OHahoma’s elected delegation to the Congress and (b) descending to a clouded status as a co-equal participant in this Nation’s Union of sister states.
In sum, even if approved, the initiative in contest could not transform popular will into any form of effective, enforceable or binding law. Regardless of whether this measure calls for a change in the body of state or federal law, it is unfit for submission because its text cannot become state law. State lawmakers, like their federal counterparts, cannot be compelled to cast a vote in obedience to an electorate’s instructions.17 Moreover, *201Oklahoma’s fundamental law does not permit invocation of the state initiative and referendum process for a change in the U.S. Constitution or in the body of federal law.18
Ill
THE ENTIRE MEASURE PLAINLY OFFENDS ART. 5, §§ 1-3, OKL. CONST., WHICH RESERVE TO THE PEOPLE THE POWER TO MAKE OR REJECT STATE LAW, BUT NOT A BLANKET LICENSE TO FORCE ANY FORM OF PLEBISCITE A.

The Use Of Art. 5, § 1 Initiative Process Is Restricted To Passing State Laws

Not only is the proposed measure likely to be viewed as offending orthodox notions of republicanism but, more importantly, as contravening the plain text of Art. 5, §§ 1-319 of the Oklahoma Constitution.
Article 5 of Oklahoma’s fundamental law reserves in the people the right of the initiative (popular law-making) and of the referendum (the enacted law’s popular disapproval). Under the initiative rubric of Art. 5, § 1 only two types of measures can qualify: (a) those that propose changes in state statutory law and (b) those that propose amendments to the State’s constitution. Both must be capable of taking effect as law.20 A referendum petition, on the other hand, is designed to call an election for the purpose of preventing a legislatively passed enactment from becoming a law.21 Both the initiative and referendum measures must deal with law. The State’s constitution clearly so mandates by providing that any measure referred to the people by the initiative or referendum, when approved by the electorate, have the “force” and “effect” of law.22 Enforceability 23 is indeed a critical attribute for qualifying a measure under the State’s constitutional initiative. Unenforceable law is the very antonym of an initiative-authorized legal product. Proposing for adoption (through the initiative process) a measure that is facially incapable of application as a state law is as much an oxymoron as “gentle cruelty” or “deft clumsiness. ”
Oklahoma legislators, acting on any matter validly before them, cannot be reduced to puppets by the use of coercive initiative measures that restrict the independence of the lawmakers’ deliberative decision-making *202process,24 The popular initiative of OHa-homa’s government charter is a conduit for enacting state law, not a vehicle for testing the electorate’s taste (or will) for visiting political intimidation upon state or federal legislators.
The court’s approval of the measure proposed by the initiative in contest would plainly enlarge the powers reserved to the people in Art. 5, § 1, Okl. Const. It would make those powers co-extensive with a blanket license for calling a plebiscite on any desired expression of popular preference.25 A judicial construction that creates in the electorate the power to invoke a plebiscite would transform Oklahoma’s government from its constitutionally required republican form into a direct, Athenian-like democracy.26 In short, this State’s constitutional initiative regime cannot be extended to serve as the functional equivalent of plebiscite process for conducting any form of public opinion polls.
B.

The So-called Public Policy as Law

According to the proponents, the proposed measure is a law within the meaning of Art. 5, § 1, Okl. Const.27 They reason that (a) every statute is a law and a statute declaring public policy must, by settled practice, be treated as law, and (b) if statutory law may embody public policy, it follows that the reserved power of initiative implies popular authority to declare the public policy of this State. Proponents point to the terms of 25 O.S.1991 § 30228 as a statutory example that embodies this State’s notion of legislatively declared public policy. I view this argument as utterly lacking in jurisprudential support.
OHahoma’s public policy is derived from the established law of the State to be found in her constitution, statutes and judicial decisions.29 Section 302, enacted as a part of the OHahoma Open Meeting Act,30 is designed as an interpretive device for giving the act its legislatively intended meaning. The cited statute is clearly distinguishable from the terms of this measure’s declaration of public policy. The latter provides that (a) federal senate and house office terms should be limited and (b) state legislators be “instructed” to apply to the U.S. Congress to call a national constitutional convention as a vehicle for achieving the popularly desired goal. Because the initiative’s statement of public policy stands by itself, detached as it is from any viable legal norm that is to be enacted, the measure can have no effect as law.
C.

The Proposed Measure Is Not Capable of Being Transformed into Law by Plebiscite

It is far more difficult to define law — a *203well-nigh impossible task31 — than it is to identify nonlaw. The highest court of this Nation viewed to be facially ineffective as law a resolution passed by only one House of the Congress.32 Also brought within the broad category of nonlaw was a state statute that went unenforced for nearly all of its existence.33 These are but two telling examples of how the highest Court of this Nation has dealt with norms of conduct that are either facially unfit for application as law or fail to pass muster as law on a closer examination of their origin or of their post-enactment treatment by officials who are charged with enforcement.34
The court’s task here is not to define law as an abstract concept but to test whether this measure, if adopted, could attain the quality of law.35 The proposed measure in *204contest, I must conclude, is not within the parameters of a true initiative. It does not propose a state law; rather, it calls for a plebiscite to elicit popular preference for the proponents’ federal-law objective, which, if approved, will exist solely dehors the coercive framework of the law.
IY
THREE IMPEDIMENTS PREVENT THE PROPOSED MEASURE FROM EVER BECOMING LAW
The measure in contest — which presses for congressional action that would convoke a constitutional convention for the purpose of imposing congressional office term limits— cannot become part of the State’s law because (a) it is facially unfit for incorporation into the corpus of her constitution as enforceable state law, (b) it is incapable of being implemented by state legislation that would be binding on individual state lawmakers and (c) this court would be powerless to clothe the measure with binding force by crafting vitalizing jurisprudence.
The Art. 5 provisions of this State’s fundamental law are not self-executing.36 They require legislative implementation.37 The legislature cannot enlarge the people’s reserved power; it can only vitalize it by acts that will “take effect and be in force.”38 The breath of the power reserved by the initiative is to be drawn by tracking the language of the state constitution.39
If the proposed measure were adopted, it could not become law as part of the State’s constitution. It is neither intended to be state law nor does its text appear to demonstrate the properties that would make it self-executing and facially capable of being carried into effect. The measure’s declaration of public policy could never be comprised within the framework of any viable state legislation.
The process of changing by initiative petition either the State’s statutory law or her constitution is a form of lawmaking. Any change in this State’s constitution, to be effected by the initiative process, must hence qualify as law. The proposed measure would allow to be incorporated into this State’s constitution a provision which, if adopted, would be neither justiciable nor enforceable directly or through the command of this State’s constitutional jurisprudence.
State constitutional case law, like federal fundamental-law jurisprudence,40 is a process akin to lawmaking. It may take effect either retrospectively or prospectively — very much like legislative enactments. This court would be powerless either (a) to give this initiative the force of law by crafting constitutional jurisprudence that could make the measure’s terms binding on any of this State’s officialdom or (b) to require the legislature to obey the policy that is sought to be adopted. If approved, this initiative could have no effect as law in any form.41 In short, the measure in contest usurps for the people power that *205is broader than that which stands reserved to them by the state’s constitution.
V
THE TEACHINGS OF THREADGILL
My commitment to the undiluted force of Threadgill v. Cross42 continues with undiminished fervor,43 Threadgill teaches that conformity of an initiative measure’s content to the commands of our constitution — state or federal — may not be judicially examined in advance of the initiative petition’s adoption by the people. Threadgill protects from pre-submission, content-based constitutional challenges those measures which, if adopted by the people, would become law —not measures which are facially incapable of attaining the status of law.
Pre-submission review of an initiative’s fundamental-law conformity should be confined to fatally vitiating infirmities in the initiative process itself —to measures that are proeedurally flawed, patently invalid or, as in this case, are facially incapable of becoming law. The electorate’s effort at legislating directly must not be hindered by pre-election attacks other than those which target the petition’s compliance with some insuperable barrier to the measure’s submission.
Since the proposed measure is clearly and facially contrary to state law,44 Threadgill is no obstacle to this court’s pre-submission scrutiny of the initiative’s validity and to a pre-submission sentence of nullity.
VI
THE PROPOSED MEASURE DIFFERS FROM THAT IN INITIATIVE PETITION NO. 349
This proposed measure is distinguishable from that in In re Initiative Petition No. 3 19.45 The latter initiative — which would have prohibited abortions except in four instances and imposed criminal penalties for the proposed law’s violation — was held not to qualify for submission to a vote of the electorate.46 I was in dissent there.47
Only in the clearest case of firmly settled and stable federal or state constitutional jurisprudence that absolutely condemns the proposed measure as facially impossible of enforcement, application or execution — and then only if the protestants have standing to complain of constitutional infirmity — is this court ever justified in not clearing an initiative petition for submission. It is for this reason that I receded from the court’s pronouncement in Initiative No. 349. The antiabortion measure there under scrutiny was, in my view, not facially fraught with a fundamental-law infirmity. It was clearly entitled to at least a presumption of correctness. Had it been tainted by a fatal facial constitutional flaw, I would have acceded to the court’s resolve to withhold it from submission.
SUMMARY
I concur in not allowing any portion of the proposed measure to survive the axe of to*206day’s invalidation. Its entire text falls de-hors the parameters of a constitutionally authorized initiative. Its terms neither propose a state law nor are capable of becoming state law. The use of the initiative as a vehicle for invoking a plebiscite would make our state government vulnerable to congressional condemnation as unrepublican in form.
The State’s constitutional initiative is not to be treated as a license for any public opinion poll. Judicial clearance for submission of a measure must be restricted to proposals for the state law’s change or, in case of a referendum, for the state law’s rejection. If a measure is not intended to be state law or is clearly and facially contrary to law, its submission offends Art. 5, § 1, Okl. Const.
That portion of the measure — which proposes to amend the State’s constitution by adding to its text a “statement of public policy” on congressional office term limits— can never be translated into viable law of this State. The initiative in contest clearly offends Oklahoma’s initiative regime and im-permissibly invades and undermines the independence of the State Legislature’s deliberative decision-making process. The plebiscite that is desired for the expression of popular preference lies dehors the permissible parameters of this State’s initiative process. An election whose result can bring no concrete impact on the state government’s constitutional order or on the body of her law is an exercise in futility and a fraud upon the people.

.The terms of Art. 5, U.S. Const., are:
"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when , ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." (Emphasis added.)
See Elai Katz, On Amending Constitutions: The Legality and Legitimacy of Constitutional Entrenchment, 29 Columbia J.Law & Soc.Probs. 251 (1996).

. Hawke v. Smith, 253 U.S. 221, 226-227, 40 S.Ct. 495, 497, 64 L.Ed. 871 (1920).

. U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779, 115 S.Ct. 1842, 131 L.Ed.2d 881 (1995).

. 258 U.S. 130, 137, 42 S.Ct. 217, 218, 66 L.Ed. 505 (1922).

.Donovan v. Priest, 326 Ark. 353, 931 S.W.2d 119, 126 (1996). Other states also have considered the issue whether the electorate could dictate to the state legislature that it make an application to Congress for a national constitutional convention. In State ex rel. Harper v. Waitermire, 213 Mont. 425, 691 P.2d 826 (1984), the proposed measure directed the Montana legislature to apply to Congress for a national convention in order to propose a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. If the legislature failed to do so within 90 days, the measure provided, the state lawmaking body would have to remain in session, with only three days of permissible recess and without pay, until the application was made. Relying on Hawke, supra note 3 and Leser, supra note 6, the Montana court held that the word “legislatures” in both the ratification and application clauses of Art. 5, referred to the legislative bodies of the states. The court concluded that "[l]egislative deliberation cannot exist where the outcome is a predetermined specific action.... The people through initiative cannot [coercively] affect the deliberative process." Id. at 830-831. In AFL-CIO v. March Fong Eu, 36 Cal.3d 687, 206 Cal.Rptr. 89, 99-102, 686 P.2d 609, 620-622 (1984), the court rejected as unconstitutional a measure that would have compelled .the California legislature, on penalty of loss of salary, to apply to Congress for a constitutional convention that would propose a balanced-budget amendment. The court declared that the framers intended the amending process to reside in a body with the power to deliberate upon a proposed amendment. The highest court of Maine struck down as contrary to the Art. 5 amendatory process a state initiative similar to that proposed in Donovan, supra. Its opinion states that neither the state’s electors nor her legislature may, without offending “the essence of federalism,” control the action of the members of U.S. Congress in the performance of their duties. Opinion of the Justices, 673 A.2d 693, 696 (Maine 1996).

. Donovan, supra note 7 at 126.

. Priest v. Donovan, - U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 380, 136 L.Ed.2d 298 (1996), certiorari denied, - U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 1081, - L.Ed.2d - (1997); Arkansas Term Limits v. Donovan, - U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 380, 136 L.Ed.2d 298 (1996), certiorari denied, - U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 1081, - L.Ed.2d -(1997).

. The U.S. Supreme Court's denial of stay request in two state-court cases in which a balanced-federal-budget initiative was refused submission to a vote, rests on "independent state-law grounds." Montanans For A Balanced Federal Budget Committee v. Harper, 469 U.S. 1301, 105 S.Ct. 13, 83 L.Ed.2d 1 (1984) (Rehnquist, J.); Uhler v. AFL-CIO, 468 U.S. 1310, 105 S.Ct. 5, 82 L.Ed.2d 896 (1984) (Rehnquist, J.). In Uhler, Justice Rehnquist notes that the Court "will not review state-court decisions [based on adequate and independent state grounds] ..., largely for the reason that decisions on the federal questions in such cases would amount to no more than advisoiy opinions. See Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1037-1039, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 3474-3476, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983); Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U.S. 117, 125-126, 65 S.Ct. 459, 462-463, 89 L.Ed. 789 (1945).” Id.

. The terms of Art. 4, § 4, U.S. Const., are:
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.” (Emphasis added.)

. Art. 4, § 4, U.S. Const., supra note 11.

. In Luther v. Borden. 48 U.S. (7 How.) 1, 41, 12 L.Ed. 581, 599 (1849), the Court first announced the principle that federal courts will not enforce guarantee-clause claims. The Court refused to decide which of two factions in a Rhode Island political upheaval formed the legitimate state government, holding that the Guarantee Clause treats the issue of a state government’s legitimacy as a political question entrusted to Congress. Congress affirms a state’s republican form of government by admitting her senators and representatives "into the councils of the Union." See also Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 549, 556, 66 S.Ct. 1198, 1201, 90 L.Ed. 1432 (1946). For an in-depth discussion of the Guarantee Clause, see Pacific States Tel. and Tel. Co. v. Oregon, 223 U.S. 118, 133, 32 S.Ct. 224, 228, 56 L.Ed. 377 (1912); In re Initiative Petition No. 348, Okl., 820 P.2d 772, 781 (1991) (Opala, C.J., concurring in result). See in this connection Heaton, The Guarantee Clause: A Role For The Courts, 16 Cumberland L.Rev. 477, 478 (1986). The Guarantee Clause was first invoked in response to a series of rebellions waged against state and national authority between 1793 and 1843, when several brief episodes of violence flared up, culminating in the 1842 Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island. Wiecek, The Guarantee Clause of the U.S. Constitution 78-85 (Cornell University Press 1972).

. Brown v. State Election Board, Okl., 369 P.2d 140, 149 (1962), citing Colegrove, supra note 13.

. See Luther, supra note 13, 48 U.S. at 41, 12 L.Ed. at 599; Colegrove, supra note 13, 328 U.S. at 556, 66 S.Ct. at 1201.

. Donovan, supra note 7 at 126; Eu, supra note 7 at 613.

. Thornton, supra note 4; Kimble v. Swackhamer, 439 U.S. 1385, 1387, 99 S.Ct. 51, 53-54, 58 L.Ed.2d 225 (1978); Hawke, supra note 3, 253 U.S. at 226-227, 40 S.Ct. at 496-497. See also State ex rel. Gill v. Morris, 79 Okl. 89, 191 P. 364, 365 (1920); Eu, supra note 7 at 620-622; Waitermire, supra note 7 at 828.

. Art. 5, § 1, Okl. Const., infra note 19; Gill, supra note 17 at 365.

. The terms of Art. 5, § 1, Okl. Const., are:
"The Legislative authority of the State shall be vested in a Legislature, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives; but the people reserve to themselves the power to propose laws and amendments to the Constitution and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the Legislature, and also reserve power at their own option to approve or reject at the polls any act of the Legislature.” (Emphasis added.)
The terms of Art. 5, § 2, Okl. Const., are:
"The first power reserved by the people is the initiative, and eight per centum of the legal voters shall have the right to propose any legislative measure, and fifteen per centum of the legal voters shall have the right to propose amendments to the Constitution by petition, and every such petition shall include the full text of the measure so proposed. The second power is the referendum, and it may be ordered (except as to laws necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety), either by petition signed by five per centum of the legal voters or by the Legislature as other bills are enacted.* * * ” (Emphasis added.)
The terms of Art 5, § 3, Okl. Const., are:
" * * * Any measure referred to the people by the initiative or referendum shall take effect and be in force when it shall have been approved by a majority of the votes cast thereon and not otherwise.
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... The Legislature shall make suitable provisions for carrying into effect the provisions of this article." (Emphasis added.)

. Art. 5, § 1, Okl. Const., supra note 19.

. See Art. 5, § 1, Okl. Const., supra note 19.

. Art. 5, § 3, Okl. Const., supra note 19.

. "Enforceability” does not mean that a legal norm may never be denied compulsory status. What it does mean is that, to qualify as legal, the norm to be tested must be considered invocable for application as law. In this sense enforceability is nothing more than fitness for application as law by a judicial organ in some definite procedure. Hermann Kantorowicz, The Definition of Law at 79 (Cambridge University Press 1958).

. In Donovan, supra note 7 at 127-128, the court notes that although the initiative measure there under consideration did not threaten state lawmakers with loss of salary, it was “nonetheless binding on the legislators in an extortive manner as failure to heed the amendment's instruction will result in threatened potential political deaths.”

. For the definition of plebiscite, see supra note 1.

. An Athenian-like democracy is one that rests on the principle that all law- and other decision-making power is vested directly in the people who act through an assembly of citizens. See The Emptiness of Majority Rule, 1 Mich.J.Race & L. 195 (1996); Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 5663 (1992).

. For the terms of Art. 5, § 1, Okl. Const., see supra note 19.

. The terms of 25 O.S.1991 § 302 are:
It is the public policy of the State of Oklahoma to encourage and facilitate an informed citizenry's understanding of the governmental processes and governmental problems.

. Tate v. Browning-Ferris Inc., Okl., 833 P.2d 1218, 1225 (1992); Tom Dolan Heating Co. v. Public Service Co., Okl., 480 P.2d 270, 271 (1971); Board of County Com’rs of Tulsa County v. Mullins, 202 Okl. 628, 217 P.2d 835, 841 (1950); Cameron & Henderson, Inc. v. Franks, 199 Okl. 143, 184 P.2d 965, 967 (syl.7) (1947). See also Batchelor v. American Health Insurance Co., 234 S.C. 103, 107 S.E.2d 36, 38 (1959). In Batchelor the court notes that public policy is not susceptible of exact definition, but for purposes of juridical application, a state has no public policy, cognizable by the courts, which is not derived or derivable by clear implication from the established law of the state.

. 25 O.S.1991 §§ 301-314.

. There is no “air tight” definition of “law”. Legal philosophers concede that an all-inclusive definition of law is impossible to craft.
A definition both excludes and includes. It marks out a field. It makes some matters fall inside the field; it makes some fall outside. And the exclusion is almost always rather arbitrary. I have no desire to exclude anything from matters legal. In one aspect law is as broad as life, and for some purposes one will have to follow life pretty far to get the bearings of the legal matters one is examining. Karl LleweEyn, Jurisprudence 4 (1962).

. Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 103 S.Ct. 2764, 77 L.Ed.2d 317 (1983). In Chadha, the Court held unconstitutional the assumed power of either House of Congress, acting alone, to overrule by resolution the Attorney General’s discretionary suspension of deportation for reasons of "extreme hardship”. The one-House congressional veto provision, the Court held, violates the explicit constitutional requirement for bicameral passage and presentment of the bill to the President before it becomes law. Id., 462 U.S. at 946-948, 957-959, 103 S.Ct. at 2781-2783, 2787-2788. The lawmaking process must adhere in strict fashion to the "[e]xplicit and unambiguous provisions of the Constitution [which] prescribe and define the respective functions of the Congress and of the Executive in the legislative process.” Id., 462 U.S. at 945, 103 S.Ct. at 2781.

. Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 508, 81 S.Ct. 1752, 1758, 6 L.Ed.2d 989 (1961). The plurality opinion in Poe holds that a justiciable controversy does not exist if "compliance with statutes is uncoerced by the risk of their enforcement." 367 U.S. at 508, 81 S.Ct. at 1758. There, the challenged Connecticut statute, which prohibited the giving of medical advice on the use of contraceptives, had been enacted in 1879, and, with but a single exception, no one had ever been prosecuted under its prohibition. The threat of prosecution was deemed "chimerical” because the state law had fallen into virtual desuetudo (disuse) through lack of prosecution for over 80 years. "Desuetudo annuls a norm, identical in character with a statute whose only function is to repeal a previously valid statute.” Hans Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State 119 (1945) (reprinted 1961) (quoted in George C. Christie, Jurisprudence (Text and Readings On The Philosophy of Law) 628 (1973)).

. Today's opinion relies on several decisions in which initiative measures were held facially unfit for application as law. Paisner v. Attorney General, 390 Mass. 593, 458 N.E.2d 734 (1983); State ex rel. Askew v. Meier, 231 N.W.2d 821 (N.D.1975); Eu, supra note 7; Waltermire, supra note 7; State ex rel. Brant v. Beermann, 217 Neb. 632, 350 N.W.2d 18 (1984); Opinion of the Justices Relative to the Eighteenth Amendment, 262 Mass. 603, 160 N.E. 439 (1928). The Nebraska and Massachusetts courts cited with approval the U.S. Supreme Court's definition of law in American Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co., 213 U.S. 347, 356, 29 S.Ct. 511, 512, 53 L.Ed. 826 (1909): "Law is a statement of the circumstances in which the public force will be brought to bear upon men through the courts." (Emphasis mine.) Beermann, supra at 22; Opinion of the Justices, supra at 440.

. "The law-creating process includes not only the process of legislation [all forms of lawmaking], but also the procedure of the judicial and administrative authorities. Even judgments of the courts very often contain legally irrelevant elements. If by the term 'law' is meant something pertaining to a. certain legal order, then law is anything which has been created according to the procedure prescribed by the constitution fundamental to this order. This does not mean, however, that everything which has been created according to this procedure is law in the sense of a legal norm. It is a legal norm only if it purports to regulate human behavior, and if it regulates human behavior by providing an act of coercion as sanction." (Emphasis added.) Hans Kelsen, supra note 33 at 123 (quoted in Christie, supra note 33 at 631). See Christie, supra note 33 at 638, where he refers to H.L.A. Hart's The Concept of Law. Professor Hart, one of the most respected contemporary English jurisprudential thinkers, acknowledges that he owes much to the work of Hans Kelsen.
See comments by other legal philosophers and jurisprudential thinkers who consider enforceability (whether actual or perceived) a critical attribute of law: (1) "[Law is a] body of rules prescribing external conduct and considered jus-ticiable.” Kantorowicz, supra, note 16 at 21-22 *204(who is careful to note that (a) this definition of law is not the only possible one and (b) a norm is considered "justiciable” if it is invocable for application as law. Kantorowicz, supra, note 16 at 21) and (2) "[Legal rules] ... provide facilities more or less elaborate for individuals to create structures of rights and duties for the conduct of life within the coercive framework of the law." H.L.A. Hart, Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals, 71 Harvard Law Review 593 (1958) (emphasis added).

. See the terms of Art. 5, § 3, supra note 19, which direct the legislature to implement the provisions of this article.

. For the implementing provisions of Art. 5, §§ 1-3, supra note 19, see 34 O.S.1991 §§ 1 et seq.

. See Art. 5, § 3, supra note 19 (emphasis added).

. The Oklahoma Constitution, to which all statutes must yield, is to be so construed as to give effect to the intent of its framers and of the people adopting it. Hendrick v. Walters, Okl., 865 P.2d 1232, 1238 (1993); Draper v. State, Okl., 621 P.2d 1142, 1145 (1980).

. See, e.g., Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 624-625, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 1734, 1735, 14 L.Ed.2d 601 (1965).

. For enforceability as a critical attribute of law, see Paisner, supra note 34; Beermann, supra note 34; Meier, supra note 34; Eu, supra note 7; Waltermire, supra note 7.

. 26 Okl. 403, 109 P. 558 (1910).

. My unswerving commitment to Threadgill, supra note 42, is-documented in several reported decisions. See In re Initiative Petition No. 362, Okl., 899 P.2d 1145, 1153 (1995) (Opala, J., concurring in result); In re Initiative Petition No. 360, Okl., 879 P.2d 810, 821 (1994) (Opala, J., concurring in result); In re Initiative Petition No. 358, Okl., 870 P.2d 782, 788 (1994) (Opala, J., concurring in result); In re Initiative Petition No. 349, Okl., 838 P.2d 1, 18 (1992) (Opala, C.J., dissenting); In re Initiative Petition No. 358, supra note 13 at 781 (Opala, C.J., concurring in result); In re Initiative Petition No. 347, Okl., 813 P.2d 1019, 1037 (1991) (Opala, C.J., concurring); In re Initiative Petition No. 341, Okl., 796 P.2d 267, 275 (1990) (Opala, V.C.J., concurring in result); In re Initiative Petition No. 317, Okl., 648 P.2d 1207, 1222 (1982) (Opala, J., concurring in the judgment); In re Initiative Petition No. 315, Okl., 649 P.2d 545, 554-555 (1982) (Opala, J., concurring in result); see also In re Initiative Petition No. 349 (No. 76,437, Feb. 20, 1991) (Opala, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (unpublished opinion).

. For the "clearly-contrary-to-law” test for limiting pre-election challenges, see Plugge v. McCuen, 310 Ark. 654, 841 S.W.2d 139, 142 (1992); Hodges v. Dowdy, 104 Ark. 583, 149 S.W. 656, 659 (1912).

. In re Initiative Petition No. 349, supra note 43.

. Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 845, 112 S.Ct. 2791, 2804, 120 L.Ed.2d 674 (1992).

. In re Initiative Petition No. 349, supra note 43 at 18 (Opala, C.J., dissenting).