Court Opinion

ID: 9757901
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:03:36.944557+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:45.427910
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
The Majority Opinion in this case reads like an inscription on an Egyptian monument. By a juggling of “whos,” “wlioms” and “whiehes”, the Majority Opinion leads the reader into a labyrinth of obscurity and confusion from which no enlightened exit is possible. Instead of speaking of “pronoun antecedents,” “juxtaposed different temporal references,” “basic postulates” and “modifying clauses” the Majority might have looked at the intent of the statute which the Majority runs through an interpretive sausage machine from which it emerges looking like the bedraggled remnants of a bundle of Chinese laundry.
While taking the reader by the hand through grammatical swamps, the Majority Opinion says that the “antecedent of the pronoun ‘which’ must be a thing, place or event.” I call attention to the biblical precedent that “which” is not confined to the antecedent of a “thing, place or event.” The Lord’s Prayer begins: “Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2)
The purpose of the statute we are here considering was to allow independent electoral groups to form a new party, but at the same time to compel a reasonable number of signatures before so drastic an alteration in the normal election procedure should be permitted. Our form of government is based on a two-party sys*246tem. Of course, as I said before, independent groups of citizens have the right to be recognized when they feel they cannot express themselves through the two-party alignment. But election regularity and an intelligent evaluation of the desires of the electorate compel strict adherence to the rules laid down by the Legislature in the Pennsylvania Election Code.
Now what did the Legislature say? It said, omitting what is not required in the interpretation, that: “In the case of all . . . [non-state] nominations, the number of qualified electors of the electoral district signing such nomination papers shall be at least equal to two per centum of the largest entire vote cast for any officer, . . . elected at the last preceding election in said electoral district for which said nomination papers are to be filed, and shall be not less than the number of signers required for nomination petitions for party candidates por the same office.” Emphasis supplied)
The guide post in this stroll down legislative lane is “shall be not less than the number of signers required for nomination petitions for party candidates POR THE SAME OPPICE.”
What is the same office involved here? The office of mayor. Cecil Moore is forming a new party to run for mayor, not anything else. The number of signatures he needs, therefore, should be compared with the total votes cast in an election when a mayor was being elected, not a District Attorney. In the last election for mayor, which was in 1963, the highest number of votes cast for mayor was 401,966. What is two per centum of 401,966? The answer is 8,039. Does Cecil Moore have 8,039 nominating signatures on his nomination? The answer is No. He has only 6,622. Thus he did not have enough signatures to qualify as a candidate for mayor on his new ticket.
That is all there is to it, and, therefore, I dissent.