Court Opinion

ID: 9789179
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:29:55.607288+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:20.332189
License: Public Domain

CARPENETTI, Justice,
dissenting.
Because the initiative power gives voters the ability to legislate without being subject to the restrictions applicable to other legislative bodies, I cannot agree that the procedural requirements applicable to the Homer City Council apply to a voter initiative that involves a zoning ordinance. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
The court reasons that Homer voters' power to initiate is limited by the Homer City Council's power to legislate, and therefore voters must necessarily follow the same procedures as the city council. The court effectively holds that voters step into the shoes of the city council when attempting to initiate an ordinance that involves zoning laws, and therefore the initiative must be reviewed by the planning commission before the voters may pass it. There are four reasons I believe the court's reasoning is flawed.
First, and most importantly, under the Alaska Statutes and the Alaska Constitution the voter initiative is intended to be a sui generis means of legislating that is not subject to the procedures applicable to regular lawmaking. Alaska Statute 29.26.100 grants municipal voters the power to initiate legislation. It provides that "[the powers of initiative and referendum are reserved to the residents of municipalities, except the powers do not extend to matters restricted by article XI, section 7 of the state constitution." 1 There are no other limitations on the voters' power to initiate that are relevant to this case. The process for exercising the initiative at the municipal level is fairly straightforward. A proposed initiative is first reviewed by the municipal clerk to determine that it meets certain substantive requirements.2 The initiative's sponsors must then *566gather the requisite number of signatures to support the initiative petition.3 Where both these conditions are met, the initiative is to be submitted to the voters 4 and a majority vote favors the [initiated] ordinance or resolution, it becomes effective upon certification of the election, unless a different effective date is provided in the ordinance or resolution." 5 .Similarly, the Alaska Constitution requires that statewide initiatives be subject to a technical and subject matter review 6 and provides that an initiative will be enacted "[}f a majority of the votes cast on the proposition favor its adoption...." 7
The Alaska Constitution also makes clear that the procedural requirements for enacting an initiative are different from the procedures applicable to the regular legislative process. In order for the state legislature to pass a bill, the bill must go through at least "three readings in each house on three separate days, except that any bill may be advanced from second to third reading on the same day by concurrence of three-fourths of the house considering it" and be approved by "an affirmative vote of a majority of the membership of each house."8 Unless the governor vetoes the bill within fifteen days after its passage, it will become law.9
The differences between the regular legislative process and the procedures for statewide initiatives demonstrate that the framers of our constitution envisioned a separate, simplified process for initiative elections, one not generally subject to the constraints imposed on the legislature. The special treatment afforded to the initiative process stems from the fact that the initiative is a form of direct democracy. As the Supreme Court of California has explained, "[t]he original proponents of the initiative and referendum sought to give the electorate the ability to govern directly by majority rule: this was to be true democracy as distinguished from representative democracy."10 That court has also held that a right of such importance should be "jealously guard[ed]." 11
By importing requirements applicable to a different legislative body, the court today does exactly the opposite. Its approach not only ignores the fact that initiative elections stand apart from the traditional legislative process, but also weakens voters' ability to participate directly in the affairs of the city in which they live. In Brooks v. Wright12 we stated that the constitutional framers "chose to include the initiative process as a lawmaking tool with full knowledge of the risks inherent to direct democracy."13 Today's decision ignores Brooks's wisdom.
Second, the court overlooks that the legislature has imposed explicit subject matter prohibitions on municipal initiatives and has declined to include zoning among those prohibitions. Alaska Statute 29.26.100, in *567preserving the powers of initiative and referendum to residents of municipalities, incorporates the limitations that article XI, section 7 of the Alaska Constitution 14 imposes upon those powers. That constitutional section lists five matters that may not be the subject of an initiative: (1) dedication of revenues; (2) appropriations; (3) creation of courts; (4) changing of court rules or jurisdictions; or (5) local or special legislation.15 If the legislature intended to prohibit zoning by initiative, it could easily have included zoning among the prohibited subject matters. That the legislature did not employ this simple and direct means to prohibit zoning by initiative strongly suggests that it did not intend to accomplish the same result through the roundabout means the court today attributes to it.
Third, the court bases its decision to prohibit zoning by initiative on the concern that allowing zoning by initiative would undermine comprehensive zoning.16 But zoning ordinances, whether they are enacted by the voters or by the city council, are subject to post-enactment review. We explained in Brooks that "[cloncerned parties can bring a post-election substantive challenge to what they may believe is an ill-advised law.17 In Price v. Dahl18 suggested that an ordinance could be challenged on the grounds that it is inconsistent with the comprehensive plan, stating, "[blorough land use regulations are to be 'in accordance' with the comprehensive plan."19 Thus, I believe the initiated ordinance was subject to a post-enactment challenge on the grounds that it failed to comply with Homer's comprehensive plan.
Finally, the court's decision conflicts with well-reasoned holdings from other states that have addressed zoning by initiative. California has definitively resolved the issue before us today in favor of allowing zoning by initiative. As the California Supreme Court suc-cinetly explained, "[pJrocedural requirements which govern [City] Council action ... generally do not apply to initiatives, any more than the provisions of the initiative law govern the enactment of ordinances in council." 20 The Nevada Supreme Court similarly concluded that voters could enact zoning laws through the initiative process without following the procedures applicable to the city council attempting to enact the same ordinance.*56821 In both cases special procedures applied to the enactment of zoning laws by the local government bodies, but the courts nevertheless recognized that subjecting voter initiatives to those procedures would imper-missibly restrict the voters' initiative powers.
In sum, the initiative process is unique. When exercising the initiative power, municipal voters do not simply step into the shoes of the legislative body they are bypassing, as the court today assumes. Instead, voters in an initiative election are participating in a process that is separate from the regular means used for legislating. Because the initiative process is intended to be separate from the procedures that the Homer City Council must follow when passing a zoning ordinance, the initiative ordinance in this case should not be subject to review by the Homer Advisory Planning Commission. I would hold that the initiated ordinance does not violate any of the subject matter restrictions imposed by article XI, section 7 of the Alaska Constitution (and made applicable to municipal elections through AS 29.26.100 and to elections in Homer through HCC 4.60.010), and I therefore would affirm the superior court's grant of summary judgment to the City of Homer.

. Homer City Code 4.60.010 makes this provision applicable to elections in the City of Homer. It states: 'The provisions of Alaska Statute 29.26 Article 2, relating to Initiative and Referendum are incorporated into this chapter as if fully set out."

. AS 29.26.110(a) provides in relevant part:
[The clerk shall certify the application if the clerk finds that it is in proper form and, for an initiative petition, that the matter
(1) is not restricted by AS 29.26.100;
(2) includes only a single subject;
(3) relates to a legislative rather than to an administrative matter; and
(4) would be enforceable as a matter of law.

. AS 29.26.130.

. AS 29.26.170.

. AS 29.26.170(d).

. See Alaska Const. art. XI, § 2.

. Article XI, section 6 of the Alaska Constitution provides:
If a majority of the votes cast on the proposition favor its adoption, the initiated measure is enacted. If a majority of the votes cast on the proposition favor the rejection of an act referred, it is rejected.... An initiated law becomes effective ninety days after certification, is not subject to veto, and may not be repealed by the legislature within two years of its effective date. It may be amended at any time.... Additional procedures for the initiative and referendum may be prescribed by law.

. Araska Const. art. II, § 14.

. Alaska Const. art. I, § 17. If the governor exercises a veto, a bill may become law if the legislature overrides the governor's veto pursuant to the requirements of article II, section 16 of the Alaska Constitution.

. Citizens Against Rent Control v. City of Berkeley, 27 Cal.3d 819, 826, 167 Cal.Rptr. 84, 614 P.2d 742 (1980), rev'd on other grounds, Citizens Against Rent Control/Coalition for Fair Housing v. City of Berkeley, 454 U.S. 290, 102 S.Ct. 434, 70 L.Ed.2d 492 (1981); see also McKee v. City of Louisville, 200 Colo. 525, 616 P.2d 969, 972 (1980) (describing power of initiative as "a fundamental right at the very core of our representative government").

. DeVita v. County of Napa, 9 Cal.4th 763, 776, 38 Cal.Rptr.2d 699, 889 P.2d 1019 (1995) (citation omitted).

. 971 P.2d 1025 (Alaska 1999).

. Id. at 1029.

. This section provides in full:
The initiative shall not be used to dedicate revenues, make or repeal appropriations, create courts, define the jurisdiction of courts or prescribe their rules, or enact local or special legislation. The referendum shall not be applied to dedications of revenue, to appropriations, to local or special legislation, or to laws necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety.

. The only prohibited subject matter listed in article XI into which the initiative ordinance could potentially fall is "local or special legislation." Because the districts affected were all commercial and the initiative appears to have been intended to promote commercial development of those areas, I would hold it does not constitute local or special legislation. See Boucher v. Engstrom, 528 P.2d 456, 463 (Alaska 1974) ("[Classifications based upon population or territorial differences] will be sustained where founded upon a rational difference of situation or condition existing in the objects upon which it rests, and where there is a reasonable basis for the classification in view of the objects and purposes to be accomplished.") (citations omitted), partially overruled on other grounds, McAlpine v. Univ. of Alaska, 762 P.2d 81, 85 (Alaska 1988).
Article XII, section 11 of the Alaska Constitution creates a catch-all restriction that prohibits the initiative from being used where it would be "clearly inapplicable," which this court has interpreted as applying only where "even 55 idiots would agree" that the subject matter was inapplicable to the initiative process. Brooks, 971 P.2d at 1028 (citation omitted). However, AS 29.26.100 does not incorporate this prohibition, and thus the "clearly inapplicable" restriction may not apply to municipal elections.

. Opinion at 563.

. 971 P.2d at 1030.

. 912 P.2d 541 (Alaska 1996).

. Id. at 542 (citing AS 29.40.040(a), which provides that zoning ordinances shall be adopted "in order to implement the [comprehensive] plan").

. Assoc. Home Builders, Inc. v. City of Liver more, 18 Cal.3d 582, 135 Cal.Rptr. 41, 557 P.2d 473, 479 (1976) (citation omitted); accord DeVita v. County of Napa, 9 Cal.4th 763, 38 Cal.Rptr.2d 699, 889 P.2d 1019, 1037-38 (1995) (allowing initiative to amend Napa's general plan despite failure to comply with procedures county planning agency must follow to enact amendment).

. Garvin v. Dist. Court, 118 Nev. 749, 59 P.3d 1180, 1190 (2002).