Court Opinion

ID: 9765656
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:12:18.547972+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:54:09.446842
License: Public Domain

GAMMAGE, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent.
Restrictions on the right to hold public office should be “strictly construed against ineligibility.” Brown v. Meyer, 787 S.W.2d 42, 45 (Tex.1990) (emphasis added) (citations omitted). Today, the majority pays lip service to this principle by reciting it and then promptly abandoning it to zealously pursue a contrary course.
The majority, likewise, articulates the principle of ejusdem generis (when specific and particular enumerations of persons or things in a statutory or constitutional provision are followed by general words, the general words are to have limited application extending only to persons or things of the same kind or class as those particularly described, Stanford v. Butler, 142 Tex. 692, 698, 181 S.W.2d 269, 272 (1944)), then just as promptly abandons this doctrine. In a cloud of obfuscation which ignores the more rational and recent precedent of Whitehead v. Julian, 476 S.W.2d 844 (Tex.1972), the majority goes beyond mere slavish obedience to bad precedents in which ejusdem generis was neither raised nor considered, and, in an act of exaggerated credulity, reinforces the historical absurdity of this court’s earlier mistakes in Willis v. Potts, 377 S.W.2d 622, 623 (Tex.1964); Lee v. Daniels, 377 S.W.2d 618 (Tex.1964); Kirk v. Gordon, 376 S.W.2d 560 (Tex.1964); and Burroughs v. Lyles, 142 Tex. 704, 181 S.W.2d 570 (1944). As wrongly decided as these cases are, they are distinguishable from the case before us because none of them involved citizen-volunteers such as Pattilou Dawkins; all involved officeholders exercising daily executive or administrative authority in full-time positions.
The majority continues its contortion of legal principles by misconstruing and misapplying caselaw from a sister state interpreting similar constitutional language.1 In People v. Capuzi, 20 Ill.2d 486, 170 N.E.2d 625 (1960), the Illinois Supreme Court applied ejusdem generis to its then-existing constitutional provision and reasoned that, among others, village president Elmer U. Conti (whose “lucrative” office provided for both compensation and retirement benefits) was not included within the constitutional prohibition because his office did not involve actual day-to-day control, which was vested in the hands of a municipal manager. Id. 170 N.E.2d at 630.
Pattilou Dawkins performs citizen service on the board of the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation (MHMR). The board is required to meet *456four times a year and she receives a nominal per diem and partial reimbursement for the expense of performing this service. As in Capuzi, her office does not involve actual day-to-day management and control. Such authority is vested in a full-time commissioner.2 Her office is neither “lucrative” under any contemporary definition, nor is it of the kind or class (judges, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and court clerks) particularly described in art. Ill, § 19. See Stanford, 142 Tex. at 698, 181 S.W.2d at 272.
In its decision today, the majority ignores the very standards of review and principles of construction it cites, and instead strives mightily and achieves a ludicrous consistency with an absurd past.3 If this court’s precedents in Willis, Lee, Kirk, and Burroughs cannot be distinguished from this case, they should be overruled to the extent they conflict.
Pattilou Dawkins is not ineligible to hold legislative office4 and her certification as a candidate in the Republican primary election should be restored.
MAUZY, J., joins this dissent.

. Article IV, section 3 of the Illinois Constitution of 1870 provided in relevant part:
No judge or clerk of any court, secretary of state, attorney general, state’s attorney, recorder, sheriff, or collector of public revenue, member of either house of congress, or person holding any lucrative office under the United States or this state ... shall have a seat in the general assembly....
ILL. CONST, art. IV, § 3 (1870). After its state constitution was declared unconstitutional under the one-man, one-vote principles of the United States Constitution, Illinois through constitutional convention in 1970 eliminated this provision from its constitution entirely. The limitations substituted in the successor provision have nothing to do with this case, and would not disqualify Ms. Dawkins. See Majority Opinion, at 449 n. 5. Cf. TEX. CONST, art. Ill, § 19:
No judge of any court. Secretary of State, Attorney General, clerk of any court of record, or any person holding a lucrative office under the United States, or this State, or any foreign government shall during the term for which he is elected or appointed, be eligible to the Legislature.
TEX. CONST, art. Ill, § 19.

. See Tex.Health & Safety Code Ann. § 532.011 (Vernon 1992) (providing for commissioner). Ironically, the commissioner, as an at-will state employee, is eligible to run for the legislature under art. Ill, § 19, even though his or her office is executive/administrative, full-time, and lucrative.

. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series (1841).

. Upon taking office as a legislator, Dawkins’ MHMR board membership would be automatically vacated under Tex. Const, art. XVI, § 40. See Pruitt v. Glen Rose Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 1, 126 Tex. 45, 49, 84 S.W.2d 1004, 1006 (1935).