Court Opinion

ID: 9725167
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:33:20.278522+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:11.548924
License: Public Domain

NEWSOM, J.—I respectfully dissent.
The majority opinion, while disclaiming any intention of holding that the registrar has or has not the exclusive power to select a voting system* for San Francisco, necessarily and in my view erroneously holds, contrary to Ashe v. Zemansky (1932) 192 Cal. 83 [218 P. 591], that the registrar, as successor to the elections board, lacks such power.
I realize that, as Charles Lamb wrote, “all words are no more to be taken in a literal sense at all times than a promise given to a tailor,” but in my view, nothing could be clearer from a perusal of the relevant statutes and their history than that, since the matter is one “pertaining to the conduct of elections” (cf. § 3.201 of the charter), the selection of a system is a matter solely within the registrar’s authority.
Whether fiscal powers possessed by other city officials might prevent implementation of the respondent’s choice is an issue not before us, as the parties themselves have agreed. As appellant candidly concedes, “The instant case only deals with the requisitioning process,” and again, “[the case] involves only the question of who has authority to make a selection of a voting system.”
The majority opinion deems it unnecessary to decide that question, but in my view, however convoluted its exegesis, it can only be read as approving the illegal actions of the chief administrative officer in flouting the plainly expressed legislative purpose of section 3.201 of the charter.
A petition for a rehearing was denied June 13, 1979. Newsom, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted. Respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied July 20, 1979. Clark, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

The opinion seems to me ostensibly to pass upon questions which the parties agree are not before us.