Court Opinion

ID: 9796633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:01:19.707335+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:51.048432
License: Public Domain

OPALA, J.,
dissenting.
T1 I dissent from the court's pronouncement, which places its unqualified imprimatur upon the taxation regime authorized by the provisions of 11 0.$.2001 $ 22-159.1 The statute under today's scrutiny clearly violates the constitutional prohibition against special laws regulating the affairs of school districts. This is so because it facially fails equally to affect all school districts so as to operate uniformly throughout the state; rather, it sets apart for favorable treatment only a subclass composed of those districts within whose territory lies, in whole or in part, a municipality which would opt to levy a tax and share its proceeds. Art. 5 § 46, Okl. Const. 2
I
THE LEGISLATION IN CONTROVERSY
12 Section 22-159 of the Oklahoma Municipal Utility Revenue Bond Act3 allows a municipality to support any public school system located either in whole or in part within its corporate limits by raising revenue to be provided for the construction or improvement of public school facilities.4 Acting under the authority of this legislation, two cities, Oklahoma City and Lawton, both respondents herein, have passed ordinances for the levy of takes to support public schools lying (entirely or partially) within the boundaries of the two municipalities.
II
THE SEARCH FOR CONSTITUTIONAL INFIRMITIES PRESENT IN THIS CONTROVERSY IS TO BE FOCUSED AND MUST CONCENTRATE UPON THE STANDARDS OF ART. 5 § 46, OKL.CONST.
11 3 The court must test the § 22-159 taxation regime's constitutional orthodoxy by the pertinent standards prescribed in Art. 5 § 46, Okl. Const.5 That section's terms absolutely and unequivocally invalidate special (or local) laws on any of the 28 subjects which stand included in the § 46 litany of *730prohibitions.6 A subject that is listed in § 46 may not be disuniformly dealt with by any enactment. The terms of § 22-159 clearly offend the § 46 interdiction of special (or local) laws7 on one of the listed subjects-that of regulating the affairs of school districts. The legislature may not deal with any aspect of public school management-a subject which clearly embraces the district's financing function-other than by law whose application will have like impact on each district.8
4 Today's pronouncement does not reach the critical and dispositive issue before the court. Focusing marrowly and exclusively on § 22-159's effect upon municipalities, the court ignores the cited statute's plainly disuniform impact on school districts, whose regulation appears in the litany of subjects on which no special law is authorized.
15 A canonical § 46 analysis requires that the legislation to be tested for orthodoxy conform to the fundamental law's symmetry and uniformity mandate upon every prohibited subject. An enactment which meets the § 46 test for one subject of the multiple prohibitions but disuniformly impacts another cannot pass constitutional muster.
III
THE ASYMMETRY CREATED BY TODAY'S PRONOUNCEMENT
16 Section 46 is the Constitution's command for evenhanded statewide application of laws on certain enumerated subjects. That application allows no subclass to be left at a disadvantage. The § 46 symmetry and uniformity norms require that legislation dealing with revenue sources for schools impact all school districts alike and afford each of them a meaningful opportunity to share in the capture of revenue authorized for tapping.9
17 Section 22-159's formula for access to the there-authorized revenue stream is based on two factors: (a) a school district's geographical characteristics (to be evaluated by the municipal-subdivision presence within the district's territorial boundaries) and (b) the affected municipality's creation of the revenue source by imposition of a tax. These characteristics are facially incapable of implementation by uniform, evenhanded access to the revenue source throughout the state. Nor do these characteristics bear any rational relation to some legislatively declared or textually demonstrable need for revenue. The taxation regime prescribed by § 22-159 creates a built-in mechanism of impermissible asymmetry for school district financing function by patently excluding from its revenue stream two disadvantaged subclasses: (a) purely rural school districts those which have no municipal territories within their boundaries and (b) districts in which, although municipalities are situated, in whole or in part, no fax was levied to provide a revenue stream.
*731T8 Because § 22-159 can benefit only less than the entire statewide class of all school districts, it is underinclusive and hence "special.10 A statute collides with the § 46 symmetry requirements when it targets for different treatment less than a whole class embraced within one of that seetion's prohibited subjects.
No Explicitly Prohibited § 46 Subject May Be Tested By § 59 Standards
T9 Conformity to the standards of Art. 5 § 59, Ok. Const.,11 presents a legal issue entirely unrelated to the § 4612 uniformity mandate. Tests used for measuring a law's validity under the standards of § 46 are dis-tinet from those for gauging a statute's § 59 orthodoxy. While the former prohibits the passage of any special (or local) law on a variety of textually identified subjects, regardless of whether a suitable general law could or could not have been crafted, the latter section merely calls for statutes to be cast in the form of general laws which would appear to have uniform application.13 Within the meaning of § 59 a special law is considered permissible if a general law could not be fitted.14 Not so under the standards of § 46. That section's mandate is absolute, unequivocal and unqualified;15 it defies testing by the standards of § 59. If the founding drafters did not intend to set aside the named § 46 subjects for much tougher serutiny, that section would have been totally redundant. Without its inclusion, § 59 would have covered every subject of legislation, including those that are now singled out by their listing in § 46.
110 Our own jurisprudence, no less than the legislature's enactments, must faithfully conform to the fundamental law's prohibition against disuniform (or nonuniform) laws on prohibited subjects.16
IV
SUMMARY
{11 A prohibited subject in the § 46 litany may not be disuniformly addressed within any legislative enactment. Section 46 absolutely, unqualifiedly and unequivocally invalidates all local or special legislation on prohibited subjects.17 Today's pronouncement, which passes § 22-159 for § 46 orthodoxy, confines the statute's constitutional testing to the law's effect on "municipalities," but does not extend its probe to gauging the law's effect on regulation of school districts' affairs. The court's methodology entirely erases from the list of subjects prohibited by § 46 the category most critical for application to this case-that of regulating school district affairs.
1 12 If I alone were testing today the § 46 conformity of § 22-159's taxation regime, I *732would conclude that the cited statute offends that constitutional provision's mandated norms of uniformity, symmetry and evenhanded treatment. This is so because § 22-159 clearly runs counter to the constitutional prohibition against those laws which deal with the affairs of school districts by regulating their financing in a manner that does not uniformly impact all the districts.
[ 13 I would today pronounce a death sentence for the provisions of § 22-159. The section's demise should be made coincidental with the date of the court's mandate in this cause. Fundamental-law jurisprudence of Oklahoma (and that of the U.S.) teaches that judicial condemnation of an unconstitutional tax measure need not be given a fully retrospective (or common-law) sweep; it may be accorded prospective application by whose terms revenue captured in advance of invalidation could be retained.18

. The terms of 11 0.$.2001 § 22-159 are:
Municipalities may support any public school system located in whole or in part within the corporate limits of the municipality, including without limitation by the expenditure of municipal revenues for construction or improvement of public school facilities. In furtherance of municipal support for any public school system, as authorized by this section, the municipal governing body may take all actions necessary to effectuate such support.

. The pertinent terms of Art. 5 § 46, Okl. Const. are:
The Legislature shall not ... special law ... pass any ...
*o# &
Regulating the affairs of counties, cities, towns, wards, or school districts. . ..
(emphasis added).

. 11 § 22-150 et seq.

. For the terms of 11 0.S.2001 § 22-159 see supra note 1.

. For the pertinent terms of Art. 5 § 46, Okl. Const., see supra note 2.

. Reynolds v. Porter, 1988 OK 88, 760 P.2d 816, 822; State of Oklahoma ex rel. Nesbitt v. District Court of Mayes County, 1967 OK 228, 440 P.2d 700, 705-706 (noting that Art. 5 § 46 prohibits special or local laws prescribing the powers and duties of county officers, the court held that nothing in Oklahoma's fundamental law authorizes the legislature to impose upon an arbitrarily selected group of county officials duties which do not stand imposed upon like officials in other counties of the state); Tulsa Co. F.O.P., Lodge No. 188 v. Board of County Commissioners of Tulsa Co., 2000 OK 2, ¶ 10, 995 P.2d 1124, 1135 (Opala, J., dissenting); Nelson v. Nelson, 1998 OK 10, 954 P.2d 1219, 1232 (Opala, J., dissenting).

. Special laws apply to less than an entire class of similarly situated persons; those who are singled out by the law receive treatment which differs from that accorded by the remainder of the class. Reynolds v. Porter, 1988 OK 88, 760 P.2d 816, 822; Maule v. Independent School Dist. No. 9, 1985 OK 110, ¶ 12, 714 P.2d 198, 203 n. 30; Great Plains Federal S & L Assn. v. Dabney, 1993 OK 4, ¶ 2, 846 P.2d 1088, 1095-96 (Opala, J., concurring).

. Maule, supra note 7 at 203-204 (citing Ind. School Dist. No. 89 of Okla. Co. v. Okl. City Fed. of Tchrs., 1980 OK 89, ¶ 1, 612 P.2d 719, 724-725 (Opala, J., dissenting)); Reynolds, supra note 7 at 822.

. In Fair School Finance Council of Oklahoma, Inc. v. State, 1987 OK 114, ¶ 64, 746 P.2d 1135, 1150, the court holds that although the state is not under a mandate to provide equal per-pupil funding, it does stand under a constitutional command to treat all districts equally for access to existing revenue sources.

. When a statute's sweep embraces less than a whole class, it is underinclusive in the § 46 sense. For a detailed explanation of the latter § 46 classification flaw see Reynolds, supra note 7 at 822.

. The terms of Art. 5 § 59, Okl. Const., are:
Laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation throughout the State, and where a general law can be made applicable, no special law shall be enacted.

. For the terms of Art. 5 § 46, Okl. Const., see supra note 2.

. Reynolds, supra note 7 at 822; Nesbitt, supra note 10 at 703 syl. 1.

. When testing a statute's constitutional orthodoxy by the standards prescribed by § 59, a three-prong inquiry is to be made: (1) Is the statute a special or general law? (2) If the act is a special law, could a general law be made applicable? and (3) If a general law may not be made applicable, does the statute pass muster as a permissible special law? Ross v. Peters, 1993 OK 8, 846 P.2d 1107, 1119; Reynolds, supra note 7 at 822.

. The distinct characteristics of § 46, which set it far apart from § 59, are eloquently taught by two early post-statehood decisions. Their reading is a must for all those who wish to claim familiarity with the subject. Chickasha Cotton Oil Co. v. Lamb & Tyner, 1911 OK 68, ¶¶ 4-12, 114 P. 333, 334-36; Diehl v. Crump, 1919 OK 62, 1 6, 179 P. 4, 6.

. Maule, supra note 7 at 203-204 (citing Ind. Schl. Dist. No. 89, at 725-26 (Opala, J., dissenting)); Reynolds, supra note 7 at 822.

. Although directed to the legislature, the terms of Art. 5 §§ 46 and 59 are equally binding on the courts. Reynolds, supra note 7 at 822.

. This appears to be sanctioned by First of McAlester Corp. v. Oklahoma Tax Com'n, 1985 OK 52, ¶ 35, 709 P.2d 1026, 1036, as well as by the U.S. Constitution. See Great Northern Ry. Co. v. Sunburst Oil & Refining Co., 287 U.S. 358, 364-365, 53 S.Ct. 145, 148, 77 L.Ed. 360 (1932); Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U.S. 701, 706, 89 S.Ct. 1897, 1900, 23 LEd.2d 647 (1969).