Court Opinion

ID: 9713960
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:27:29.897244+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:22.111287
License: Public Domain

ROBINSON, J.,
dissenting.
While the result reached by the Court might meet with my approval if I were sitting as a delegate to a constitutional convention, my judicial role requires me to focus on what the language of the constitutional provision at issue actually says. From that perspective, I cannot agree with the Court’s reading of what I consider to be the clear language of article 13 of the Rhode Island Constitution. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
I have read article 13 of our Constitution over and over again, and each time I have been struck by the following pellucid language in section 6 of that article:
“Whenever a petition for the adoption of a charter signed by fifteen percent of the qualified electors of a city, or in a town by fifteen percent, but not less than one hundred in number, of those persons qualified to vote on any proposition to impose a tax or for the expenditure of money shall be filed with the legislative body of any city or town the same shall be referred forthwith to the canvassing authority which shall within ten days after its receipt determine the sufficiency thereof and certify the results to the legislative body of said city or town.” (Emphasis added.)
To my mind, the word “whenever” in the foregoing passage unequivocally indicates that the charter adoption process provided for in section 6 of article 13 need not necessarily be a one-time phenomenon in the history of any particular city or town. I view the word “whenever” in section 6 of article 13 as being as crucial to the resolution of this case as the word “now” was in the eyes of the United States Supreme Court when it very recently decided the case of Carcien v. Salazar, — U.S.-, 129 S.Ct. 1058, 172 L.Ed.2d 791 (2009).6
*615As I read it, there is absolutely no ambiguity in the above-quoted language from our constitution. Therefore, pursuant to this Court’s well-established norms, I must look for and apply the ordinary meaning of the word “whenever.” See, e.g., City of Pawtucket v. Sundlun, 662 A.2d 40, 45 (R.I.1995) (referring to “the well-established rule of construction that when words in the constitution are free of ambiguity, they must be given their plain, ordinary, and usually accepted meaning”); Bailey v. Baronian, 120 R.I. 389, 391, 394 A.2d 1338, 1339 (1978) (“In construing constitutions, our chief purpose is to give effect to the intent of the makers. * * * Ordinary words are to be given their usually accepted meaning, and we must presume the language was carefully weighed and that its terms imply a definite meaning.”); see also Riley v. Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, 941 A.2d 198, 205 (R.I.2008).
The Home Rule amendments were first ratified by the voters of this state in 1951. The then-current edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary defined “whenever” as “[a]t any or all times that; in any or every instance in which * * Webster’s New International Dictionary 2910 (2nd ed.1935). Ten years after the amendment’s adoption, the next edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary included an identical definition. See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 2602 (1962). More recent definitions are likewise similar. See, e.g., Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (retrieved June 5, 2009, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionary/whenever) (defining “whenever” as “at any or every time that”); The Random House Dictionary of the English Language 2164 (2nd ed.1987) (defining “whenever” as “at whatever time; at any time when”); American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 1458 (1969) (defining “whenever” as “[a]t whatever time that * * * [e]very time that”).7 Other courts which have had occasion to construe the meaning of the word “whenever” have settled on similar definitions. See, e.g., Bethlehem Steel Corp. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, 723 F.2d 1303, 1306 (7th Cir.1983) (“[A]s used in the sentence, ‘whenever’ seems to mean ‘in any or every instance in which’ — a common usage of the word * ⅜ *.”).
In light of these definitions and bearing in mind the context of the constitutional provision at issue, I conclude that, if the word “whenever” occurs in a sentence or clause referring to an act that is intrinsically capable of multiple iterations, then “whenever” means “at any time that.”8
*616In so concluding, I note that the term “whenever” appears elsewhere in our constitution. Indeed, I consider the “whenever” that is at issue in this case to have exactly the same meaning that it does in section 3 of article 10 of the Rhode Island Constitution:
“The judges of the supreme court shall give their written opinion upon any question of law whenever requested by the governor or by either house of the general assembly.” (Emphasis added.)
I do not believe that the average English-speaking person would contend, on the basis of this provision, that the judges of this court are required to give an advisory opinion on only one occasion. The justices of this Court are constitutionally obliged to answer properly propounded requests for advisory opinions from the coordinate branches; and the fact is that they have done so on multiple occasions, always acting pursuant to section 3 of article 10.9 Likewise, I see nothing in section 6 of article 13 that even remotely indicates that a community may adopt a charter only once. Indeed, it seems to me that it is arguably an “absurd” result to attribute to the drafters of the Constitution the intention of allowing one generation to adopt a charter while leaving succeeding generations powerless to fundamentally reimag-ine their form of government. See Chambers v. Ormiston, 935 A.2d 956, 963 n. 15 (R.I.2007).
I do not believe that my construction of the constitutional provisions at issue will give free rein to the Thomas Wilson Dorrs 10 or the Jack Cades11 of this world. It should be borne in mind in this regard that, even if fifteen percent of the electorate should cause the issue of convening a new charter commission (vel non) to go before the electorate, the electorate would remain free to reject the proposal — perhaps even resoundingly.
In addition, I feel compelled to record my disagreement with the Court’s reliance on fragments from the minutes of the 1951 Constitutional Convention. See McGee v. Stone, 522 A.2d 211, 216 (R.I.1987) (“We determine legislative intent through an examination of the language of the statute itself, giving the words of the statute their plain and ordinary meaning.”). To my mind, there is no need in this instance to ruminate about what may have been the intent of the drafters of the home rule amendment or those who voted for it. As this Court quite recently stated in the case of McKenna v. Williams, 874 A.2d 217, 232 (R.I.2005):
“Constitutions, just like statutes, have an effect by what they say. When a • constitutional provision is clear, it speaks for itself. In the face of a clear constitutional provision (assuming it does not lead to absurd results), it is not necessary to anguish over what might have been the intent of the electorate.” (Emphasis in original.)
We are left with the plain language of the amendment. But that is not nothing. See Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons, act 2 (“It will mean what the words say! An oath is made of words!”).
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

. In considering this constitutional language, I could not help but recall the following lines from Joyce Kilmer’s poem The House With Nobody In It that we were required to memorize in grammar school:
"Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track *615I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.”
I am confident that the average English-speaking reader of the first two above-quoted lines from the Kilmer poem would understand the poet to be indicating that he was accustomed to walk to Suffern with some degree of regularity; to my mind that is the plain sense conveyed by the word ''whenever” with which the poem begins. And I likewise understand it to be the plain sense conveyed by that word as it is used in section 6 of article 13 of the Rhode Island Constitution.

. I do not focus on the word "whenever” in a myopic, non-contextual manner. I am mindful of the danger in making a "fortress out of the dictionary." See Cabell v. Markham, 148 F.2d 737, 739 (2nd Cir.1945) (Learned Hand, J.). I am confident, however, that my reading of the term "whenever” as used in section 6 of article 13 of the Rhode Island Constitution fully comports with its constitutional context.

. I realize that there are some discrete contexts in which the word "whenever” does not suggest the possibility of a multiplicity of occurrences. (E.g., "I will shovel the snow off the sidewalk whenever I get hpme tonight.”). However, the use of the word in section 6 of article 13 unambiguously indicates to me that *616the process described in that section could be set in motion more than once in any given municipality.

. See Opinion to the Governor, 93 R.I. 262, 265, 174 A.2d 553, 554 (1961).

. See generally Luther v. Borden, 48 U.S. (7 How.) 1, 12 L.Ed. 581 (1849).

. Jack Cade was the leader of a revolt of peasants in Kent in the year 1450.