Court Opinion

ID: 9673065
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:05:44.272893+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:19.681083
License: Public Domain

GARDEBRING, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the view expressed by Chief Justice Keith and Justice Coyne on both procedural and substantive grounds. By its action today, the majority precludes an “election contest” based on the actions of a third party and leaves no path for an aggrieved candidate to get his or her legitimate election dispute before the legislature. The majority decision is inconsistent with past precedent, contrary to statutory requirements and outside the constitutional grant of authority to the judicial branch. It is a direct affront to the separation of powers spelled out by the writers of the Minnesota Constitution.
Article IV, Section 6 of the Minnesota Constitution unequivocally provides that “[t]he Legislature shall be the judge of the * * * eligibility of its own members” and provides further that the legislature may “prescribe by law the manner for taking evidence in cases of contested seats in either house.” Through the adoption of Minn.Stat. § 209.10 (1994), the legislature has done just that, by establishing an orderly procedure, which relies on the assistance of the judicial branch, to allow legislative election contests to come before it in a systematic way. In subdivisions 2, 3 and 4 of Minn.Stat. § 209.10 (1994), the legislature has carefully prescribed the limits of the judiciary’s task by spelling out a procedure for the selection of a trial judge and by describing the role of that judge and the meehanism for appeal of the matter to this court. The statute clearly directs that the trial judge “shall decide the contest” and “shall transmit the findings, conclusions, orders, and records of the proceeding to the chief clerk of the house of representatives or the secretary of the senate, as appropriate.” Minn.Stat. § 209.10, subd. 3 (1994). The initial role of the supreme court is purely ministerial, requiring only that we submit to the parties a list of district court judges from whom they may choose. Nothing in the statute authorizes the supreme court to dismiss a challenge to the eligibility of a legislative candidate, particularly without even the benefit of fact-finding and legal analysis done in virtually all other judicial matters by a trial court. By its decision to prematurely dismiss the eligibility challenge, the majority has crossed into the constitutional territory of the legislature.
Furthermore, the reasoning of the majority in support of its dismissal decision is, at best, unpersuasive. The matter raised in the Derus “Notice of Contest” is clearly an “election contest.” Both common sense and a careful statutory analysis support this view. If a dispute about the fairness of an election, seeking a new election, is not an “election contest,” what would be? The statutory scheme set out by the legislature clearly makes it so. The Fair Campaign Practices Act (FCPA) is one of several chapters “known as the Minnesota election law.” Minn.Stat. § 200.01 (1994). A candidate may seek invalidation of a nomination based on “the grounds of deliberate, serious, and material violations of the Minnesota election law,” which includes the FCPA. Minn.Stat. § 2Ó9.02, subd. 1 (1994).
The specific provision of the FCPA alleged to have been violated, Minn.Stat. § 211B.07 (1994), is a prohibition on certain actions by “a person;” by its terms it is not limited to actions by the candidate. A “third-party,” *522such as the Star Tribune, is clearly within its reach. Thus, a violation of the FCPA by a “third party” may provide a basis for invalidation of the nomination if the violation is “deliberate, serious and material.”1 Further, analysis of the factual allegations in this case against the “deliberate, serious and material” standard, is just the kind of task that the trial court is called upon to do in the procedure spelled out by the legislature and rejected by the majority’s decision.
Further, the majority’s holding that the remedies provided in the FCPA are exclusive goes directly against the holdings of this court in Saari v. Gleason, 126 Minn. 378, 380, 148 N.W. 293, 294 (1914) and Phillips v. Ericson, 248 Minn. 452, 467-68, 80 N.W.2d 513, 524 (1957). See also Bank v. Egan, 240 Minn. 192, 60 N.W.2d 257 (1953) (allowing election contest for violation of the Corrupt Practices Act). In Saari, this court determined that the Corrupt Practices Act (the precursor to the FCPA) was intended to provide two alternative remedies, “one by criminal prosecution and conviction and a supplemental judgment of ouster, and the other by the more summary and expeditious means of an election contest.” Saari, 126 Minn. at 381, 148 N.W. at 294. Our later decision in Phillips reiterated that a violation of the Corrupt Practices Act can be the basis for an election contest. Phillips, 248 Minn. at 468, 80 N.W.2d at 524.2
Finally, despite the remonstrances of the majority opinion to the contrary, neither the constitution nor Minn.Stat. § 209.10 (1994) provide any method for an aggrieved legislative candidate to get his or her election dispute before the proper house of the legislature, other than the one rejected by the majority today. Therefore, I conclude that the majority has improperly cut off the right of such a candidate to have the matter resolved in a constitutionally permissible manner by the legislature. This constitutional failure combined with the fundamental unfairness of this outcome requires me to dissent from the majority opinion. Like Justice Tomljanovich, I would follow the provisions of Minn.Stat. § 209.10, subd. 2 (1994) by submitting a list of district court judges to the parties.

. While both Saari and Phillips dealt with violations of the Corrupt Practices Act by a successful candidate, nothing in their holdings suggests the issue of whether the remedy is exclusive turns on who violates the restrictions on campaign practices.

. On this issue, the majority depends on Munnell v. Rowlette, 275 Minn. 92, 145 N.W.2d 531 (1966) for its conclusion that "third-party violations of election law cannot provide the basis for contesting” an election. But Munnell is distinguishable. Although the court stated that none of the actions by the third party would be chargeable to the candidate, the case turned on the court's conclusion that the candidate's presence at the polling place did not interfere with the election. The opinion gives no indication that the plaintiff in Munnell based his claim on the acts of a third party alone. There appear to be no Minnesota cases dealing specifically with third-party wrongdoing alone.