Court Opinion

ID: 9633396
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:45:53.171169+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:34.467487
License: Public Domain

Finley, J.
(concurring) — I have signed the majority opinion, hut feel some further comment is germane and may be helpful. In essence, the instant case is an attack on the 60 per cent majority requirement of the Washington *432Constitution as a violation of the equal protection provision of the Fourteenth Amendment. Fourteenth Amendment equal protection jurisprudence has generally utilized two separate standards of review.4 One, utilizing the normal presumptions of constitutionality, requires only that the classification adopted bear a rational relationship to a legitimate public purpose.5 The other standard of review, requiring a “very heavy burden of justification,”6 (i.e., the showing of a compelling state interest) is imposed either when a “suspect” classification such as race is utilized7 or when the interest protected is as fundamental to the demo*433cratic process as voting or interstate travel.8 In either case, all members of the class must be similarly treated.
Thus, I think the initial question to be evaluated in this case is what standard of review is to be applied to the excess levy vote. At first glance one is tempted to apply a rather simplistic syllogism — the Supreme Court has applied the more stringent standard of review to voting cases; this case is a voting case; hence the statute must be struck down unless a compelling state interest can be found. It is this syllogism which underlies much of appellant’s arguments. I think some fallacies are inherent in the underlying syllogism. This prompts some elaboration on my part beyond the views expressed in the majority opinion, hopefully to ameliorate confusion or misunderstanding which I apprehend may arise in the future as to this case.
The majority does suggest one way of avoiding this dilemma, i.e., characterization of this case as that of a voter acting in a legislative capacity and not in the capacity of choosing legislative or other governmental officials. Although the majority does not discuss this question, it is conceivable that this distinction might be used as a means of differentiating between what standard of review is to be applied. The United States Supreme Court has made it clear that this distinction does not automatically mean that one standard or the other is applicable. See Cipriano v. Houma, 395 U.S. 701, 23 L. Ed. 2d 647, 89 S. Ct. 1897 (1969) (compelling state interest test applied to municipal bond election); Kramer v. Union Free School Dist. 15, 395 U.S. 621, 23 L. Ed. 2d 583, 89 S. Ct. 1886 (1969), wherein the court held that the more stringent test of review applied regardless of whether “the questions scheduled for the election need not have been submitted to the voters.” 395 U.S. at 629 n.ll. Thus, on the question of what standard is to be applied, the characterization of the election as one choosing representatives or governmental officials or as a quasi-legis*434lative one does not provide an easy answer to the problems with which we are confronted in the instant case.
It is also clear that the Supreme Court does not require that any case involving voting be automatically decided under the more stringent standard. This question has been decided by the Supreme Court in McDonald v. Board of Election Comm’rs, 394 U.S. 802, 22 L. Ed. 2d 739, 89 S. Ct. 1404 (1969). The plaintiffs in McDonald were prisoners awaiting trial in Cook County, Illinois. When their application for absentee ballots was rejected, they contended that the rejection was a denial of equal protection. The court held that in the absence of a showing of outright disfranchisement, the more lenient “rational relationship” test would be applied.9 In doing so, the court suggested that stringent review is limited to situations where the vote is diluted by malapportionment or denied by disfranchisement.10
There is no question but that there has been no outright disfranchisement in the instant case. No one was prevented from actually casting a ballot for any reason. If there is any interference with a fundamental right, it is in the nature of a dilution of vote akin to malapportionment. This requires a close scrutiny of the malapportionment decisions in order to determine whether their rationale is applicable. It is my conviction that the stringent scrutiny in those cases was justified by the central and unique importance of the franchise in our system of government. The legislature has the responsibility of reapportioning itself. If there is malappor-tionment, there is no incentive for those representatives of the minority of the electorate who have majority control of *435the legislature to cure the malapportionment. Hence the malapportionment becomes chronic. Without recourse to the courts, there is no orderly and potentially effective procedure for the majority of the electorate to cure this fatal defect which has been called “close to the core of our constitutional system.” Carrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. 89, 13 L. Ed. 2d 675, 85 S. Ct. 775 (1965). This, however, is not the situation with which we are confronted. The majority of the electorate retains the power to change or repeal amendment 17. Prior to its adoption by a two to one majority in 1944, the electorate enacted initiatives or referendums to the same effect every 2 years from 1932 to 1942. Liberalizing amendments have been consistently defeated. Substitute House Joint Resolution 4, Laws of 1957, p. 1302; Substitute Senate Joint Resolution 1, Laws of 1961, p. 2749; Senate Joint Resolution 23, Senate Journal, Fortieth Legislature (1967) at 1957. There is no dilution of the vote here involved, either indirectly in voting for representatives or through direct participation in the legislative process. One person has one vote.11
This is not to imply that there should be no judicial scrutiny of any voting regulations adopted by the majority of the electorate. Obviously, the exclusion of any class of voters' on say racial or lineage grounds would be suspect despite participation and support by any majority. Similarly, any weighted voting for representatives so that a challenging candidate is required to garner 60 per cent of the vote very apparently at this point in time would be impermissible under the Fourteenth Amendment.
But, again, such is not the situation with which we are confronted. In the instant case there is no question but that there is access to the governmental process. We are not confronted with the problem which Mr. Justice Black recently recognized in his analysis of the malapportionment *436cases in Hadley v. Junior College Dist, 397 U.S. 50, 25 L. Ed. 2d 45, 90 S. Ct. 791 (1970):
While the particular offices involved in these cases have varied, in each case a constant factor is the decision of the government to have citizens participate individually by ballot in the selection of certain people who carry out governmental functions.
Here we have no selection of governmental officials at any level. Neither is there a dilution of votes because the voter lives in a particular area or district. The suspicion of discrimination which is triggered by a denial of the vote or by malapportionment does not exist in the instant case. A rationale compelling a special scrutiny is simply not applicable. Amendment 17 must be accepted as constitutional unless no rational relationship can be found between that scheme and a legitimate governmental purpose. The majority adequately demonstrates the existence of such a relationship. This does not imply that I believe that the 60 per cent majority requirement is a particularly wise means of determining tax burdens. That, however, is not a judicial prerogative. Any change must come from the legislature and the people, where the power to make any change is, in my judgment, quite properly entrusted and vested.
Neill, McGovern, and Stafford, JJ., concur with Finley, J.

Kramer v. Union Free School Dist. 15, 395 U.S. 621, 23 L. Ed. 2d 583, 89 S. Ct. 1886 (1969), provides one of the most recent utilizations of this “dual” standard of review. See also Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 16 L. Ed. 2d 169, 86 S. Ct. 1079 (1966); Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 12 L. Ed. 2d 506, 84 S. Ct. 1362 (1964). The adoption of the dual test has not been without dissent. See Mr. Justice Harlan dissenting in Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 16 L. Ed. 2d 828, 86 S. Ct. 1717 (1966), and in Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 22 L. Ed. 2d 600, 89 S. Ct. 1322 (1969). I expressed some of these reservations in my dissent to Adams v. Hinkle, 51 Wn.2d 763, 322 P.2d 844 (1958), when this court adopted a dual standard of review in equal protection cases. But these views have not prevailed. Both the court and commentators make it clear that the dual level test has been adopted as a method of analyzing Fourteenth Amendment problems. We cannot ignore it. See generally Developments in the Law — Equal Protection, 82 Harv. L. Rev. 1065 (1969); The Supreme Court, 1968 Term, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 60, 77 (1969).

The term “classification” is somewhat misleading. Arguably a classification may or may not be involved in the instant case. See Note, Constitutionality of the voting provisions in the seventeenth amendment to the Washington Constitution, 42 Wash. L. Rev. 640 (1967); Note, Extraordinary Majority Voting Requirements, 58 Geo. L. J. 411 (1969). For examples of the use of the “rational relationship” test, see Sailors v. Board of Educ., 387 U.S. 105, 18 L. Ed. 2d 650, 87 S. Ct. 1549 (1967); State ex rel. Namer Inv. Corp. v. Williams, 73 Wn.2d 1, 435 P.2d 975 (1968); Lone Star Cement Corp. v. Seattle, 71 Wn.2d 564, 429 P.2d 909 (1967). The rational relationship has been, at times, rather tenuous. See, e.g., Goesaert v. Cleary, 335 U.S. 464, 93 L. Ed. 163, 69 S. Ct. 198 (1948); Kotch v. Board of River Port Pilot Comm’rs, 330 U.S. 552, 91 L. Ed. 1093, 67 S. Ct. 910 (1947).

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1010, 87 S. Ct. 1817 (1967).

See, e.g., McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.S. 184, 13 L. Ed. 2d 222, 85 S. Ct. 283 (1964).

See, e.g., Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections, supra note 1; Carrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. 89, 13 L. Ed. 2d 675, 85 S. Ct. 775 (1965); Kramer v. Union Free School Dist. 15, supra note 1; Shapiro v. Thompson, supra note 1.

McDonald is not the first voting case to apply the “rational relationship” test. See Lassiter v. Northampton County Bd. of Elections, 360 U.S. 45, 3 L. Ed. 2d 1072, 79 S. Ct. 985 (1959); Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 16 L. Ed. 2d 828, 86 S. Ct. 1717 (1966).

The court, in McDonald, held that the more stringent standard did not apply because there were no distinctions drawn on the basis of wealth or race and no impairment was shown to the ability of the appellant to exercise the fundamental right to vote. The only cases cited as examples of the application of the more stringent standard involved either malapportionment or outright disfranchisement.

 Cf. Note, Constitutionality of the voting provisions in the seventeenth amendment to the Washington Constitution, 42 Wash. L. Rev. 640 (1967); Note, Extraordinary Majority Voting Requirements, 58 Geo. L. J. 411 (1969).