Court Opinion

ID: 9787235
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:13:30.932581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:53.472453
License: Public Domain

WINFREE, Justice,
with whom CARPENETI, Justice, joins, concurring.
I write separately to emphasize two separate but intertwining aspects of my support for the court’s decision.
The constitutional right to fair and just treatment during a legislative investigation is a personal right. The court expressly notes that without a basis for third-party standing, as in this case, a litigant generally lacks standing to assert the personal constitutional rights of another. This strongly suggests to me that although the potential violation of an individual’s personal constitutional rights may be a matter of great interest to the public, at least when the individual is the governor, it is not a matter of “public significance” upon which citizen-taxpayer standing may be grounded. Our cases granting citizen-taxpayer standing have involved matters affecting rights and interests beyond a single individual.1 The matters in this ease do not reach the level of “public significance” justifying citizen-taxpayer standing for the Keller plaintiffs; that others are in a better position to bring suit simply confirms my view.
The Keller plaintiffs’ oblique connection to the constitutional right to fair and just treatment suggests yet another reason to deny citizen-taxpayer standing. In contrast to the Kiesel plaintiffs’ ease, the core of the Keller plaintiffs’ case does not really concern the protection of individual rights — it concerns a dispute between legislators, in their official capacities, about the power and authority of the Legislative Council and how legislative *306investigations should be conducted. This dispute raises legitimate and important questions, but we have long made clear our aversion to court involvement in internal disputes of the legislature.2 We have stated that courts may intervene to protect against the legislature’s infringement of personal rights,3 but common sense suggests that intervention must be at the instance of one whose individual rights may be violated, not at the instance of legislators who oppose their colleagues’ use of legislative power. Concluding otherwise and recognizing citizen-taxpayer standing under these circumstances would allow an exception to swallow our rule of declining to decide political questions arising from internal legislative disputes.

. Malone v. Meekins, 650 P.2d 351, 356, 359 (Alaska 1982) (declining to intervene in dispute between legislators about election of house officers, stating, among other things: (1) although "the judicial branch of government has the constitutionally mandated duty to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Alaska Constitution, including compliance by the legislature .... we believe that a proper recognition of the respective roles of the legislature and the judiciary requires that the latter not intervene [in the internal organization of the legislature]” and (2) that "except in extraordinary circumstances, as where the rights of persons who are not members of the legislature are involved, it is not the function of the judiciary to require that the legislature follow its own rules.”); Abood v. Gorsuch, 703 P.2d 1158, 1164 (Alaska 1985) (affirming Malone v. Meekins holding regarding non-justici-ability of claims between legislators about violations of legislative rules); Abood v. League of Women Voters of Alaska, 743 P.2d 333, 339 (Alaska 1987) (same, but reiterating that non-justicia-bility would not bar review of claim that violation of legislative rules infringed on the rights of a third party).

. Abood v. League of Women Voters of Alaska, 743 P.2d at 339; Malone, 650 P.2d at 359.

. See Trustees for Alaska v. State, 736 P.2d 324, 328-29 (Alaska 1987) (and cases discussed therein); Baxley v. State, 958 P.2d 422, 428-29 (Alaska 1998); State v. Enserch Alaska Construction, Inc., 787 P.2d 624, 630 (Alaska 1989).