Court Opinion

ID: 9567022
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:47:01.199359+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:50:42.153545
License: Public Domain

LUSK, J.
(dissenting).
I concur in the dissent of Mr. Justice Brand. As his opinion demonstrates, the frequently abused *706maxim, “The mention of one thing implies the ex-elusion of another”, has been misapplied by the majority, with the result to be expected — a complete distortion of the meaning of a very simple statute. There is a portion of the statute, however, to which the maxim may with all propriety be applied. That is the language of ORS 255.030, which states what a candidate may file for publication in the Voters’ Pamphlet. When the legislature said that the candidate may file his portrait cut and printed or typewritten statement stating the reason why he should be nominated, it by implication excluded everything else. When it authorized the publication of the candidate’s “portrait cut” it impliedly excluded every other cut, whether it be of a statue of Sacajawea or a map of western Oregon. This consideration alone should be determinative of the case.
The legislature was under no obligation, constitutional or otherwise, to provide for a Voters’ Pamphlet. When it did so it had the power to determine the type of material that should be entitled to publication in the pamphlet. It had the right to charge the secretary of state with the duty of administration of the act, and it should go without saying that it is the secretary of state who must determine whether material offered to him for publication comes within the terms of the act. It would appear, however, that the majority entertains a different and novel notion about these matters, as witness the following excerpts from the opinion:
“* * * The only authority granted by the Secretary of State, so far as rejecting matters for the voters’ pamphlet submitted by a candidate is concerned, is measured by the language, ‘obscene, vulgar, profane,’ etc., set out in ORS 255.040 (1) aforesaid.”
*707‘ ‘ This act should be liberally construed. What to. a candidate might seem pertinent and germane might not seem so to the Secretary of State. The voters’ pamphlet is the poor man’s avenue to reach all the registered voters. A candidate who "pays the requisite fees and does not offend the provisions of ORS 255.040 (1) should not be placed at the mercy or whims of a public official.”
The rule of liberal construction was never intended to extend the grant of the legislative body, In re Frazier’s Estate, 180 Or 232, 238, 177 P2d 254, 170 ALR 729; and that rule does not imply that the legislative mandate may be disregarded or that the words of the statute may be ignored or frittered away. 40 Am Jur 403, Statutes § 387. And no rule of construction can justify the majority’s conclusion respecting the authority granted to the secretary of state by this statute. After stating expressly that that official has no authority to reject anything except material which must be excluded under ORS 255.040, it is said, “What to a candidate might seem pertinent and germane might not seem so to the Secretary of State.” If this means anything, it means that the secretary of state must accept whatever the candidate submits to him for inclusion in the Pamphlet, and that, with the exception of material that is “obscene, vulgar, profane”,- etc. the candidate is the final judge of its fitness. Yet it is the secretary of state who is charged with the responsibility of administering the act. The legislature has imposed on him the duty of accepting for publication and publishing the portrait cuts of candidates and their statements giving the reasons why they should be nominated. The secretary of state cannot perform this duty without determining whether or not material submitted to him comes within the statutory *708definition, and that involves the exercise of judgment. Of course, as the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Brand shows, if the official should act arbitrarily or even erroneously, an injured candidate would have his remedy in the courts. But under the majority’s opinion the people of -the state of Oregon would have no remedy, short of repeal or amendment of the statute, as against the abuse of the privilege of the Voters’ Pamphlet by candidates for office. Any statement, however foreign to the purpose or outlandish, any picture whether it be of Sacajawea or Mickey Mouse, would have to be accepted because it might seem “pertinent and germane” to the candidate, although not to the secretary of state. The majority seem to have forgotten that the Voters’ Pamphlet is an official publication of the state of Oregon provided by law as an aid to the voters in the proper use of those new instruments of government, the direct primary and the initiative and referendum. It may or may not have been intended as “the poor man’s avenue to reach all the registered voters” — it is the rich man’s avenue as well — , but it is certainly not the private property of any candidate for office, rich or poor. And it is equally certain that the privilege which the state extends to candidates to advertise their candidacy through the pages of the Voters’ Pamphlet is limited by law, and that no one is entitled to that privilege except to the extent and within the limitations expressed in the statute. This, at least, was so until the decision today rendered introduced anarchy into the statute.
I am authorized to say that Warner, A.C.J., and Brand, J., concur in the foregoing opinion.