Court Opinion

ID: 9699604
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:40:38.433684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:54.467962
License: Public Domain

SAYLOR, Justice,
concurring.
I join the majority in holding that the amendments at issue do not violate the proscriptions of Article XI, Section 1, but disassociate myself from the majority’s apparent rejection (made most explicit in its footnote 4) of a subject-matter focus to determine whether alterations are sufficiently interrelated to justify their presentation to the electorate in a single question.1 See generally Bergdoll v. Kane, 557 Pa. 72, 89, 731 A.2d 1261, 1263 (1999)(Saylor, J., concurring).
Justice CASTILLE and Justice NEWMAN join this concurring opinion.

. I note that jurisdictions interpreting virtually identical constitutional requirements have employed a single-subject test and examined the interdependence of the proposed constitutional changes in determining the necessity for separate votes. See, e.g., Korte v. Bayless, 199 Ariz. 173, 16 P.3d 200, 203-05 (2001) (explaining a "common-purpose formulation” to inquire into whether the proposed amendments are sufficiently related to "constitute a consistent and workable whole on the general topic embraced”); Clark v. State Canvassing Bd., 119 N.M. 12, 888 P.2d 458, 462 (1995) (applying a "rational linchpin” of interdependence test); Sears v. State, 232 Ga. 547, 208 S.E.2d 93, 100 (1974) (inquiring into whether all of the proposed changes "are germane to the accomplishment of a single objective”) (quotations and citations omitted); Fugina v. Donovan, 259 Minn. 35, 104 N.W.2d 911, 914 (1960) (upholding separate propositions that, although they could have been submitted separately, were rationally related to a single purpose, plan, or subject).