Court Opinion

ID: 9548590
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:05:47.790663+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:09.681228
License: Public Domain

DONALDSON, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. It is my opinion that the “one man, one vote” principle of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution should be applied to a case of this nature where there is an alleged debasement of the vote in a municipal election on a general obligation bond which requires a % majority vote for passage. . The United States Supreme Court recently held that the Equal Protection Clause applies to municipal elections on revenue bonds. Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U.S. 701, 89 S.Ct. 1897, 23 L.Ed.2d 647 (1969). It is true that Cipriano involved the denial of the franchise to a non-property owner rather than the alleged debasement or dilution of a vote, However this is a distinction without a *526difference since it is settled law that the dilution of the vote is also violative of the Equal Protection Qause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962) ; Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 83 S.Ct. 801, 9 L.Ed.2d 821 (1963) ; Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964) ; Avery v. Midland County, Texas, 390 U.S. 474, 88 S.Ct. 1114, 20 L.Ed.2d 45 (1968). As the Supreme Court said in Reynolds at page 555 of 377 U.S., at page 1378 of 84 S.Ct.
“ * * * the right of suffrage can he denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise.”
It is therefore apparent that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is applicable to the alleged dilution of the vote in a municipal election concerning general obligation bonds. See also, Lance v. Board of Education, W.Va., 170 S.E.2d 783 (1969).
Since the Fourteenth Amendment is applicable the alleged Equal Protection Clause infringement must be judged by traditional standards of equal protection; i. e., it must be determined whether or not the y¡ majority voting requirement creates a class against which there is discrimination, and if it does, whether there is a compelling state interest to justify it. Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15, 395 U.S. 621, 89 S.Ct. 1886, 23 L.Ed.2d 583 (1969). In regard to the first question it is not disputed that by requiring a % majority of favorable votes to pass a bond issue that negative voters have twice as much voting power in the bond election as do the affirmative voters. Apart from this discrepancy there is no difference in the qualifications of the voters. Therefore there is discrimination. However it is not directed at sex, residence, color, economic status, or geographic location, but it is directed at a class of persons who happen to hold a particular point of view and results in a functional discrimination. That a point of view may not be discriminated against is clear from Carrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. 89, 85 S.Ct. 775, 13 L.Ed.2d 675 (1965),
“ * * * 'fencing out’ from the franchise a sector of the population because of the way they may vote is constitutionally impermissible.” 380 U.S. 89, 94, 85 S.Ct. 775, 779.
It is a sophisticated rather than simpleminded discrimination since the debasement or dilution only occurs when the voter decides upon which place on the ballot to place his “X.” The United States Supreme Court said in Reynolds v. Sims, supra, “One must be ever aware that the Constitution forbids 'sophisticated as well as simpleminded modes of discrimination.’ ”
However discrimination by a state law is not per se a violation of the Equal Protection Clause if it is based on a compelling state interest. Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15, supra; Cipriano v. City of Houma, supra. The articulated state interest in requiring a % majority vote in bond elections is a prudent fiscal policy which requires that there be a substantial approval of a given project before a municipality embarks on a voyage of increased indebtedness. This state policy of fiscal restraint would have more weight if it was not already safeguarded by the constitutional requirement that voters at bond elections must be property owners. In the recent case of Muench, et al. v. Paine, et al., 93 Idaho 473, 463 P.2d 939 (January 16, 1970) this Court upheld this constitutional provision. This Court held that property owners as taxpayers, by and large have a greater and more permanent economic stake in the community than non-property owners. Further, I.C. § 50-1019' limits the amount of bonds that can be authorized to 10% of the assessed full cash valuation of the property within the city. Therefore the voters who will be required to pay the taxes are the ones who decide whether or not a bond issue shall be approved. The Supreme Court of West Virginia in the case of Lance v. Board of Education, supra, held that the y, vote re*527quirement of the West Virginia Constitution relating to elections on bond issues was in conflict of the Equal Protection Clause •of the Constitution of the United States and was therefore unconstitutional and unenforceable. Thus it is my opinion that this state interest is not sufficiently compelling to warrant protection in light of modern conditions which refute the bases for this policy. As written in the Public Affairs Report of the Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Vol. 10, No. 4, August, 1969.
“Regardless of whether the [$6] requirement could be considered appropriate for the conditions prevailing in the late 1800’s, it is obvious that virtually ■every factor that may then have been relevant has since changed drastically. For example, great improvements have been made in the quality and integrity both of the legislative processes and of financial administration. Local legislative bodies of the present are far more responsible than their counterparts were a century ago. A corps of highly trained professional administrators, finance officers, and financial/bond consultants is available to serve even the smallest jurisdictions.
Numerous modern procedures of fiscal administration have been developed since 1879. A host of auditing and financial accounting requirements have been written into law. The bond market itself is subject to safeguards precluding most of the practices that the 1879 constitutional provision was probably intended to correct. For example, greatly improved reporting procedures are now in effect, assuring that full and accurate information on the financial and legal ramifications of individual bond issues is supplied to prospective buyers. Highly qualified bond consulting firms, specialized legal counsel, and careful bond issue evaluation by respected national rating agencies, have all built strong public confidence in most local bond offerings. The sense of security appears to be general, and is not limited to states requiring an extraordinary majority vote. This fact, in itself, strongly suggests that the many institutional and procedural improvements outlined here — and not the two-thirds requirement — are responsible for the soundness of modern local capital outlay finance.”
Unquestionably, taxes are a vitally important political necessity and must be given equality of determination by the qualified electorate the same as elected officials or constitutional amendments, that is, by one person, one vote, not one person, two votes. As the United States Supreme Court said:
“The concept of ‘we the people’ under the Constitution visualizes no preferred class of voters hut equality among those who meet the basic qualifications. * * Once a class of voters is chosen and their qualifications specified, [there is] no way by which equality of voting power may be evaded. The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing — one person, one vote.” Gray v. Sanders, supra.
I therefore find that Article VIII, Section 3 of the Idaho Constitution and I.C. § 50-1026 violate the “one man, one vote” principle of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by treating unequally in voting power voters who are otherwise equal, and that the state interest in a prudent fiscal policy is not sufficiently compelling to justify this discrimination since it is already adequately safeguarded.