Court Opinion

ID: 9594070
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:26:55.034678+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:58:13.433335
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Justice,
concurring in result.
The court declares today that the initiative measure under consideration — which would establish a state-run lottery — qualifies for submission to a vote of the people. While I concur in clearing the measure for an election, I write separately to reiterate my views on the outer limit of permissible scrutiny an initiative measure may undergo when it is before us upon a protest for alleged legal deficiency.
I would not undertake to test the validity of a measure’s content before its adoption by a vote of the people. My commitment to the undiluted force of Threadgill v. Cross1 continues with undiminished fervor.2, Thread-gill teaches that conformity of a measure’s content to the commands of our constitution — state and federal — may not be judicially examined in advance of the initiative peti*789tion’s adoption by the people. Presubmission review of a measure’s fundamental-law conformity should be confined to fatally vitiating infirmities in the initiative process itself. The electorate’s effort at legislating directly must not be hindered by pre-election attacks other than those which target the petition’s compliance with some sine qua non requirement for submission.
While on its journey to the ballot box a measure proposed by initiative petition is entitled to the same judicial deference that is accorded a legislative bill in progress. Judges cannot police the lawmaking process for conformity to the constitution without raising an impermissible restraint on the free exercise of political activities.3 Just as the passage of a seemingly infirm bill in progress will not be enjoined to save the cost of processing the act through the Houses of the Legislature, so, too, an initiative that passes muster for submission should not be condemned in advance of the measure’s adoption just to avoid a costly election. The burden or loss borne by the people when an election fails because the law is later held invalid is the price to be paid for our system of constitutional democracy that authorizes the electorate to legislate directly.4
I
THREADGILL AND ITS PROGENY
Threadgill, which enjoyed full and unlimited sway from 1910 until 1975,5 teaches that an initiative petition need only pass a procedural threshold test to qualify for submission to a vote of the people. It must (a) be in substantial compliance with the sine qua non procedural requirements for submission and bear the requisite number of valid signatures,6 (b) address but a single subject7 and (c) deal with a subject not explicitly excluded from the people’s lawmaking power.8 Unless a fatal procedural impediment be found in one of these categories, a petition must be cleared for a vote. All constitutional challenges to an initiative’s content will be postponed to await the measure’s adoption as enforceable law. They may later be pressed in the context of a lively forensic controversy between antagonistic adversaries by parties with legal standing to sue.9
*790Threadgill should be kept in fall force because it raises a necessary barrier of insulation between the judicial department’s judicature and the people’s lawmaking. The former is a function of judges, the latter of the people. Any departure from the basic teachings of Threadgill creates an impermissible burden on the people’s fundamental-law power to initiate and pass measures that may change the state’s constitution as well as her statutes.

The Prudential-Rule-of-Necessity Barrier To Deciding Purely Academic Questions

Moreover, the “prudential rule of necessity”, adhered to by all state and federal courts, commands that constitutional issues not be resolved in advance of strict necessity.10 Pre-enactment testing of proposed legislation clearly offends the prudential rule. Measures in the process of lawmaking, popular or legislative, are not subject to court-enforced constitutional orthodoxy. I would not today relax the prudential rule to consider the protestants’ constitutional challenges to an unenacted measure.
II
CONSTITUTIONAL ORTHODOXY MAY NOT BE IMPRESSED ON THE POLITICAL PROCESS OF INITIATIVE LAWMAKING
The process of changing statutory law or the state’s constitution by initiative petition is a form of lawmaking. Lawmaking is a political process. Judicial pre-enactment scrutiny of proposed legislation for constitutional flaws raises an impermissible restraint on the free exercise of political activity.11 Unlike enacted law, lawmaking in progress need not meet constitutional orthodoxy. Judges serve as stewards of constitutional purity in law, but do not also function as government agents enforcing constitutional conformity upon the political process of lawmaking. No official censor’s imprimatur12 or nihil obs-tat13 is required for the content of a measure to reach the people.14
*791Public debate on an unenacted measure and the electorate’s claim to its adoption is every bit as protected by Art. 2, § 22, Okl. Const.,15 as is a proposed bill before either of the two legislative chambers. Our fundamental law explicitly proscribes judicial tinkering with the election process. Art. 3, § 5,16 and Art. 2, § 4, Okl. Const.17 These constitutional provisions protect both the election and the right of franchise from unauthorized or excessive use of judicial power.18 There is no reason why the cost of a futile election should be a factor that militates in favor of presubmission constitutional testing of the people’s measure. That cost is never considered in deciding whether a legislative bill in progress should be enjoined or condemned in chancery.
Only in the clearest case of firmly settled and stable constitutional jurisprudence that absolutely condemns a proposed measure as facially impossible of enforcement, application or execution — and then only if the prot-estante have standing to complain of constitutional infirmity — should this court ever undertake to trump an initiative petition that is on its journey to the ballot box.

SUMMARY

Because of my continued and unswerving commitment to Threadgill’s teachings, I would not test for constitutional orthodoxy the content of an initiative petition in advance of its submission and adoption.19 The electorate’s effort at legislating directly should not undergo judicial scrutiny unless the petition is attacked for noncompliance with some sine qua non requirement for submission. I would once again counsel the court that its imposition of constitutional orthodoxy on lawmaking process raises an impermissible barrier to lawful efforts at bringing about government reforms. Judges have no power either to censor or to chill the marketplace debate about competing political ideas.
*792The measure under consideration is fit for submission; I hence concur in the court’s disposition of the protest but not in its pronouncement.

. 26 Okl. 403, 109 P. 558 (1910).

. My unswerving commitment to Threadgill, supra note 1, is documented in several reported decisions. See In re Initiative Petition No. 349, Okl., 838 P.2d 1, 18 (1992) (Opala, C.J., dissenting); In re Initiative Petition No. 348, Okl., 820 P.2d 772, 781 (1991) (Opala, C.J., concurring in result); In re Initiative Petition No. 347, Okl., 813 P.2d 1019, 1037 (1991) (Opala, C.J., concurring); In re Initiative Petition No. 341, Okl., 796 P.2d 267, 275 (1990) (Opala, V.C.J., concurring in result); In re Initiative Petition No. 317, Okl., 648 P.2d 1207, 1222 (1982) (Opala, J., concurring in the judgment); In re Initiative Petition No. 315, Okl., 649 P.2d 545, 554-555 (1982) (Opala, J., concurring in result); In re Initiative Petition No. 349, (No. 76,437, February 20, 1991) (Opala, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (unpublished opinion).

. Advocacy for or against a proposed law is the purest form of political speech. Restraint upon free speech is prohibited by the terms of Art. 2, § 22, Okl. Const., which provide in part:
“Every person may freely speak, write, or publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right....”

. For constitutional provisions that govern the people’s right to the initiative and referendum, see infra note 14.

. See In re Supreme Court Adjudication of Initiative Petitions in Norman, Oklahoma, Okl., 534 P.2d 3 (1975) [Norman], where the court held that the proposed ordinance could not be submitted to a vote because the subject matter of the measure was found to lie outside the people’s range of power to legislate. As I view Norman, its teaching is consistent with Threadgill but its language a fait broader than the holding. To me, Norman trumped an initiative measure that dealt with a subject excluded from the power of initiative lawmaking. My own analysis of Norman places that pronouncement well within Thread-gill's rationale. Some post-Norman cases unjustifiably assume our total rejection of Threadgill’s teachings.

. See, e.g., Community Gas and Service Company v. Walbaum, Okl., 404 P.2d 1014, 1016 (1965), where the court invalidated an initiative petition which failed to contain a required warning that signing the petition twice would constitute a felony. The warning clause was held to be a sine qua non requirement of the petition's validity.

. In re Initiative Petition No. 344, Okl., 797 P.2d 326, 330 (1990); In re Initiative Petition No. 342, Okl., 797 P.2d 331, 333 (1990).

. Norman, supra note 5; see also in this connection In re Initiative Petition No. 347, supra note 2, 813 P.2d at 1039 (Opala, C.J., concurring).

. See Grodin, In Pursuit of Justice at 106 (Univ. of Cal. Press 1989); Gordon and Magleby, Pre-Election Judicial Review of Initiatives and Referendums, 64 Notre Dame L.Rev. 298, 302 (1989); see in this connection Grossman, The Initiative and Referendum Process: The Michigan Experience, 28 Wayne L.Rev. 77, 111 (1981); Note, The Judiciary and Popular Democracy: Should Courts Review Ballot Measures Prior to Elections?, 53 Fordham L.Rev. 919, 921-22 (1985). For a discussion of state and federal standing requirements, see Democratic Party of Oklahoma v. Estep, Okl., 652 P.2d 271, 274 (1982); Johnson v. Walters, Okl., 819 P.2d 694, 711-712 (1991) (Opala, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); In re Initiative Petition No. 349, supra note 2, 838 P.2d at 21-24 (Opala, C.J., dissenting); Hendrick v. Walters, Okl., 865 P.2d 1232, 1235-38 (1993).

. In re Snyder, 472 U.S. 634, 642-643, 105 S.Ct. 2874, 2880, 86 L.Ed.2d 504 (1985); Brackett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc., 472 U.S. 491, 501-502, 105 S.Ct. 2794, 2801, 86 L.Ed.2d 394 (1986); I.N.S. v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 937, 103 S.Ct. 2764, 2776, 77 L.Ed.2d 317 (1983); Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 347, 56 S.Ct. 466, 483, 80 L.Ed. 688 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring); In re Initiative Petition No. 347, supra note 2, 813 P.2d at 1037 (Opala, C.J., concurring); Smith v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., Okl., 732 P.2d 466, 467 n. 3 (1987); Schwartz v. Diehl, Okl., 568 P.2d 280, 283 (1977); Dablemont v. State, Department of Public Safety, Okl., 543 P.2d 563, 564-565 (1975); see also Davis v. B.F. Goodrich, Okl., 826 P.2d 587, 593-594 (1992) (Opala, C.J., concurring); In re Initiative Petition No. 348, supra note 2, 820 P.2d at 781, 782 n. 4 (Opala, C.J., concurring in result); Johnson, supra note 9, 819 P.2d at 708, 712 n. 26 (Opala, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); State ex rel. Okl. Bar Ass’n v. Lobaugh, Okl., 781 P.2d 806, 813 (1988) (Opala, J., dissenting); In re Initiative Petition No. 341, supra note 2, 796 P.2d at 275 (Opala, V.C.J., concurring in result).

. See Art. 2, § 22, Okl. Const., supra note 3.

. The word "imprimatur" means (a) “a license to print or publish," (b) approval of that which is published where censorship of the press exists, (c) "imprint," "sanction, approval,” "a sign or mark of approval.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary at 1137 (1961). Imprimatur was formerly necessary in England before any book could lawfully be printed; in some countries it is still required. Black’s Law Dictionary at 681 (5th Ed. 1979).

. The phrase "nihil obstat" means “the certification by an official censor of the Roman Catholic Church that a book has been examined and found to contain nothing opposed to faith and morals”; “authoritative or official approval.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary at 1528 (1961).

. The constitutional provisions governing the initiative and referendum are Art. 5, §§ 1-8, Okl. Const. The terms of § 1 are:
"The Legislative authority of the State shall be vested in a Legislature, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives; but the people reserve to themselves the power to propose laws and amendments to the Constitution and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the Legislature, and also reserve power at their own option to approve or reject at the polls any act of the Legislature." (Emphasis added.)
In Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Smith, Okl., 610 P.2d 794, 807 (1980), we stated that Art. 5, §§ 1, 2 and 7, Okl. Const., together "comprise an initiative system whereby both the people and the Legislature may propose legislation independently, and neither can block the effort of the other during the process ...” Our teaching in Smith *791applies with equal force to bar judicial as well as legislative interference with initiative process. Courts should be loath to impose judicial restraint on the electorate’s power to make law. As the Arizona Supreme Court aptly remarked in State v. Osborn, 16 Ariz. 247, 248, 143 P. 117, 118 (1914), to place court-imposed restrictions “would be tantamount to claiming the power of life and death over every initiated measure by the people. It would limit the right of the people to propose only valid laws, whereas the other lawmaking body, the Legislature, would go untrammeled as to the legal soundness of its measures.”

. For the pertinent terms of Art. 2, § 22, Okl. Const., see supra note 3.
Our constitution's initiative provisions not only guarantee the right to vote on a proposed measure, they also afford the people a valued opportunity to ventilate — i.e., to air issues in a free political debate. This court has a constitutionally mandated duty to uphold and safeguard free pre-election ventilation of political views. See In re Initiative Petition No. 314, Okl., 625 P.2d 595, 613 (1981) (Opala, J., concurring), where I observe that a measure's submission too close to an election would deprive its proponents as well as the contestants of a fundamental right to inform the public about the merits and demerits of the issue before the electorate.

. The terms of Art. 3, § 5, Okl. Const., are: "Ail elections shall be free and equal. No power, civil or military, shall ever interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage, and electors shall, in all cases, except for treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance on elections and while going to and from the same.”

. The terms of Art. 2, § 4, Okl. Const., are:
"No power, civil or military, shall ever interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage by those entitled to such right." (Emphasis added.)

. The right of a qualified elector to vote and have that vote counted is basic and fundamental. McCarthy v. Slater, Okl., 553 P.2d 489, 490 (1976); Sparks v. State Election Board, Okl., 392 P.2d 711, syllabus 1 (1964). See Jackson v. Maley, Okl., 806 P.2d 610, 623-624 (1991) (Opala, C.J., dissenting).

. The only options available as a remedy against invasive initiative power are (a) to curb— as Justice Mosk suggests — the people’s power to create chaos by constitutional amendment defining areas of regulation that lie outside the reserved power of initiative or (b) to act judicially and invalidate an actually adopted measure when it visits crippling damage to the operations of government by causing institutional paralysis. In re Initiative Petition No. 348, supra note 2, 820 P.2d at 787 (Opala, C.J., concurring in result). For Justice Mosk’s observations about the limits of the electorate's power to legislate by initiative petition, see Kennedy Wholesale v. Bd. of Equalization, 53 Cal.3d 245, 279 Cal.Rptr. 325, 332, 806 P.2d 1360, 1367 (1991) (Mosk, J., concurring).