Court Opinion

ID: 9789803
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:41:38.240163+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:34:09.340903
License: Public Domain

WELCH, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
The majority opinion plainly substitutes anticipated future eligibility for present eligibility. The opinion confuses eligibility to hold office, which will ripen into existence before the November General Election with legally required present eligibility to seek party nomination for election to the office at the July Primary Election.
Eligibility to hold the office is provided by valid constitutional provision. Eligibility to become a candidate for party nomination for election to the office is provided by valid statutory provisions.
A valid constitutional provision is binding on all. Valid statutes until repealed are no less binding on all.
Both the Constitution and statutory election law should be sustained, requiring all alike who, either by election or appointment, would take or assume an office, to comply with the valid law as to eligibility to hold office, and requiring all alike who would seek party nomination for election to office to comply with valid election laws as to eligibility to become such candidate.
Heretofore that has been the holding of this Court. In several cases including Stafford v. State Election Board, 203 Okl. 132, 218 P.2d 617; Meyer v. Jones, 203 Okl. 160, 219 P.2d 620, prospective candidates at filing time were not presently eligible to file though each could have attained eligibility to hold the office before the general election. We there held each to the rule that he could not become a candidate for lack of present eligibility under the statute to become a candidate in the primary election.
This Court denied each of them the right to file and become a candidate because the law required such a ruling. There has been no change in the law.
Of course I recognize the power of this Court to change its ruling, but I urge that it ought not to do so without pointing out wherein these former decisions are wrong, and overruling them.
Likewise I recognize the power of this Court to find and to declare legislative acts to be invalid in whole or in part but there again we should not depart from any statutory election law of the State without pointing out wherein and why it is invalid.
The primary election law requires many things for one to be and to do and some things he must not do or not be as governing his eligibility to become a candidate (not included in the Constitution). Which one or more of such provisions are invalid? Why not enforce them all? (As we have *1043in the past) or point out exactly which such provisions are illegal?
I think they are all legal. They were adopted by expressed direction of the Constitution. In Stafford, supra, this court held in paragraph two of the syllabus:
“By Sec. 5, Article 3 of the State Constitution the Legislature is given full authority to prescribe a regulatory primary system for the purpose of allowing the voters at such primary to name candidates for the political parties to be presented to the voters at the general election, and this carries with it the authority to prescribe the qualifications of a candidate in such primary election.
That constitutional provision authorized the Legislature and gave the Legislature full power to prescribe additional requirements, or in fact, additional qualifications or conditions precedent for any person to enter into public office through primary election, in addition to the primary qualifications of eligibility to hold office stated in the Constitution, so long as the legislative provisions are reasonable and are not opposed to the specific provisions in the Constitution or to the spirit of the Constitution. See Throop on Public Offices page 82. The substance of what I have said in this paragraph was stated and approved in Stafford, supra, and was there supported by a quotation from the well known authority Throop.
While Mr. Findley complied with the re* quirements that he file his notification and declaration to become a candidate, he did not bring himself into compliance with the other requirements of the statute. It was for that reason that the State Election Board sustained the protest to his becoming a candidate. Mr. Findley, under the law, was not eligible to become a candidate for nomination as a candidate for election to the office of Attorney General, and therefore the State Election Board ordered his name not placed on the ballot for the primary election on July 1, 1958.
In Meyer, supra, the County Election Board accepted and approved a notification and declaration to become a candidate for nomination as a candidate for office of County Attorney. He was not then eligible to become a candidate for election to that office by reasons of the provisions and requirements of the primary election laws. For that reason the District Court in a proper action prohibited the Board from leaving the candidate’s name on the primary ballot, and this court affirmed.
The allowing of Mr. Findley to become a candidate at this primary election is directly contrary to the statutory primary election laws now in force. Therefore he cannot be permitted to become such candidate unless the laws are invalid which set out the requirements to become a candidate with which he has not complied, and as I view it, the decision of this Court permitting him to become such candidate is contrary to the decisions in Stafford and Meyer, supra. If this Court is to decree him permission to become such candidate the decision should point out those specific provisions of our primary election laws which are invalid, and should overrule in whole or in part the decisions in Stafford and Meyer, supra.
In the Stafford and Meyer cases this Court specifically refused to adopt or apply the rule that future anticipated eligibility to hold the office (to come before general election) should be accepted and substituted for required eligibility to seek party nomination for election to office.
That was because such a rule would be contrary to valid election law. It is no less contrary now. The State Election Board followed our former holdings (not yet overruled) and followed valid statutory election laws (not yet held invalid in whole or in part) and the Board should be upheld.
All laws should be clear, but the rules and laws applying to our elections should be crystal clear, so that candidates, voters and election officials could know what is required and so that all could comply there*1044with and so that all could be required to comply therewith.
The governing rule is not clear when we apply the rule to Mr. Findley that he may be a candidate because of future anticipated eligibility to come between the primary election and the general election, but say that Stafford and Meyer could not become candidates for lack of present eligi-bilities though each of them could have attained complete eligibility between the primary election and the general election.
It is not only the spirit of our law, but the stated provisions of the law that a citizen must be qualified and eligible to hold an office in our State when he files his notification and declaration as a candidate for party nomination for election to that office.
What is wrong with the rule anyway that a man must be fully qualified and eligible to hold an office before he can ask his political party to name him as its nominee for election to an important office of our State? That is evidently the way the people want it as they have so provided through their representatives in the legislature. That has been the law many years without change, and the people and the courts have followed and applied it.
If the people want to change it and provide that a man may be nominated before he is eligible to hold the office couldn’t they do that through the legislature? I do not think this Court should change it.
There is nothing in the Constitution that speaks either way on the point. The Constitution does not say that a man can seek his party nomination before he is eligible to hold the office, nor does it say he cannot do so. Surely then it is a matter for the people to say by legislation, and they have done so by legislation that I think is valid. This Court should just carry on and continue to enforce it as we have in the past.
In my view the majority opinion confuses the valid constitutional provisions as to eligibility to hold public office with the just as valid statutory provisions as to eligibility to become a candidate for party nomination for election to public office.
Further, as I view it, the majority opinion overlooks or passes over valid provisions of our primary election law without pointing out exactly which of such provisions thereof are invalid; and departs from or declines to follow rules of our former decisions. I think that confuses precedent.
For these reasons I respectfully dissent to the majority opinion.