Court Opinion

ID: 9674564
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:30:39.38298+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:28.181515
License: Public Domain

GONZALEZ, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment of the court. However, there is an additional basis for holding the injunction void. The injunction violates state and federal guarantees of freedom of speech.
The trial court’s May 2 oral injunction, insofar as it incorporated by reference the original temporary restraining order, was neither limited to “unlawful contributions” or “expenditures,” nor punished Price for making “unlawful expenditures” or using “unlawful contributions.” The judgment of contempt was based solely on Price’s distribution of political slate cards.
Prior restraints upon constitutionally protected speech, whether legislatively or judicially fashioned, are subject to judicial scrutiny with a heavy presumption against their constitutional validity. Iranian Muslim Org. v. City of San Antonio, 615 S.W.2d 202, 205 (Tex.1981). See Hajek v. Bill Mowbray Motors, Inc., 647 S.W.2d 253 (Tex.1983).
Freedom of expression has long been one of the most basic American freedoms. In Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 45 S.Ct. 625, 69 L.Ed.2d 1138 (1925), the United States Supreme Court decided that the First Amendment guarantees of free expression were part of the fundamental liberties protected against state action by the Fourteenth Amendment. Texas, however, had already decided the issue. In 1920, officers of a labor union were enjoined from “vilifying, abusing or using opprobrious epithets to or concerning” certain persons. In rejecting this assertion of judicial power, Chief Justice Phillips wrote:
Punishment for the abuse of the right [of free expression], not prevention of its exercise, is what the provision contemplates. There can be no liberty in the individual to speak, without the unhindered right to speak. It cannot co-exist with a power to compel his silence or fashion the form of his speech....
The theory of the provision [Tex. Const. Art. 1, § 8] is that no man or set of men are to be found, so infallible in mind and character as to be clothed with an absolute authority of determining *370what other men may think, speak, write or publish; that freedom of speech is essential to the nature of a free state; that the ills suffered from its abuse are less than would be imposed by its suppression; and, therefore, that every person shall be left at liberty to speak his mind on all subjects, and for the abuse of the privilege to be responsible in civil damages and subject to the penalties of the criminal law.
Ex Parte Tucker, 220 S.W. 75, 76 (Tex. 1920). See New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270, 84 S.Ct. 710, 720,11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964).
The constitutional right to express one’s ideas has long been extended to the communication of ideas by handbills and literature, as well as by the spoken word. See Jamison v. Texas, 318 U.S. 413, 416, 63 S.Ct. 669, 671, 87 L.Ed. 869 (1943); Hague v. C.I.O., 307 U.S. 496, 514-16, 59 S.Ct. 954, 963-64, 83 L.Ed. 1423 (1939); Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 452, 58 S.Ct. 666, 669, 82 L.Ed. 949 (1938); De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 364, 57 S.Ct. 255, 259, 81 L.Ed. 278 (1937); Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233, 245-46, 56 S.Ct. 444, 447, 80 L.Ed. 660 (1936); Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 713-16, 51 S.Ct. 625, 630-31, 75 L.Ed. 1357 (1931).
The trial court’s injunction is not authorized by Chapter 251 of the Election Code. Chapter 251 regulates political funds and campaigns. The other means to enforce the provisions of the Election Code for failure to designate a campaign treasurer provided in section 251.008 (civil remedy); section 250.009 (criminal penalty); section 251.014 (civil penalty for late filing); and 251.017 (regulation of illegal acts & the duties of the Secretary of State), are more than adequate to enforce the act without stifling free speech.
For the reason set out above, I would hold that the oral injunction, in addition to violating the requirements of Ex Parte Slavin, 412 S.W.2d 43 (Tex.1967), also violated state and federal guarantees of free speech, and was therefore not punishable by contempt.
KILGARLIN, J., joins in this concurring opinion.