Court Opinion

ID: 9630387
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:10:06.718849+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:38.097250
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM RAY PRICE, JR., Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part to supplemental opinion.
I agree with the majority opinion’s statement of the law concerning retroactive/prospective application of decisions finding statutes to be unconstitutional. “An unconstitutional statute is no law and confers no rights .... from the date of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it.” State ex rel. Miller v. O’Malley, 342 Mo. 641, 117 S.W.2d 319, 324 (Mo. banc 1938); see also Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425, 442, 6 S.Ct. 1121, 30 L.Ed. 178 (1886). Prospective relief is the exception and not the rule because it involves judicial enforcement of a statute found to violate the constitution and to be void ab initio. This is an intrusion of judicial power into the arena ordinarily reserved for the legislative branch of government. State ex rel. Cardinal Glennon Mem’l Hosp. for Children v. Gaertner, 583 S.W.2d 107, 118 (Mo. banc 1979), did not change this. A decision finding a statute to be unconstitutional should be applied prospectively only “to the extent that it causes injustice to persons who have acted in good faith and reasonable reliance.” Id.
I also agree that a balancing test is used to determine the scope of any hardship or injustice exception to the general rule of retrospective application. Sumners v. Sumners, 701 S.W.2d 720, 722-23 (Mo. banc 1985). Courts should look to the impact of prospective/retroactive application not only upon those who relied upon the statute, but upon all of those who might be affected by the Court’s determination. Id. In balancing the determination of whether to grant prospective relief, a Court should also balance the extent and conditions of such extraordinary relief. I disagree with the majority opinion, however, on the proper application of the balancing test.
The letter briefs of the parties make clear the complications of applying this balancing test to the situation at bar. On the one hand, a number of candidates are said to have raised substantial sums in *153preparation for the 2008 elections. This money constitutes the political expressions of its donors. Refunding this money would be difficult and expensive. It might also be a futile effort, as the donors could evade those funding limitations using the very methods and techniques the legislature intended to eliminate. On the other hand, candidates who have not yet entered the field would have great difficulty matching those sums if they were subjected to the campaign contribution limits that had not been applied to their opponents. Such an uneven playing field raises obvious equitable and constitutional concerns. See Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 802, 103 S.Ct. 1564, 75 L.Ed.2d 547 (1983).
One could also argue that prospective relief is not justified because there is no reasonable reliance. Existing candidates raised money with the knowledge that the statute in question was being challenged. This Court has previously cautioned against prospective application in such situations. Akin v. Missouri Gaming Comm’n, 956 S.W.2d 261, 265 (Mo. banc 1997). In fact, the candidates could only raise the funds in question during the legislative session in reliance upon the trial court’s January 8, 2007, temporary restraining order indicating the unconstitutionality of the blackout period prohibiting fundraising during any legislative session. As this Court held, the blackout portion of H.B. 1900 was so important that the legislature would not have passed the law without it.1 Thus, once the blackout period was invalidated, the candidates were aware of the likelihood that the entire law would be struck down, thereby invalidating all contributions over the limits previously imposed by section 130.032, RSMo 2000.
In balancing the above conflicting interests, courts should be extremely cautious. “Free and honest elections are the very foundation of our republican form of government.” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 564, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964) (citations omitted). It is well accepted that “virtually every means of communicating ideas in today’s mass society requires the expenditure of money.... The electorate’s increasing dependence on television, radio, and other mass media for news and information has made these expensive modes of communication indispensable instruments of effective political speech.” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 19, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976).
To the extent that prospective only application of the Court’s July 19, 2007, opinion would allow only certain candidates to enjoy the fruits of their unlimited fundrais-ing, it would create, rather than alleviate, hardship and injustice. All candidates in any particular race must be subject to the same opportunity and/or limitations on their ability to raise money and participate in the political discourse crucial to our democratic process. If certain candidates are allowed the opportunity to retain and spend funds raised without limitation, then the same opportunity must be extended to all other candidates in the same race.
The Court must have no role in creating political advantage for one candidate over another.
Neither full retrospective nor full prospective application properly balances these considerations. Accordingly, I would apply this Court’s decision prospectively from July 19, 2007, with the exception that any candidate may match the amount of contributions collected, between *154January 1, 2007, and July 19, 2007, by any other candidate for the same office, that exceeded the contribution limits specified by section 130.032, RSMo 2000. This would avoid injustice and hardship both to existing and future candidates and maintain the even playing field for the political discourse necessary to maintain Missouri’s vibrant democracy. This approach would subject all candidates and their campaign committees to a single substantive rule with only the amount of unlimited contributions allowable varying race by race.
While I appreciate the majority’s attempt to fashion a fair and workable remedy, I fear that their approach will prove to be neither. Although the majority provides the Ethics Commission with a general outline of its duties, they fail to offer clear guidance on how the Commission is to carry out its broad and vital mandate. The result is likely to be as many remedies as there are races. Not only is such a patchwork result unsatisfying, but it will only be achieved after a prolonged period of expensive litigation on a race by race basis both before the Missouri Ethics Commission and then — again—in the courts.

. The decision to incorporate this provision in H.B. 1900 is puzzling. A virtually identical statute was struck down in 1996 as violating the First Amendment. Shrink Missouri Government PAC v. Maupin, 922 F.Supp. 1413 (E.D.Mo.1996). There is no special virtue in exploiting a statute of known constitutional infirmity.