June v. Roberts
Decision Date | 29 August 1990 |
Citation | 797 P.2d 357,310 Or. 244 |
Parties | William JUNE, Petitioner, v. Barbara ROBERTS, Secretary of State, Charles Davis, John Frewing, Glenn E. Otto, Gregory Kafoury, and Lloyd Marbet, Citizens Committee, Respondents. SC S37381. |
Court | Oregon Supreme Court |
John R. Faust, Jr., of Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, Portland, argued the cause and filed the petition for petitioner.
Ann Kelley, Asst. Atty. Gen., Salem, argued the cause for respondent Barbara Roberts, Secretary of State. With her on the answering memorandum were Dave Frohnmayer, Atty. Gen., and Virginia L. Linder, Sol. Gen., Salem.
Before PETERSON, C.J., and CARSON, GILLETTE, VAN HOOMISSEN, FADELEY and UNIS, JJ.
Petitioner, an elector of the State of Oregon, seeks review of a Ballot Measure Explanatory Statement. 1 Petitioner offered suggestions concerning the Statement at the hearing on the Statement held by the respondent Secretary of State 2 pursuant to ORS 251.215(2). 3 Because suggestions were made, petitioner has standing to bring this proceeding. We modify the Explanatory Statement to the extent set forth below.
The text of the Explanatory Statement is as follows: 4
Before we consider petitioner's specific arguments with respect to this Explanatory Statement, we shall briefly review the scope of our authority concerning this subject.
Under ORS 251.215(1), an Explanatory Statement must be "impartial, simple and understandable." Under ORS 251.235, this Court reviews an Explanatory Statement to determine whether it is "insufficient or unclear." We do not resolve disputes over the meaning of the measure, but only determine whether the statement "falls short to the point of being 'insufficient.' " MacAfee v. Paulus, 289 Or. 651, 655, 616 P.2d 493 (1980). The Court is not set at large by the statutes to rewrite the statement just because the Court would write the statement differently: "In reviewing the explanatory statement, the court should not invalidate it or modify it unless its insufficiency is beyond reasonable argument." Teledyne Wah Chang Albany v. Powell, 301 Or. 590, 593, 724 P.2d 319 (1986).
It follows from the foregoing that petitioner has the laboring oar in these proceedings. In the present case, petitioner has no quarrel with the clarity of the Explanatory Statement; his sole complaint is that it is not a sufficient statement of the measure's "effect." We do not believe that petitioner has met his threshold burden of showing, beyond reasonable argument, that the statement is insufficient in its explanation of the "effect" of the proposed measure.
To remedy this alleged defect, petitioner proposes that the second paragraph be amended by deleting the bracketed portion of the following phrase: " * * * the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council must [hold a hearing and on the basis of evidence received at the hearing,] make three findings" and substituting for the deleted material the following words: "be able to." As a result, the second paragraph of the Explanatory Statement would read:
"Before Trojan is allowed to operate again, the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council must be able to make three findings."
Petitioner argues that this change is necessary for the following reason:
It may be true that, if a voter were to read the Explanatory Statement to the same effect that petitioner reads it, the vice of which he complains would be present. Our problem is that we do not read the Explanatory Statement that way. We find nothing that implies that the Energy Facility Siting Council hearing will be held soon, or that (when it is held) the outcome will be to relicense Trojan immediately. The only clear effect of passage of the measure would be to shut down Trojan. The Explanatory Statement says that. Any speculation as to when (if ever) Trojan would be permitted to start up again would be just that--speculation. The committee that prepared the Explanatory Statement was correct to avoid such speculation.
Petitioner would amend the third paragraph of the...
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