Buchmeier v. Pickett

• Decision Date: 03 May 1966
• Docket Number: No. 52068,52068
• Citation: 258 Iowa 1224,142 N.W.2d 426
• Parties: Myrtle BUCHMEIER, Lois Miller, Mrs. Charles Mesham, J. R. Bowrey, Merle Olin, Mrs. Joe Kristin, Elmer Hoppham and Leroy Ralfs, Appellants, v. Louis L. PICKETT, Scott County Superintendent of Schools, et al., Appellees.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 426

142 N.W.2d 426

258 Iowa 1224

Myrtle BUCHMEIER, Lois Miller, Mrs. Charles Mesham, J. R. Bowrey, Merle Olin, Mrs. Joe Kristin, Elmer Hoppham and Leroy Ralfs, Appellants, v. Louis L. PICKETT, Scott County Superintendent of Schools, et al., Appellees.

No. 52068.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

May 3, 1966.

Doerr, Dower & Rehling, Davenport, for appellants.

David P. Miller, County Atty., and Norman M. Peterson, Asst. County Atty., Davenport, for appellee Community School Dist. of Walcott and its individual members.

Lane & Waterman, Davenport, for appellee The Davenport Community School Dist. and its individual members.

MOORE, Justice.

This is a declaratory judgment action by a group of Davenport electors contending the petition objecting to the merger of the Community School District of Walcott with The Davenport Community School District was valid and sufficient to defeat the proposed merger under section 275.40, Code, 1962. The trial court entered a decree and judgment against plaintiffs from which they have appealed. We affirm.

The sole issue presented in the trial court and here is whether references in section 275.40 to 'eligible voters' and 'voters' should be construed to read 'eligible electors' and 'electors'.

What is now section 275.40 was enacted as chapter 192, Laws of the Fifty-eighth General Assembly as an amendment to chapter 275, Code, 1958. It provides: 'Alternate merger procedure. In addition to the procedure set forth in sections 275.12 to 275.23, inclusive, relating to the organization of a proposed school district, a school district not operating a high school that is contiguous to a high school district may merge with said high school district in the following manner:

'1. A petition signed by at least twenty percent of the qualified voters of such school district not operating a high school, proposing that said district be included in said high school district, shall be filed with the county superintendent of the county which has jurisdiction over the high school district and a duplicate copy with the school board of the high school district.

'2. The school board of the high school district involved shall, after the filing of said petition, take action at the next regular board meeting or a special meeting called for that purpose, agreeing or refusing to accept said school district not operating a high school into said high school district and filing a record of such action with said county superintendent.

'3. If the said school board of the high school district agrees to accept said school district not operating a high school, said county board shall approve or disapprove said merger proposal. The county superintendent shall fix a time and place for filing objections, cause one notice thereof to be published at least ten days prior thereto in a newspaper published within the high school district or if none is published therein then in a newspaper of general circulation in the high school district; and in the event of the filing prior to said time of a petition signed by voters in the high school district involved equal in number to at least twenty percent of the number of eligible voters or four hundred voters, whichever is the smaller number, objecting to such board action, the entire action shall be void and in order to effect said merger it shall be necessary to proceed as provided in section 275.12. In case of a controversy over county plans which would affect a proposed merger, said merger must have the approval of the state board of public instruction which decision shall be final and no further action shall be taken until such approval is granted. Any county board of education affected or either local board of education involved may submit the controversy to the state department of public instruction within ten days after the decision of the county board or county boards of education.

'4. If approved as set forth above, an election shall be held as provided in this chapter in said school district not operating a high school and if approved by a majority of those voting, said district shall become merged with said high school district on the July 1 following said election.'

The facts are not disputed. The parties submitted this case to the trial court on the following stipulation: 'Plaintiffs and defendants hereby stipulate and agree as follows:

'1. All statutory requirements for the due merger of the Community School District of Walcott in the Counties of Muscatine and Scott, State of Iowa, into The Davenport Community School District, in the County of Scott, State of Iowa, pursuant to section 275.40 of the Iowa Code, have been complied with in full, with the sole exception that the parties are in dispute as to the legality of the Petition of Objection filed by certain of the plaintiffs in opposition to the merger.

'2. The said Petition of Objection filed May 24, 1965, in opposition to the merger was signed by 524 electors of said The Davenport Community School District, which was more than 20% Of the total electors of said school district and more than 400 electors of said school district, as the term 'electors' is defined in Article 2, section 1 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa. Said Petition, however, was signed by less than 20% Of the registered voters.

'3. Registration of voters is required for voting in the said The Davenport Community School District.

'4. The language of section 275.40 of the Iowa Code, relating to a petition of objection, refers to 20% Of the number of 'eligible voters', and to 'four hundred voters'. If these references are to 'electors' as defined in Article 2, section 1 of the Iowa Constitution, the said Petition of Objection was in proper form and duly filed, the merger proceedings thereafter taken were without legal effect, and said merger should be declared null and void. If such statutory references require that such signers be 'registered' voters, however, said Petition of Objection did not comply with the statutory requirements, was of no legal effect, and the said merger should be declared to have been fully and lawfully consummated.'

I. Electors are persons possessing the qualifications to vote prescribed by Article II, section 1, of the Iowa Constitution. It provides: 'Electors. Section 1. Every citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty one years, who shall have been a resident of this State six months next preceding the election, and of the County in which he claims his vote sixty days, shall be entitled to vote at all elections which are now or hereafter may be authorized by law.'

The meaning of 'electors' is not subject to arguments, it is a word of art which we have construed to refer to the definition in Article II, section 1 of the Iowa Constitution. Edmonds v. Banbury, 28 Iowa 267; Piuser v. City of Sioux City, 220 Iowa 308, 262 N.W. 551, 100 A.L.R. 1298.

II. Whenever the legislature employs the word 'elector' without qualification or explanation, the word may be assumed to have reference to a person authorized by the Constitution to exercise the elective franchise. McEvoy v. Christensen, 178 Iowa 1180, 159 N.W. 179; Sears v. City of Maquoketa, 183 Iowa 1104, 1108, 166 N.W. 700; Piuser v. City of Sioux City, supra.

We believe some significance must be given the fact 'elector' is not used in section 275.40 although it is used in several other sections of chapter 275. In the absence of anything to indicate a different intention, we presume the legislature used statutory terms in their judicially established meaning. Lever Brothers Co. v. Erbe, 249 Iowa 454, 465, 87 N.W.2d 469, 477, and citations.

III. The rule is well established that the right to one possessing the qualifications of an elector, as prescribed by the State Constitution cannot be destroyed or impaired by the legislature, it may nevertheless, regulate the exercise thereof by enacting reasonable registration statutes. Piuser v. City of Sioux City, supra, 220 Iowa 308, 314, 262 N.W. 551, 554, 100 A.L.R. 1298, and citations. Our registration laws are set out...