Chastain v. Kan. City Mo. City Clerk

• Decision Date: 18 March 2011
• Docket Number: No. WD 73634.,WD 73634.
• Parties: Craig Clay CHASTAIN, Appellant,v.KANSAS CITY MISSOURI CITY CLERK, et al., Respondents.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

337 S.W.3d 149

Craig Clay CHASTAIN, Appellant,

v.KANSAS CITY MISSOURI CITY CLERK, et al., Respondents.

No. WD 73634.

Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District.

March 18, 2011.

Craig Clay Chastain, Kansas City, MO, pro se.Galen P. Beaufort, Kansas City, MO, for respondent.Before: JOSEPH M. ELLIS, P.J., and THOMAS H. NEWTON and ALOK AHUJA, JJ.ALOK AHUJA, Judge.

Craig Clay Chastain appeals from the Judgment of the Circuit Court of Jackson County denying his petition for a writ of mandamus. Chastain seeks a writ ordering election authorities to include a space for write-in candidates for Mayor on the ballot to be used in Kansas City's March 22, 2011 general election. Because the general election is imminent, we announced our affirmance of the circuit court's Judgment following oral argument on Chastain's appeal on March 17, 2011. This opinion explains the reasons for our disposition.

Factual Background

According to Chastain's petition, he desires to run for Mayor of Kansas City as a write-in candidate. He alleges that he was informed by the director of the Kansas City Board of Election Commissioners in late November 2010 that he could not run as a write-in candidate in the primary election to be held on February 22, 2011, but could only run as a write-in candidate in the March 22 general election. Chastain alleges that in late November 2010 he publicly announced his intention to run as a write-in candidate in the general election, and submitted a Write-in Candidate Declaration Form to the Board of Election Commissioners for this purpose on January 11, 2011.

Chastain alleges that, on or about February 10, 2011, Kansas City's City Attorney issued a legal opinion stating that, under the City's Charter, Chastain could only run as a write-in candidate for mayor in the primary election, not in the general election. An attorney for the Board of Election Commissioners informed Chastain on February 11, 2011, that, “consistent with the City Attorney's interpretation of the City Charter, we do not anticipate that there will be a write-in candidate line on the general election ballot.” Because no space for write-in candidates would appear on the general election ballot, the letter also advised Chastain that “the Kansas City Board of Election Commissioners' understanding is that the Write–In Candidate Declaration Form for the office of Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri that you submitted for the March 22, 2011 general election will act as your write-in declaration for the upcoming primary election.”

In response, Chastain filed this lawsuit on February 24, 2011.¹ The petition alleges that, due to the City Attorney's opinion and the election authorities' response to that opinion, “voters will have no official space to write in candidate Chastain's name ... or any other write-in candidate ... on the general ballot.” (Ellipsis in original.) Chastain's petition also alleges that City officials have “concoct[ed] shifting plots aimed at sabotaging candidate Clay Chastain's run for Mayor,” including: making public statements questioning whether he satisfied residency requirements; abandoning the practice from prior general elections of including a write-in line on the ballot for mayor; and delaying the announcement that Chastain could only run in the primary election until shortly before the primary election itself, making it infeasible for him to mount an effective primary-election campaign.

The petition contends that § 605 of the City Charter, on which the City Attorney's opinion letter relies, “is ambiguous because it is susceptible to more than one interpretation” with respect to the permissibility of providing a space for write-in mayoral candidates on the general election ballot. The petition continues:

[S]ince the City Charter does not address provisions for write-in candidates in the general election the law governing that part of the election process reverts back to state law ... which does provide a provision for write-in candidates on a general ballot ... as is clearly defined in Sec. 601 of the Charter itself which states: “All elections provided by the Charter, whether primary elections, elections for choice of officials, or elections for submission of questions to the voters, shall be conducted by election authorities prescribed by law; and the provisions of the election laws of the state shall apply to such elections, except as provision is otherwise made by the Charter or ordinance.”

What's more, precedent also favors Petitioner's interpretation of Sec. 605 of the Charter since previous Kansas City general election ballots have contained write-in lines for write-in candidates including the 2007 general election between the two named finalist candidates, Mark Funkhouser and Alvin Brooks.

(Emphasis and ellipses in original.)

Chastain's petition asks that the respondents be ordered “to place provisions for write-in candidates on the March 22, 2011 Kansas City, Missouri general election ballot.” More particularly:

Chastain should be entitled to have a “Write-in_________________________” line at the bottom of the list of two named Mayoral candidates on the March 22, 2011 general ballot because not only has a precedent for that provision already been established in previous Kansas City general elections via state law, but also because the City Charter does not expressly prohibit write-in candidates from running in a general election.

The City Clerk filed her Answer to Chastain's petition on March 3, 2011. Besides responding to the allegations of Chastain's petition, the Clerk's Answer also asserted two affirmative defenses: (1) that mandamus was not an appropriate remedy given Chastain's own allegation that § 605 of the City Charter is ambiguous; and (2) that Chastain lacks standing because he is not a qualified write-in candidate because he fails to satisfy the residency requirements of § 204(d)(1) of the Charter and article VII, § 8 of the Missouri Constitution, and does not have the history of payment of city and county taxes required by the Charter.

The City Clerk also filed Suggestions in Opposition to Chastain's request for a writ of mandamus on March 3. In her suggestions the Clerk argued that Chastain had in fact run as a write-in candidate in the February 22 primary election, and that he should not be permitted to run as a write-in candidate again:

In this case, [Chastain] does not deny that he was told that he could only run as a write-in candidate in the primary election. He acknowledges that he was told by the Kansas City Election Board in a letter dated February 11, 2011, that his written declaration “will act as your write-in declaration for the upcoming primary election.” At no time did he seek to withdraw his declaration for the primary election. Rather, he ran as a write in candidate in the primary, and received less than 100 votes. Because he was not one of the top two vote-getters in the primary election, he is not qualified to appear on the general election ballot.

... The petition does not seek to “execute” [Chastain's] right to run as a write-in candidate—he already had that opportunity in the primary election and took advantage of it.

The circuit court held a hearing on Chastain's petition on March 3, 2011, at which the court heard argument from Chastain and from the City Clerk, and also heard testimony from Chastain concerning his eligibility to run as a write-in candidate. The court issued its Judgment denying Chastain relief the next day. The Judgment first concludes that a writ of mandamus is not the appropriate remedy to interpret § 605 of the City Charter, which Chastain's petition alleges is ambiguous; instead, “[t]he proper mechanism available to adjudicate the meaning of the City Charter is a declaratory judgment.”

“Assuming arguendo that a Writ of Mandamus is the proper remedy,” the Judgment concludes that “Petitioner's application still fails.” After quoting the language of § 605 of the Charter specifying when the name of a primary write-in candidate may be placed on the general election ballot, the Judgment continues:

It is uncontested by the parties that Mr. Chastain was allowed to run as a write-in candidate in the primary election per his request. There was no evidence adduced at the time of the hearing demonstrating that Mr. Chastain received the requisite number of votes pursuant to the City Charter to be considered a successful candidate for purposes of proceeding as a candidate to the general election. There is nothing in the plain language of the ordinance that contemplates that an unsuccessful primary election candidate may then advance to the general election as a write-in candidate. An interpretation to the contrary would lead to a result whereby any unsuccessful candidate in the primary would be able to run as a write-in candidate in the general election; thus, negating the purpose of holding a primary election. There is nothing in the language of the City Charter that leads this Court to believe that such a result was contemplated in the drafting and passage of Section 605.

Given these conclusions, the circuit court did not resolve the City Clerk's claim that Chastain lacked standing because he did not meet the residency and tax-payment qualifications to run as a write-in candidate.

Chastain now appeals.

Appellate Jurisdiction

Generally, when the circuit court denies a petition for writ of mandamus, the petitioner's proper course of action is not to appeal the denial but to file the writ in a higher court. However, when the circuit court denies a petition for writ of mandamus following an answer or motion directed to the merits of the controversy and, in doing so, determines a question of fact or law, we treat the court's ruling as final and appealable.Stone v. Mo. Dep't of Corr., 313 S.W.3d 158, 160 (Mo.App. W.D.2010) (citations omitted); see also State ex rel. St. Joseph Sch. Dist. v. Mo. Dep't of Elem. & Secondary Educ., 307 S.W.3d 209, 212 n. 3 (...