Ex parte Southland Independent School District

• Decision Date: 16 December 1974
• Docket Number: No. 8515,8515
• Citation: 518 S.W.2d 921
• Parties: Ex parte SOUTHLAND INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 921

518 S.W.2d 921

Ex parte SOUTHLAND INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT.

No. 8515.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas,

Amarillo.

Dec. 16, 1974.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 20, 1975.

Second Rehearing Denied Feb. 10, 1975.

Griffith & Brister, Thomas J. Griffith, Lubbock, for appellants.

Brown & Harding, Derry D. Harding, Lubbock, Part N. Walker, Post, for appellee.

REYNOLDS, Justice.

Responsive to one suit to void, and another suit to validate, a school district maintenance tax and bond election and the issuance of bonds ordered pursuant thereto, the trial court entered judgment decreeing the validity of the election and the resulting authorization of the maintenance tax to be levied and the bonds to be issued, and enjoined further contests thereto. Affirmed.

The Board of Trustees of the Southland Independent School District, composed of territory lying in Garza, Lynn and Lubbock Counties, ordered a maintenance tax and general obligation bond election. The submitted propositions were whether the board of trustees should be authorized and empowered to levy and cause to be assessed and collected ad valorem taxes not to exceed $1.50 on the $100 valuation of taxable property in the district and to issue bonds to the amount of $500,000 for school building purposes.

Two separate ballot boxes were provided for the election. In one ballot box were deposited the ballots cast by the qualified resident electors whose property had been duly rendered for taxation. Placed in the other box were ballots voted by the qualified resident electors who did not own property which had been rendered for taxation.

The canvass of the returns established that the maintenance tax proposition was approved 84 to 68 by the taxpaying electors, approved 11 to 6 by the other electors, and approved 95 to 74 by all voting electors. The bond proposition was approved 81 to 65 by the taxpaying electors, approved 13 to 4 by the other electors, and approved 94 to 69 by all voting electors. The board of trustees then levied a maintenance tax and ordered the issuance of bonds in the principal amount of $500,000.

Thereafter, R. H. Lewis, a school district resident taxpayer, J. Martin Basinger, a non-resident school district taxpayer, and seven others whose residences are not shown, but all nine of whom owned taxable property within the boundaries of the school district and purported to represent all property owners of the district, filed Cause No. 2996 in the District Court of Garza County to enjoin the issuance of the bonds and to secure a declaratory judgment decreeing the election null and void, together with ancilliary relief flowing therefrom. The school district then filed in Cause No. 3018 in the same court the in rem action authorized by Vernon's Ann.Civ.St. art. 717m for a declaratory judgment validating and confirming not only the bonds to be issued, but all antecedent proceedings as well as those actions proposed to be taken. The two suits were consolidated for disposition under Cause No. 3018 styled Ex Parte Southland Independent School District.

A number of facts were stipulated by the parties. Among them was the stipulation that twenty-six named persons were non-residents of the district who owned rendered taxable property in the district and who did not present themselves at the polls to vote in the election but who, had they presented themselves to vote, would have been denied a ballot and who, had they voted, would have voted against the propositions. There also was the stipulation that the minutes of the board of trustees attached to the school district's pleadings are true and correct. The attached minutes record events and actions taken preceding and subsequent to the election. Included in the minutes is the finding by the board that the total valuation of all taxable property in the district rendered for the year 1973 is $18,349,686, to which is attached a statement by the assessor and collector of taxes that the $18,349,686 assessed value of property for taxation is shown by the 1973 tax rolls which have been duly approved. The outstanding bonded indebtedness was shown to be $4,000.

Three special issues were submitted to a jury. Answering the submission, the jury found that (1) qualified voters residing outside the school district who owned and rendered for taxation property within the district were persons interested in the affairs of the district; and (2) the advertisements in support of the bond issue were false, (3) but were not relied upon by any voters participating in the election.

Following motions for judgment, the court entered judgment declaring by enumeration, inter alia, that (2) the election was in all respects duly called, conducted and held in compliance with the constitution and laws of Texas and the United States; (3) as a result of the election, the board of trustees is duly authorized and empowered to levy and cause to be assessed and collected annual ad valorem taxes for the maintenance of a public free school at a rate not to exceed $1.50 on the $100 valuation of taxable property in the district, and (4) to issue bonds of the district to the amount of $500,000 for school building purposes; (5) the bonds when sold and delivered in compliance with the law will constitute legal, valid and binding special obligations of the district; and that (7) the judgment is forever binding and conclusive against all parties to this suit or affected thereby and shall constitute a permanent injunction against the institution by any person of any action or proceeding contesting the validity of the election, the maintenance tax or the issuance of the bonds resulting therefrom, provided that the aggregate bonded indebtedness of the district, including the bonds being issued, does not exceed ten (10%) per cent of the assessed valuation of the taxable property in the district according to the then last completed and approved ad valorem tax rolls.

Utilizing four points of error with some subdivisions, appellants attack the judgment on three basic propositions. Points one and three propose that the judgment is erroneous in decreeing the election valid because Texas has no valid constitutional or statutory provision under which the election can be held; point two is the proposition that appellants were entitled to judgment because Article 717m, V.A.C.S., is unconstitutional; and point four is the assertion that the court erred in holding the 1973 tax roll to be the last approved tax roll when the last approved tax roll was the one for 1972 in the amount of $4,856,070, rendering a $500,000 bond issue excessive and void.

Appellants contend that, at least since the June 23, 1970 decision in City of Phoenix v. Kolodziejski, 399 U.S. 204, 90 S.Ct. 1990, 26 L.Ed.2d 523 (1970), Texas has no valid constitutional or statutory provision under which a school district maintenance tax and bond election can be held because Sections 3 and 3--a of Article 6 of the Texas Constitution, Vernon's Ann.St., and Articles 5.03, 5.04 and 5.07 of the Texas Election Code, V.A.T.S., are unconstitutional. It is observed that Section 3 of Article 6 of the Texas Constitution and Article 5.07 of the Texas Election Code are limited to municipal elections. Nevertheless, the premise of the contention is that the constitutional provisions, together with the statutory amplified reiteration thereof in the Election Code, restricting the right to vote in such elections to qualified resident electors of the school district who own property duly rendered for taxation are constitutionally impermissible as a violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

Whatever merit we might have accorded appellants' contention as an open question has been foreclosed by the decision of our Supreme Court in Montgomery Independent School District v. Martin, 464 S.W.2d 638 (Tex.1971). There, as in the case at bar, two separate but simultaneous school district elections were held. The qualified electors residing in the school district who owned property duly rendered for taxation rejected the bond issue at one election; but, at the other election, the other qualified resident electors approved the bond issue. A majority of the combined votes cast in both elections were favorable to the bond issue. The board of trustees entered an order declaring the result of the election to be in favor of the bond issue and authorized the issuance of the bonds and levied an ad valorem tax. The Attorney General of Texas, who is required by Section 20.06 of the Texas Education Code, V.T.C.A., to examine school bonds and approve them for issuance if he finds they have been authorized in accordance with law, refused to approve the issue. The basis of the refusal was that the bond issue was not approved by a majority of the qualified resident electors who owned property duly rendered for taxation as required by Article 6, Section 3--a, and Article 7, Section 3, of the Texas Constitution, as well as by Section 20.04(a) of the Texas Education Code. The school district sought a writ of mandamus to compel the attorney general to approve the bond issue, urging that the constitutional and statutory provisions on which the attorney general relied for withholding his approval were unconstitutionally violative of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The school board cited in the main the same federal decisions advanced here by appellants in support of the contention that the Texas election provisions are unconstitutionally restrictive of voting rights. In denying the writ, the Supreme Court held that the constitutional and statutory provisions, which limit the availability of the ballot to those qualified electors who are residents of the school district and who own property duly rendered for taxation, being so universal as to constitute no impediment to any qualified elector who desires to vote, are not unconstitutionally selective in authorizing voting rights,...