McClellan v. Meyer, 94SA282
| Decision Date | 26 June 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 94SA282,94SA282 |
| Citation | 900 P.2d 24 |
| Parties | Molly McCLELLAN, Charles Mitchell, Marilyn Ferrari, Al Ferrari, Marie Carney, Patricia Farmer, Mary Blue, Anita Gail, Jackie Ragno, Jack Hawkins, and Craig Eley, Plaintiffs-Petitioners, v. Natalie MEYER, Secretary of State for the State of Colorado, and Protestor/Opponent George Dibble, Defendants-Respondents. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Dallas, Holland & O'Toole, P.C., Neil D. O'Toole, Denver, for plaintiffs-petitioners.
Gale A. Norton, Atty. Gen., Stephen K. ErkenBrack, Chief Deputy Atty. Gen., Timothy M. Tymkovich, Sol. Gen., Maurice G. Knaizer, Deputy Atty. Gen., Gen. Legal Services Section, Denver, for defendant-respondent Natalie Meyer, Secretary of State for the State of Colo.
Mark Bender, Denver, for defendant-respondent George Dibble.
This appeal requires a determination of whether a petition filed with the office of the appellee, Colorado Secretary of State Natalie Meyer (the Secretary), contained a sufficient number of valid signatures to place the initiative entitled the "Safe Workplace Amendment" on the ballot. The Denver District Court upheld the initial decision of the Administrative Law Judge and the final administrative decision of the Secretary. The appellants, the proponents of the initiative, appealed the district court's judgment directly to this court pursuant to section 1-40-119, 1B C.R.S. (1994 Supp.), and we accepted this appeal.
We affirm the district court's ruling.
The appellants circulated, signed, and proposed an amendment, the "Safe Workplace Amendment", to Article II of the Colorado Constitution. The amendment provides:
Anyone who, in the course of business, knowingly maintains an unsafe work environment shall not be immune from suit for a resulting injury or death by a worker and his survivors for any and all damages.
On January 10, 1992, the appellants filed their proposed initiative with the Legislative Council and the Office of Legislative Legal Services for review and comment, pursuant to section 1-40-101, 1B C.R.S. (1992 Supp.). 1 On February 24, 1992, the Initiative Title Setting Board met and established the title, submission clause, and summary pursuant to section 1-40-101(2), 1B C.R.S. (1992 Supp.). 2
On August 3, 1992, the final version of the initiative was filed with the Secretary. By statutory mandate, the Secretary was given twenty-one days to review the petition. The Secretary hired temporary personnel, who were trained and supervised by the Secretary's staff, to review signatures and perform data entry. 3 The temporary personnel were provided a manual drafted by the Secretary's staff which contained instructions on the grounds for accepting and rejecting signatures. Using a master voting list as of July 17, 1992, they determined which signers were registered voters. 4 They then entered this information into the Secretary's computer. 5
On August 24, 1992, after an examination of the petition, the Secretary issued a decision declaring that the petition did not contain the requisite number of valid signatures in order for the initiative to appear on the 1992 ballot since an additional 6,729 signatures were needed to satisfy the minimum number of valid signatures. 6 The appellants submitted 71,044 total signatures and 28,494 were deemed invalid. The Secretary disallowed signatures, primarily on the following grounds: rejecting signatures by circulators and petition signers who were deemed not to be registered electors because the residence addresses listed on the petition, in failing to provide detailed information, differed from the residence addresses set forth on a master voting list maintained by the Secretary; declaring unacceptable the petitions to which were affixed circulator affidavits signed on dates different from the dates appearing on the corresponding notarization statements; rejecting petition signatures based on the fact that the circulators were not registered electors; and disqualifying 4,535 registered electors because these signatures were obtained prior to June 12, 1992, the date on which the Secretary approved the petition format, and the date that the Secretary considered to be the earliest acceptable date to obtain signatures. 7
The appellants filed timely protests to the Secretary's decision pursuant to section 1-40-109(1)(c), 1B C.R.S. (1992 Supp.), contesting that the initiative had an insufficient number of signatures which required its disqualification from the 1992 election ballot. The case was assigned to an administrative law judge (the ALJ) for a hearing on the merits which lasted nine days. On February 16, 1993, the ALJ issued her decision upholding the Secretary's ruling that the appellants had failed to obtain a sufficient number of signatures to allow the petition to be placed on the ballot. 8
The appellants filed timely exceptions to the ALJ's initial decision on March 15, 1993. The Secretary thereafter issued a final decision, affirming the ALJ's initial decision and concluding that the proposed constitutional amendment should not be placed on the November 1993 ballot.
The proponents thereafter filed a complaint in the Denver District Court seeking judicial review of the Secretary's final decision. The district court, in its May 26, 1994 written order, entered a judgment affirming the Secretary's final decision, denying the initiative's placement on the 1993 ballot, and adopting the ALJ's analysis in its entirety. The district court found that, although the Secretary erred in rejecting all of the appellants' exceptions as lacking particularity and in applying the perfect match rule to its extreme, the petition did not contain a sufficient number of signatures.
The appellants thereafter appealed the district court's judgment directly to this court pursuant to section 1-40-119, 1B C.R.S. (1994 Supp.). In its opening brief before this court, the appellants request consideration of six issues. Our review of the propriety of the Secretary's conduct is limited to the following six issues: 9
Whether the Secretary of State's use of temporary personnel violated the Colorado Constitution Art. XII, Section 13(9).
Whether the Secretary of State erred in failing to issue a statement of sufficiency in violation of § 1-40-109, 1B C.R.S. (1992 Supp.).
Whether the Secretary of State erroneously employed restrictions not found in §§ 1-40-106 or 1-40-109, 1B C.R.S. (1992 Supp.), when using a "perfect match" methodology developed without a ruling making public the hearing.
Whether the Secretary of State improperly used July 17, 1992, master voter list to disqualify signatures.
Whether the Secretary of State erroneously applied a "perfect match" rule to disqualify.
Whether the Secretary of State disqualified all signatures on petitions circulated by non-registered voters.
In reviewing a district court's analysis of an agency's action, we are guided by the standard of review set forth in section 24-4-106, 10A C.R.S. (1988), which states in pertinent part as follows:
If [the court] finds that the agency action is arbitrary or capricious, a denial of statutory right, contrary to constitutional right, power, privilege, or immunity, in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, purposes, or limitations, not in accord with the procedures or procedural limitations of this article or as otherwise required by law, an abuse or clearly unwarranted exercise of discretion, based upon findings of fact that are clearly erroneous on the whole record, unsupported by substantial evidence when the record is considered as a whole, or otherwise contrary to law, then the court shall hold unlawful and set aside the agency action and shall restrain the enforcement of the order or rule under review, compel any agency action to be taken which has been unlawfully withheld or unduly delayed, remand the case for further proceedings, and afford such other relief as may be appropriate.
§ 24-4-106(7), 10A C.R.S. (1988).
A reviewing court may reverse an administrative determination only if the court finds that the agency exceeded its constitutional or statutory authority, made an erroneous interpretation of law, acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner, or made a determination that is unsupported by the evidence in the record. Id. Based on this standard, we may determine that an agency's action is either arbitrary or capricious, violative of constitutional rights, or constitutes an abuse of discretion.
The appellants first assert that the Secretary violated Article XII, Section 13(9), of the Colorado Constitution by hiring the temporary personnel to assist in the examination of petition signatures and to perform data entry functions which exceeded the scope of the Secretary's authority. The Secretary maintains that the temporary employees were hired to assist with the petition process because she was inundated with an unusually large number of petitions to review within the twenty-one day period.
The district court considered this to be a nonmeritorious issue and stated as follows:
[T]here is absolutely nothing in §§ 1-40-101 et seq., in the state personnel code, in the Administrative Procedures Act, or in any case law Plaintiffs have presented, which suggests or even hints that an aggrieved party's right to object to final agency action somehow encompasses a general right to inquire into the lawfulness of the agency's hiring practices. The issue here revolves around the Secretary's Final Order, not her staffing decisions. The Final Order is either erroneous or not erroneous, and that analysis is wholly unrelated to whether the Final Order was the product of ten overworked permanent employees, or 10,000 underworked and unlawfully employed temporary employees.
Article XII, Section 13(9), of the Colorado Constitution provides:
The state personnel director may authorize the temporary employment of persons, not to exceed six...
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