Pavlak v. Growe

• Decision Date: 13 July 1979
• Docket Number: No. 50142.,50142.
• Citation: Pavlak v. Growe, 284 N.W.2d 174 (Minn. 1979)
• Parties: Robert PAVLAK, Relator, v. Joan GROWE, Secretary of State of the State of Minnesota, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

284 N.W.2d 174 (1979)

Robert PAVLAK, Relator, v.Joan GROWE, Secretary of State of the State of Minnesota, Respondent.

No. 50142.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

July 13, 1979.

O'Neil, Burke & O'Neil, St. Paul, and Michael J. Bolen, Edina, for petitioner.

Warren Spannaus, Atty. Gen., Richard B. Allyn, Sol.Gen., and LeRoy C. Paddock, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., St. Paul, for respondent.

Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.

SHERAN, Chief Justice.

This is an original action brought here pursuant to Minn.St. 203A.18, subd. 1, which empowers this court to order the Secretary of State to correct any error made in placing or failing to place any name upon an election ballot.On May 22, 1979, Robert Pavlak moved this court for an order directing Joan Growe, Secretary of State of the State of Minnesota, to accept and file his affidavit of candidacy for the Minnesota House of Representatives.By unanimous order dated May 25, 1979, the court did so direct, noting that this opinion setting out the reasoning underlying the court's action would follow.

The factual background of this stage of the litigation resulting from Mr. Pavlak's 1978 campaign and election to the Minnesota House of Representatives is relatively simple.On November 7, 1978, Mr. Pavlak was elected to the House of Representatives by a margin of 321 votes.An election contest was brought on the grounds that Mr. Pavlak had caused to be distributed campaign literature containing false information in violation of Section 210A.04 of the Fair Campaign Practices Act.¹Mr. Pavlak took his seat pending resolution of the contest.Following a trial and subsequent review by this court, the House, acting pursuant to the power conferred by Article IV, Section 6 of the Minnesota Constitution to judge the election returns and eligibility of its members, voted that Mr. Pavlak should be excluded from his seat.

The House vote, taken May 18, 1979, adopted a minority committee report which stated the reasons for and effect of the exclusion as follows:

"1.Contestee, Robert Pavlak, committed a deliberate, serious and material violation of the provisions of the Minnesota Election Law not excused by the provisions of Minnesota Statutes Section 210A.38.

"2.Robert Pavlak was not legally elected and is not entitled to retain the seat as Representative from Legislative District 67A, Counties of Dakota and Ramsey in the State House of Representatives.

"3.That there is a vacancy in the office of Representatives from Legislative District 67A, Counties of Dakota and Ramsey and that this vacancy be certified to the Honorable Albert H. Quie, Governor of the State of Minnesota in order that he may issue a writ of election as provided for by law so that the vacancy may be filled."Journal of the House, 1979, p. 2578.

The same day the Speaker of the House transmitted the following certification to the Governor:

"It is my duty to inform you, in order that you may issue a writ of election as required by law, that today, Friday May 18, 1979, the House of Representatives has declared a vacancy in the office of Representative in Legislative District 67A.

"The Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives will forward to you a copy of the Journal of the House as evidence of this action by the House."Journal of the House, 1979, pp. 2667-8.

Acting pursuant to Minn.St. 202A.61 et seq., Governor Quie called a special election for June 19, 1979, to fill the vacant seat.

Mr. Pavlak attempted to file for the special election with the Secretary of State, and received the following response from the office director:

"Pursuant to M.S. 210A.39we are unable to accept your affidavit of candidacy for the vacancy in Minnesota Legislative District 67A."

The statute relied upon, Minn.St. 210A.39, provides as follows:

"A candidate elected to an office, and whose election thereto has been annulled and set aside for any offense mentioned in sections 210A.01 to 210A.44, shall not, during the period fixed by law as the term of such office, be appointed or elected to fill any vacancy which may occur in such office.A candidate or other person who is convicted of any offense mentioned in sections 210A.01 to 210A.44, shall not, during the period fixed by law as the term of the office with respect to which the election was held and said offense was committed, be appointed or elected to fill any vacancy in such office.Any appointment or election to an office made in violation of or contrary to the provisions of this section shall be void."

After this rejection, Mr. Pavlak brought the current action, contending, among other things, that Minn.St. 210A.39 is unconstitutional and requesting an order from this court before the deadline for filing passed on May 29, 1979.Argument was heard on May 25 from counsel for Mr. Pavlak and assistants of the Attorney General of the State of Minnesota, representing the Secretary of State.The order of this court directing the Secretary of State to accept Mr. Pavlak's application was issued the same day.

To begin with, there is no doubt that by its plain language Minn.St. 210A.39 precludes Mr. Pavlak from running in the special election.Consequently, if the statute is constitutionally valid, the Secretary of State acted properly in rejecting Mr. Pavlak's affidavit of candidacy.Consideration of the constitutionality of 210A.39 must begin, as with all questions concerning eligibility for public office, with Article VII, Section 6 of the Minnesota Constitution:

"Every person who by the provisions of this article is entitled to vote at any election and is 21 years of age is eligible for any office elective by the people in the district wherein he has resided 30 days previous to the election, except as otherwise provided in this constitution, or the constitution and law of the United States."

This constitutional provision forcefully presents an important democratic principle — that all citizens meeting minimal, unchanging requirements are eligible for the elective positions that control their government.The opinions of this court applying Article VII, Section 6, have consistently held that, as a guarantee of universal eligibility for public office, its standards may not be made more restrictive by legislative action unless expressly authorized by another constitutional provision.In keeping with this interpretation, this court has struck down statutes requiring candidates for the office of at-large council member of the City of St. Paul to reside in particular sections of the city, State ex rel. Childs v. Holman,58 Minn. 219, 59 N.W. 1006(1894); making county commissioners, surveyors, and treasurers ineligible for the office of county auditor, Hoffman v. Downs,145 Minn. 465, 177 N.W. 669(1920); requiring court commissioners to be learned in the law, State ex rel. Froehlich v. Ries,168 Minn. 11, 209 N.W. 327(1926); and requiring municipal judge of the village of Perham to be a person learned in the law and duly admitted to practice as an attorney in this state,²State ex rel. Boedigheimer v. Welter,208 Minn. 338, 293 N.W. 914(1940).See, also, the cases collected at 34 A.L.R.2d 169, § 5.

The office involved in this case is that of representative to the Minnesota House of Representatives.Since Article VII, Section 6, specifies that its eligibility standards shall apply "except as otherwise provided in this constitution," the additional constitutional qualifications for the office of representative set forth in Article IV, Section 6, are applicable:

"Senators and representatives shall be qualified voters of the state, and shall have resided one year in the state and six months immediately preceding the election in the district from which elected."

It is undisputed that Mr. Pavlak meets these eligibility standards, being a qualified voter, a resident of Minnesota for one year, and a resident of District 67A for six months.Furthermore, he meets the age requirement of Article VII, Section 6, that remains unchanged by Article IV, Section 6.

It is evident, then, that Mr. Pavlak possesses all the constitutional qualifications necessary for candidacy in the special election.If he is nonetheless precluded from running by statute, it can only be because Minn.St. 210A.39 creates an additional qualification for the office, i. e., that the person otherwise qualified shall not have violated the Fair Campaign Practices Act in a prior campaign for the same term of office.It is our conclusion that this additional qualification directly contradicts the guarantee of universal eligibility found at Article VII, Section 6, and cannot stand.We reach this conclusion in the face of three substantial arguments to the contrary, about which an explanation of our reasoning is in order.

1.In their brief which, although submitted on short notice, has been very helpful to our analysis of these issues, the Attorney General's representatives reasonably contend that Minn.St. 210A.39 does not establish an additional qualification at all.Rather, it is justified as a necessary extension of the legislature's acknowledged power to regulate the conduct of election campaigns, expressed in the Fair Campaign Practices Act itself.The leading case in this area is Saari v. Gleason,126 Minn. 378, 148 N.W. 293(1914), in which this court first approved the legislative regulation of election campaigns through the then-entitled Corrupt Practices Act.John J. Gleason had been elected mayor of Eveleth.When J. S. Saari, his opponent, challenged that election on the grounds of campaign activity in violation of the Act, Gleason claimed the constitutional guarantee of eligibility for public office (then found at Article VII, Section 7) precluded the addition of this new statutory qualification; that is, the office-holder must not have violated statutory campaign standards.However, the court refused to characterize the annulment of an election on the grounds of legislatively proscribed campaign...