ROBERTS v. BROWN

• Decision Date: 31 August 2010
• Docket Number: No. SC10-1362.,SC10-1362.
• Citation: 43 So.3d 673
• Parties: Dawn K. ROBERTS, etc., et al., Petitioners, v. Corrine BROWN, et al., Respondents.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

43 So.3d 673

Dawn K. ROBERTS, etc., et al., Petitioners, v. Corrine BROWN, et al., Respondents.

No. SC10-1362.

Supreme Court of Florida.

August 31, 2010.

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John S. Mills of The Mills Firm, Jacksonville, FL, Michael G. Tanner and Thomas E. Bishop of Tanner Bishop, Jacksonville, FL, C.B. Upton, General Counsel, Florida Department of State; Mark Herron and Robert J. Telfer, III of Messer, Caparello and Self, P.A., Ronald G. Meyer, Jennifer S. Blohm, and Lynn C. Hearn of Meyer, Brooks, Demma and Blohm, P.A., and Stephen S. Dobson, III of Dobson, Davis, and Smith, Tallahassee, FL, for Petitioners.

Stephen Michael Cody, Palmetto Bay, FL; James A. Scott, Edward J. Pozzuoli, Stephanie Alexander, and Brady J. Cobb of Tripp Scott, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, FL; George N. Meros, Jr., Andy Bardos, and Jeffrey T. Kuntz of GrayRobinson, P.A., Tallahassee, FL, for Respondents.

James W. Gustafson of Searcy, Denney, Scarola, Barnhart, and Shipley, Tallahassee, FL, Charles G. Burr of Burr and Smith, LLP, Tampa, FL, Alicia Hancock Apfel, Miami, FL, and Paul M. Smith and Michael B. DeSanctis of Jenner and Block, LLP, Washington, D.C., on behalf of Florida State Conference of NAACP Branches and Democracia Ahora; and Douglas F. Eaton of Eaton and Wolk, P.L., Miami, FL, on behalf of The League of Women Voters of Florida, as Amici Curiae.

PER CURIAM.

Interim Secretary of State Dawn Roberts has filed an extraordinary writ petition that invokes this Court's all writs jurisdiction. Secretary Roberts also seeks a writ of prohibition on the basis that the Second Judicial Circuit Court is acting in excess of its jurisdiction by accepting jurisdiction to consider a pre-election action for declaratory and injunctive relief that seeks to remove two citizen-initiative proposed constitutional amendments from the November ballot. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(7), Fla. Const. For the reasons discussed, we grant the petition and direct the circuit court to dismiss the pre-election proceedings below on the basis of lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

FairDistrictsFlorida.org, a registered political committee, invoked the citizen-initiative process of article XI, section 3 of the Florida Constitution to propose two constitutional amendments designed to delineate mandatory standards to be applied to the establishment of legislative and congressional district boundaries. On January 29, 2009, this Court approved the proposed amendments for placement on the ballot and determined that the proposed amendments satisfied the single-subject requirement of article XI, section 3, and that the accompanying ballot titles and summaries complied with section 101.161, Florida Statutes (2008). See Advisory Op. to Att'y Gen. re Standards for Establishing Legis. Dist. Boundaries, 2 So.3d 175, 191 (Fla.2009). The legislative amendment was designated "Amendment 5" by the Division of Elections, and the congressional amendment was designated "Amendment 6." See Fla. Dep't of State Division of Elections: Initiatives/Amendments/Revisions, http://election.dos.state.fl. us/initiatives/initiativelist.asp?year=2010 & initstatus=ALL & MadeBallot=Y & ElecType=GEN (last visited August 31, 2010).

On June 23, 2010, plaintiffs Corrine Brown and Mario Diaz-Balart, both members of the United States House of Representatives, filed an amended complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief in the circuit court against Secretary Roberts and FairDistrictsFlorida.org which challenged the validity of only Amendment 6. The Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate attempted to intervene as plaintiffs. The intervenors attempted to challenge a different provision, the ballot summary of Amendment 5. The intervenors also sought to inject two different claims—that the proposed amendments would violate the federal Voting Rights Act and that the amendments are "vague, conflicting, and unworkable." Notwithstanding these significant differences, the circuit court permitted the addition of these claims even though they were different and beyond the scope of the original proceeding.

Secretary Roberts, FairDistrictsFlorida.org, and intervening defendant Bob Graham filed motions to dismiss the complaint on the basis of lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The motions to dismiss asserted that the Florida Supreme Court has exclusive jurisdiction to determine pre-election challenges to proposed citizen-initiative amendments, and that this Court's advisory opinion approving Amendments 5 and 6 for ballot placement precluded this additional litigation. Governor Charlie Crist, as amicus curiae, filed a memorandum of law in support of Secretary Roberts' motion to dismiss.

The circuit court conducted a hearing on July 8, 2010, and issued a written order denying the motions to dismiss on July 12, 2010. The circuit court held that even though the Florida Constitution was amended in 1986 to create the advisory opinion review process for citizen-initiative amendments, the adoption of these provisions did not divest the circuit courts of jurisdiction to consider pre-election declaratory actions that challenge such amendments. The circuit court relied on the language from Florida League of Cities v. Smith, 607 So.2d 397 (Fla.1992):

When [the constitutional provisions creating the advisory opinion process] were under consideration before the 1986 Legislature, the accompanying legislative staff summaries stated a belief that any advisory opinion regarding initiative petitions would not be binding precedent and would only constitute persuasive authority as to any other adversarial legal challenge that might later be raised. Staff of Fla. H.R. Comm. on Judiciary, CS/HJR 71 (1986), Staff Analysis 2 (March 6, 1986) (available from Fla. Div. of Archives); Staff of Fla. H.R. Comm. on Judiciary, PCS/HJR 71 (1986), Staff Analysis 2 (Feb. 18, 1986) (available from Fla. Div. of Archives). This necessarily implies that other legal challenges would continue to be permissible under existing precedent; and our precedent clearly holds that a petition for mandamus is an appropriate method for challenging an allegedly defective proposed amendment to the Constitution.

Id. at 398-99 (footnotes omitted). Based upon this reference to legislative staff summaries, the circuit court below accepted the argument that any method of challenging initiative amendment proposals that existed prior to 1986 survived the 1986 constitutional revision. The trial judge ultimately concluded that circuit courts retained full jurisdiction pursuant to sections 26.012(3) and 86.011, Florida Statutes, to consider pre-election declaratory and injunctive actions that challenged the validity of citizen initiative amendment proposals. The circuit court also relied upon Lane v. Chiles, 698 So.2d 260 (Fla. 1997), in which this Court held that a post-election challenge to an initiative ballot summary was untimely.¹

Secretary Roberts subsequently filed an extraordinary writ petition with this Court, which was joined by defendant Graham, and asked this Court to either exercise its all writs jurisdiction or issue a writ of prohibition to preclude the circuit court from proceeding with pre-election subject matter jurisdiction of the action challenging Amendments 5 and 6.

ANALYSIS

All Writs and the Writ of Prohibition

As a preliminary matter, the doctrine of all writs is not an independent basis for this Courts jurisdiction. See Besoner v. Crawford, 357 So.2d 414, 415 (Fla.1978). Rather, its use is restricted to preserving jurisdiction that has already been invoked or protecting jurisdiction that likely will be invoked in the future. See, e.g., United Servs. Auto. Ass'n v. Goodman, 826 So.2d 914, 915 (Fla.2002) (exercising all writs jurisdiction where circuit court orders "encroach[ed] upon this Court's ultimate jurisdiction to adopt rules for the courts, see article V, section 2(a), specifically Rules of Judicial Administration, Rules of Civil Procedure, and Rules Regulating The Florida Bar"); Arbelaez v. Butterworth, 738 So.2d 326, 326 (Fla.1999) (considering all writs petition based upon Courts jurisdiction over death penalty cases); Wild v. Dozier, 672 So.2d 16, 17-18 (Fla.1996) (finding independent basis to review judicial assignment exists where Court has exclusive jurisdiction to review such assignments under its article V, section 2(a) authority to oversee the administrative supervision of all courts); Florida Senate v. Graham, 412 So.2d 360, 361 (Fla.1982) (finding underlying basis for jurisdiction to challenge Governors authority to limit a special apportionment session; that is, the Courts constitutional authority in the second year following each decennial census to review a legislative plan of apportionment).

Here, Secretary Roberts contends that we should exercise our all writs jurisdiction to protect our exclusive authority pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(10) of the Florida Constitution to consider pre-election challenges to the validity of citizen-initiative petitions. Thus, to determine whether the use of our all writs jurisdiction is warranted, we must determine whether our jurisdiction over such matters is exclusive.

With regard to prohibition, this Court has explained the limited applicability of the writ as follows:

Prohibition may only be granted when it is shown that a lower court is without jurisdiction or attempting to act in excess of jurisdiction. It is preventive and not corrective in that it commands the one to whom it is directed not to do the thing which the supervisory court is informed the lower tribunal is about to do. Its purpose is to prevent the doing of something, not to compel the undoing of something already done.

English v. McCrary, 348 So.2d 293, 296-97 (Fla.1977). The applicability of the writ of prohibition in this case hinges upon the identical issue that is...