Shields v. Toronto
| Decision Date | 15 October 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 10202,10202 |
| Citation | 395 P.2d 829,16 Utah 2d 61 |
| Parties | d 61 Dan B. SHIELDS, Plaintiff, v. Lamont F. TORONTO, Secretary of State of the State of Utah, Defendant. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
Bryce E. Roe, Salt Lake City, for plaintiff.
A. Pratt Kesler, Atty. Gen., Salt Lake City, for defendant.
On July 30, 1964, the plaintiff filed in this court a complaint challenging the right of Ernest H. Dean, Democratic candidate for Governor; and of G. Douglas Taylor, Republican, and Clyde L. Miller, Democrat, candidates for Secretary of State, to run to become the nominees for those offices for their respective parties in the primary election to be held on August 11, 1964.
In view of the urgency of time, the matter was set specially for hearing on Monday, August 3, when the court heard oral arguments and received written memoranda of counsel on both sides; and on August 4, decided the case by minute entry, dismissing the complaint and allowing the candidates to run for the offices above stated.
In the primary election, Mr. Dean was eliminated as candidate for the governorship, but Mr. Taylor and Mr. Miller were successful in gaining the nomination for Secretary of State for their respective parties.
The basis of the complaint is that these candidates had all been members of the 1963 legislature which had enacted a general salary increase bill which had raised the salaries of all state officers including those of governor and secretary of state. 1 It is contended that they were therefore rendered ineligible to seek these offices because of the provisions of Section 7, Article VI of our Constitution which provides:
'No member of the Legislature, during the term for which he was elected, shall be appointed or elected to any civil office of profit under this Stae, which shall have been created, or the emoluments of which shall have been increased, during the term for which he was elected.'
If this single provision stated all of the law and covered all of the rights of all of the persons affected, the answer to the problem we confront would be simple enough. But such is not the case. It is obviously not possible to state all of the law necessary to assure a well-ordered society in any such single prohibitory provision. For this reason it cannot properly be regarded as something isolated and absolute but must be considered in the light of its background and the purpose it was designed to serve; 2 and in relation to other fundamental rights of citizens set forth in the entire Constitution which are essential to the proper functioning of our democratic from of government. One of the principal merits of our system of law and justice is that it does not function by casting reason aside and clinging slavishly to a literal application of one single provision of law to the exclusion of all others. 3 Its policy is rather to follow the path of reason in order to avoid arbitrary and unjust results and to give recognition in the highest possible degree to all of the rights assured by all of the Constitutional provisions. 4
The obvious purpose of Section 7, Article (VI) quoted above, was to guard against dishonesty or improper connivance by or with legislators and to prevent them from being influenced by ulterior schemes to enrich themselves at the expense of the public treasury by creating or increasing the pay of a public office and then taking advantage of it. 5 This purpose is altogether salutary. Let it be said with the greatest of emphasis that the provision referred to should neither be ignored nor evaded, but whenever there is even a remote possibility that the evil it was designed to prevent might exist, it should be applied in such manner as to accomplish its objective. 6 However, when adequate safeguards in that respect are observed, there appears to be no good reason to carry this provision beyond that purpose and make an unreasoning application of it where no such evil, nor any possibility of it exists. This would work injustice by depriving citizens of their basic rights and would also tend to disrupt the orderly processes of democratic government.
Turning to the particulars of the provision under discussion, it will be noted that the prohibition is to an office which 'shall have been created, or the emoluments of which shall have been increased' during the legislator's term. The emphasized words so used together give character to each other. 7 In that light they seem to indicate plainly the setting up of some specific situation in state government by the creation of some office or so increasing a salary as to fit into some ulterior scheme whereby the legislator could improperly enrich himself at the expense of the public treasury. 8
The important fact here is that the salary increases involved could not by any stretch of the imagination be regarded as partaking of the impropriety just referred to. There are two significant points which emphasize the correctness of this conclusion. In the first place, the raises given were not directed toward the creation of, nor to the increase of emoluments of any particular office, but were part of a general salary overhaul covering 74 executive officers and judges of the state. These salaries had previously been set at various times and in various sections of our statutes. The 1963 Act referred to was not primarily a salary increase bill, but its main purpose was to repeal all of the separate acts 9 and to consolidate in one act the salaries of all of those offices in order to classify and bring about some uniformity and correlation among them. And second, the comparatively small increases amounting to about 5% of the remuneration of the offices in question were merely incidental to the main purpose. The secretary of state was raised from $10,500 to $11,000. While the raise for the governor was somewhat more, from $13,200 to $15,000, when the furnished residence, maintenance and other perquisites of the office are considered, the raise was just about the same percentage-wise. These relatively small increases, of that character, should properly be regarded as just what they were, a moderate cost of living adjustment on an across-the-board basis in keeping with the steadily rising costs of living. 10 Accordingly, it can be said with assurance that this is not a situation which would lend itself to any ulterior scheme by a legislator to set up a high paying sinecure to take advantage of which Section 7 of Article VI was designed to prevent. Nor is there any reasonably likelihood that such raises would have induced anyone to run for the offices in question who would not otherwise have done so. The fact that some members of the legislature aspired to the named offices is merely coincidental. This is so clear that we believe no fairminded person would contend to the contrary. Indeed, to the credit of the plaintiff and his counsel, no contention has been made that there was any actual impropriety or ulterior purpose whatsoever in the conduct of these candidates.
The absence of any improper machinations being practiced here is rendered even plainer by the fact that all that has been done has had full exposure to public view, and that these candidates have had full exposure to the elective process. Months before this suit was filed they had announced their candidacies for office. They had to run before and obtain the approval of the conventions of their respective parties. They were obliged to run in the public primaries against formidable opponents; and must face candidates of the opposing party in the general election. All of this with the public fully aware of all of the circumstances so they are free to approve or disapprove what the candidates have done. 11
So important that it cannot be ignored, but must be considered in the composite picture, is the effect the plaintiffs contended for application of this Constitutional provision would have upon the fundamental rights of citizens and upon the over-all functioning of our democratic system of government. The foundation and structure which give it life depend upon participation of the citizenry in all aspects of its operation. On patriotic occasions we hear a great deal of oratory declaiming how precious is the right and how essential is the duty to vote for the candidate of one's choice. The emphasis is placed on the first clause--the right to vote; 12 and the second clause--for the candidate of one's choice, is minimized or forgotten. Lost sight of is the fact that the two rights are correlative, and that to make the first meaningful, the second must also be assured. Furthermore, the natural corollary of the right to vote is the right to seek and to serve in public office. 13 Reflection on the matter will reveal that these rights are of vital importance both to individual citizens and to the public. That the framers of our Constitution so regarded them and that these rights are correlated to each other and part of the integral rights and privileges of citizenship is plainly apparent from its numerous references to 'the right to vote and hold office' in the same context. 14
For the purpose of seeing these rights in clearer perspective, suppose this were a case intitated by some voter insisting upon his right to 'vote for the candidate of his choice,' or by these candidates, insisting that their rights as citizens to run for office are absolute regardless of any or all other provisions of law. They could so maintain with as much logic as the plaintiff asserts his position here. Yet, there is no question but that other provisions of law can and do limit the rights to vote and to hold office to those properly qualified. The fair and proper adjudication of those rights would have to be that the citizen could insist upon them unless for some good and sufficient reason he is actually not qualified to vote, or for the office he seeks, or he is guilty of some wrong which would justify deprivation of such...
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