State ex rel. Spadafora v. Toledo City Council

• Decision Date: 30 December 1994
• Docket Number: No. 94-2210,94-2210
• Citation: 71 Ohio St.3d 546,644 N.E.2d 393
• Parties: The STATE ex rel. SPADAFORA et al. v. TOLEDO CITY COUNCIL.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 546

71 Ohio St.3d 546

644 N.E.2d 393

The STATE ex rel. SPADAFORA et al. v. TOLEDO CITY COUNCIL.

No. 94-2210.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted Oct. 25, 1994.

Decided Dec. 30, 1994.

Jeffrey M. Gamso, Toledo, for relators.

Mark S. Schmollinger, Toledo Acting Director of Law, and Joseph Goldberg, Sr. Atty., for respondent.

DOUGLAS, Justice.

In the case at bar, certain circulators (including William Baker) signed an oath on petitions that they received no compensation for their services as petition circulators. William Baker himself, the Lucas County Board of Elections and the Toledo City Council all now agree that Baker was paid to circulate the petitions and the oath of the circulators was false. In fact, it was decided by the board of elections not to refer Baker for criminal prosecution only because Baker requested TDR not to file the part-petitions in question. The petitions were, however, filed. R.C. 3519.06(D) provides that "[n]o initiative or referendum part-petition is properly verified if it appears on the face thereof, or is made to appear by satisfactory evidence: * * * That the statement is false in any respect[.]" (Emphasis added.) Admittedly, R.C. Chapter 3519 involves statewide initiative and referendum petitions. However, in State ex rel. Watkins v. Quirk (1978), 59 Ohio App.2d 175, 13 O.O.3d 202, 392 N.E.2d 1302, the court held that a municipal clerk of council does have authority to invalidate all signatures affixed to referendum part-petitions where the part-petition on its face violates R.C. 3519.06(C). We agree that R.C. 3519.06 may be applied to a municipal referendum petition. Here, the board of elections rendered a report to the council which, in part, found (after a hearing) that Baker had in fact been compensated for circulating part-petitions. Certainly this is "satisfactory evidence" that on the face of the petition, there was a false statement. See R.C. 3519.06(C). Thus, city council not only had the right to reject the ordinance placing the proposed charter amendment on the ballot--it had the duty so to do.

Further, in State ex rel. Concerned Citizens for More Professional Govt. v. Zanesville City Council (1994), 70 Ohio St.3d 455, 457-458, 639 N.E.2d 421, 423, we said that " * * * it follows that the legislature [city council] need not make the submission [to the electors] unless satisfied of the sufficiency of the petitions and that all statutory requirements are fairly met." (Emphasis added.) See, also, State ex rel. Semik v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of Elections (1993), 67 Ohio St.3d 334, 335-336, 617 N.E.2d 1120, 1122.

Clearly, one of the requirements of R.C. 3519.06(D) is that an initiative and/or referendum petition speak, on its face, the truth. That statute was clearly violated here and, accordingly, Toledo City Council had the right (and duty) not to submit the question, based on these petitions, to the electors of Toledo.

In consideration of the foregoing, the writ is denied and the cause is dismissed.

Writ denied and cause dismissed.

RESNICK, FRANCIS E. SWEENEY, Sr. and PFEIFER, JJ., concur.

MOYER, C.J., and A. WILLIAM SWEENEY and WRIGHT, JJ., concur separately.

MOYER, Chief Justice, concurring in judgment only.

I concur in judgment with the majority decision for the following reasons. In a very brief opinion, the majority casts aside well-established law relating to the authority of a city council of a charter city to place or not place on the ballot a charter amendment proposed by a requisite number of electors of the municipality. Whatever our views may be with respect to the desirability of locating a branch of the Center of Science and Industry in Portside, we should not cast aside well-established law and announce new law that will have a dramatic impact upon the will of the voters to place issues on the election ballots.

Section 7, Article XVIII of the Ohio Constitution authorizes municipal corporations to adopt and amend a home-rule charter. Sections 8 and 9 of Article XVIII prescribe the procedures for adopting and amending a charter. State ex rel. Semik v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of Elections (1993), 67 Ohio St.3d 334, 336, 617 N.E.2d 1120, 1122. On petition of ten percent of the electors, the legislative authority of the city must "forthwith" authorize by ordinance an election on the proposed charter amendment. In a unanimous opinion we recently followed well-established law and held that the authority of a city council in determining the sufficiency of a petition is limited to the form of the petition and does not include substantive matters. Morris v. Macedonia City Council (1994), 71 Ohio St.3d 52, 641 N.E.2d 1075; see State ex rel. Polcyn v. Burkhart (1973), 33 Ohio St.2d 7, 62 O.O.2d 202, 292 N.E.2d 883. In fact, there is no way to find the law in Morris inapplicable to this case.

The city council's authority to determine if all applicable statutory requirements have been met is not as broad as that of a board of elections or the Secretary of State. Council may not engage in judicial or quasi-judicial determinations of matters which are not apparent on the face of the petition or which require the aid of witnesses to determine. See Morris, supra, 71 Ohio St.3d at 55, 641 N.E.2d at 1078; State ex rel. Citizens for a Better Portsmouth v. Sydnor (1991), 61 Ohio St.3d 49, 52, 572 N.E.2d 649, 651; and Polcyn, supra, 33 Ohio St.2d at 10-11, 62 O.O.2d at 203-204, 292 N.E.2d at 885. Without any analysis, the majority opinion cites a court of appeals' opinion, State ex rel. Watkins v. Quirk (1978), 59 Ohio App.2d 175, 13 O.O.3d 202, 392 N.E.2d 1302, to support its holding that R.C. 3519.06(C), which clearly applies to statewide initiative and...