McClellan v. Meyer

900 P.2d 24, 19 Brief Times Rptr. 1035, 1995 Colo. LEXIS 273, 1995 WL 375484
CourtSupreme Court of Colorado
DecidedJune 26, 1995
Docket94SA282
StatusPublished
Cited by47 cases

This text of 900 P.2d 24 (McClellan v. Meyer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McClellan v. Meyer, 900 P.2d 24, 19 Brief Times Rptr. 1035, 1995 Colo. LEXIS 273, 1995 WL 375484 (Colo. 1995).

Opinions

[27]*27Justice VOLLACK

delivered the Opinion of the Court.

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, IB C.R.S. (1994 Supp.), and we accepted this appeal.

We affirm the district court’s ruling.

I.

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, IB 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), IB 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 [28]*28submitted 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 detañed 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(l)(c), IB 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 ease 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 faded to obtain a sufficient number of signatures to allow the petition to be placed on the ballot.8

The appeHants 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, IB 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, IB C.R.S. (1992 Supp.).
Whether the Secretary of State erroneously employed restrictions not found in §§ 1-40-106 or 1-40-109, IB C.R.S. (1992 Supp.), when using a “perfect match” methodology developed without a ruling making public the hearing.
[29]*29Whether 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.

II.

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:

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900 P.2d 24, 19 Brief Times Rptr. 1035, 1995 Colo. LEXIS 273, 1995 WL 375484, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcclellan-v-meyer-colo-1995.