43 Wash. 74 | Wash. | 1906
This action was brought by the plaintiff to enjoin the defendant from issuing $1,100,000 of municipal bonds, $600,000 to ¡provide funds for extensions to the municipal lighting plant of the city, and $500,000 to provide funds for the purchase of property for park purposes. The defendant city claims to- be authorized to' issue said bonds by virtue of an authority conferred upon it by the electors of the city at the last general election, in the month of March last, at which election the proposition of the issuance) of these bonds for the above purposes was submitted to a vote of the people. It is conceded that the city has a right to issue the blonds' in question, provided the proposition received the requisite vote at that election; so that the sufficiency of the !vote cast in favor of the bonds is the only question for discussion here. The lower court sustained a demurrer to both causes of action, and the plaintiff elected to stand upon his complaint. The court thereupon rendered final judgment for the defendant. Erom such judgment this appeal is taken.
“Ho county, city, town, school district, or other municipal corporation, shall for any purpose become indebted in any manner to an amount exceeding one and one-half percentum of the taxable property in such county, city, town., school district, or other municipal corporation, without the assent of threerfifths of the voters therein voting at an election to he held for that purpose.”
And § 30 of art. 4 of the charter of the city of Seattle provides as follows:
“When loans shall he created exceeding one and a half per centum of the taxable property in the city, and bonds therefor issued by the city under this charter, the city council in authorizing and providing for the same shall direct the times and manner of payment and rates of interest, but no such bonds shall be issued except as provided by law, nor unless the proposition for creating such indebtedness shall have been previously submitted to the electors of the city at a regular, general or special election, of which thirty days’ notice shall have been published iu the city official newspaper, and such proposition shall have then received the assent of threei-fifths of the voters voting at such election.”
It will thus be seen that the constitution provides for the assent of three-fifths of the voters therein voting at an election to be held for that purpose, and that the charter provides for the assent of three-fifths of the voters voting at such elec
Of course, if the vote were taken, at a special election called only for the purpose of voting upon such bonds, this question could not arise, and a three-fifths vote would unquestionably be sufficient to' warrant the issuance of the bonds. Courts are, and of right ought to be, reluctant to' defeat the fair expression of the popular will manifested by the voters at am election the express and only object of which is to ascertain the popular will, and such expression will be upheld and made effective unless the law which defeats it is so plain and unequivocal that it is susceptible of but one construction, in which case the court is powerless to do otherwise than give legal effect to its provisions. We do not think, however, that such a case is presented by the provisions of the city charter
It will he observed that the constitution requires propositions of this kind to be submitted to a vote at an election to be held for that purpose. This is, in ©feet, providing a special election for the submission of questions of this kind, and if all the requirements of a special election are met, as we understand they were met in this case, by giving proper notice, etc., the fact that for the sake of economy the election was held on the same day that a general city election was held, and that the same ballots were used, does not make it a general election, or take it out of the provision of the constitution above quoted, viz., that such proposition must he submitted at an election to he held for that purpose; hut that the election on the special proposition being so held is merely an incident not affecting in any manner its distinct purpose or character. The constituiton, it will he noted, does not provide for either general or special elections so termed, but provides only for an election to be beld for that purpose, and that purpose, of course, is a special purpose. The provision in the charter that such proposition shall have then received the assent of three-fifths of the voters voting at such election, construed with reference to the constitutional provision, evidently means three-fifths of the voters who are expressing an opinion on the question discussed in the ordinance; and the question discussed in the ordinance; was the question of the loan and the issuance of the bonds. This was not an ordinance /providing for a general election, and
The result of the construction contended for by appellant, instead of making the test of the will of the people certain, would make it uncertain and dependent upon circumstances unconnected with the expression of the people on this subject. This thought is clearly expressed by the learned judge who tried this cause, in the. following words: •
“A different rule would lead to some novel and certainly unexpected results. The council had power to submit such question at either a general or a special election. At a special election the question whether the proposition had been carried would necessarily be determined solely by counting the votes for and .against it. At a general election it would inevitably be determined in part, at least, by the vote upon some other or possibly a dozen wholly different matters. So .that the rule for ascertaining whether a given proposition had been adopted or not would not be the fixed rule prescribed by the constitution, nor even by a definite rule found in the charter, but by a variable measure dependent partly on the charter and partly on the action of the council. Such was certainly not the intention of the constitution, nor, as I conceive
We have not overlooked the large list of authorities cited by the appellant, notably the cases from California, but from an examination of them it is ascertainable that most of them, at least, were decided under provisions of the constitution
In this case we hold that the language “without the assent of three-fifths of the voters therein voting at an election to be held for that purpose” means at an election held for the purpose of voting upon this proposition, and not for. the purpose of voting on manifold propositions that may be submitted at a general election; and that the fact that the election was held at the same time and with an election for other purposes does not affect in any manner the count on the number of votes cast for the purpose of determining the proposition submitted, viz., the proposition of indebtedness. This contention is also- in harmony with the spirit of the decision rendered by this court in Strain v. Young, 25 Wash. 578, 66 Pac. 64, where it was held that a statute differing from the constitution, but which was enacted in pursuance of the constitution, must be held to mean the same as the- constitution, and whe-re it was further said:
“If other voters, who had the opportunity to exercise the
The judgment is affirmed.
Mount, C. J., Ceow, Root, Hadley, Fulleeton, and Rudkin, JJ., concur.