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Local 514 Transport Workers Union of America v. Keating12/16/2003
sustained against challenge where it is possible to do so. In re Application of the Oklahoma Dept. of Transp., 2002 OK 74, 27, 64 P.3d 546, 553, quoting with approval, NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615 (1937); and Coyle v. Smith, 1911 OK 64, 113 P. 944, 971. This principle is codified in 75 O.S. 2001 ยง 11a(1). We hold that this "cardinal principle" applies equally to constitutional provisions as well as to statutory enactments. The Supreme Court of Florida reached the same conclusion in Ray v. Mortham, 742 So.2d 1276, 1281 (Fla. 1999). Although the Florida court held that severability analysis was required, contrary to our holding here, it nevertheless held, as have we, that the presumption of constitutionality applies to constitutional provisions as well as to legislation. The Florida Supreme Court held:
The issue of severability arises only after an amendment already approved by voters has been challenged. Rather than ignoring the results of the election and requiring the Secretary of State to show that voters would have approved an amendment without the unconstitutional provisions, the burden is properly placed on the challenging party. The analysis urged by appellants would be the antithesis of the purpose underlying severability--to preserve the constitutionality of enactments where it is possible to do so. Accordingly, we conclude that we should adopt the severability analysis that we have applied to legislative enactments.
[Emphasis added.] As was the case in Florida, plaintiffs would have us adopt an analysis, which to succeed would require us to ignore the presumption of validity to which the right to work amendment is entitled. This we decline to do.
Plaintiffs' argument that the people would not have approved the right to work law if they had known that certain of its provisions would not apply because of federal law strikes us as counterintuitive. Why would the people not approve a constitutional change that would protect workers from the involuntary payment of union dues simply because federal courts applying federal law might decide that some of its provisions would not apply to some but not all workers in clearly defined circumstances? We conclude that the possibility that the federal courts might hold that certain employees would not be subject to the right to work law cannot be assumed to be a factor which would have caused the people to vote against its passage. It is clear, therefore, that plaintiffs have failed in their burden, as defined by In re Application of the Oklahoma Dept. of Transp., 2002 OK 74 at 27, to show that the actions of the federal courts in declaring that certain provisions of the amendment are preempted in certain circumstances has, somehow, rendered the right to work law unconstitutional.
It is important to keep in mind that the federal courts in this matter have not declared any provision of the right to work law unconstitutional. Instead, the federal courts have merely held that the right to work law does not apply in certain circumstances due to the primacy of federal law, not that preemption lead to invalidation of any of the right to work law's provisions. Thus, the cases cited by plaintiffs in which this Court has examined whether a statute containing unconstitutional provisions would have been passed, had the legislature known that part of what it passed was unconstitutional, are inapposite here. See, for example, Comanche Light & Power v. Nix, 1916 OK 330, 156 P. 293, where the U.S. Supreme Court had declared that a state taxation statute was partially unconstitutional because it attempted to regulate interstate commerce. Here, by contrast, the federal courts have held that cert
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