Residents of home-rule charter city whose proposed city-charter amendment to repeal the use of ranked-choice voting to elect candidates to municipal office was rejected by city council because one of its four sections was manifestly unconstitutional filed petition in the district court for correction of ballot error, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to, inter alia, require city to sever the section deemed unconstitutional and to submit remainder of amendment to the voters.
The District Court denied the petition. Residents appealed, and their petition for accelerated review was granted.
The Supreme Court held that assuming without deciding that courts have the power under the Minnesota constitution to sever unlawful portions of a proposed city-charter amendment, the proposed amendment in the present case failed to satisfy the high bar required to establish that severance was appropriate.
Assuming without deciding that, under state constitution, Minnesota courts may sever unlawful portions of a proposed city-charter amendment pre-enactment, that is, after signature collection but before presentation to voters, unconstitutional provision of residents’ proposed amendment to repeal use of ranked-choice voting, which required a supermajority of voters to approve such voting in future elections, did not satisfy the high bar required for severance; although other parts of amendment would effectively repeal ranked-choice voting even without the unconstitutional provision, amendment’s purpose was twofold, both to repeal ranked-choice voting and, through the unconstitutional provision, to prevent its future reinstatement, so the subject provision provided a substantial portion of the efficacy or strength of the proposal, and it could not be ascertained whether signers of petition would have wanted remainder of amendment to proceed without the unconstitutional portion.