Mississippi Advisory Opinions December 12, 1990: AGO 000010704 (December 12, 1990)

AGO 000010704.

Dear Senator Guerieri:

Attorney General Mike Moore has received your letter of request and assigned it to me for research and reply.

Your letter states:

"This is to confirm my telephone request for a definition of what constitutes a bona fide petition which will meet the requirements of 1500 or 20% of the registered voters, whichever is less, under the referenced statute. Further, my specific question is whether several copies of substantially similarly worded petitions circulated by various organizations and church groups trying to meet this requirement will be considered in the aggregate to satisfy the definition of "a petition" under the statute. Please send me a written opinion as soon as possible because time is of the essence since there is a December 21, 1990, deadline which must be met by the opponents. My address is P. 0. Drawer 265, Southaven, Mississippi 38671."

Section 19-3-79 of the Mississippi Code of 1972, Annotated states in pertinent part as follows, to-wit:

Upon the submission of a petition signed by twenty percent (20%) or fifteen hundred (1,500), whichever is less, of the registered voters of the county the board shall authorize the circuit clerk of the county to hold an election on the proposition of prohibiting betting, gaming or wagering... 1 __________________ 1 Subparagraph 1 of 19-3-79 deals with a referendum on cruise ship gambling; subparagraph 2 with gambling on vessels operating on the Mississippi River. The language in question, however, is the same in both subparagraphs.

After reviewing the above statute and several cases dealing with beer sales referendums which require petitions similar to the one required by 19-3-79, it is the opinion of this office that the focus should not be on what person or organization is circulating the petition but instead, on the language therein and whether sufficient language appears on each signed page of the petitioning document to alert persons as to what they are signing.

The 1986 Supreme Court case, City of Clinton vs. Smith, 493 So.2d 331, in our opinion, is worthy of note here. Although Smith specifically deals with a beer sales referendum, the logic and holding therein as it relates to how a petition calling for a referendum may be circulated and what language it should contain is applicable to the present question.

Specifically, with regard to the number of petition documents which may be circulated, it states:

It is impractical that a petition drive seeking in excess of a thousand signatures be conducted with one petitioning document with all pages affixed to each other at all times carried around by hand from one person to the next. Our law wholly sanctions the process by which different sheets are distributed in different areas of a community and then all assembled at the end for presentation to the governing authority.

To hold otherwise would be to make the petition and referendum process so cumbersome that it would become as a practical matter unavailable to our citizenry, a result that would thwart the obvious intention of our laws.

Smith citing the earlier decision of Stennis v. Board of Supervisors of Clay County, 232 Miss. 212, 98 So.2d 636 (1957) further addresses the question of what language is required upon a signed petition calling for a referendum. Justice Robertson writing for the Court says:

The matter of what language must appear upon a signed petition calling for a referendum was addressed in Stennis v. Board of Supervisors of Clay County, 232 Miss. 212, 98 So,.2d 636 (1957). There we held that no technical form of language must be employed. The wording of the petitions are to be given a fair and reasonable interpretation, recognizing that they have likely been drafted by laymen and not lawyers. So long as they reflect "a clear intention to obtain a local election", the petitions are sufficient to vest the local governing authority with jurisdiction to call the election. Stennis v. Board of Supervisors of Clay County. Mississippi, 232 Miss. at 227-28, 98 So.2d at 641-42. Smith, 493 So.2d at 340.

Finally, Smith recognizing the potential for abuse that exists where multiple documents are circulated held as follows:

...each signature of a registered voter, before that signature may be validated and counted toward the number of signatures required by statute, must appear upon a page which contains language expressing in an intelligible manner the desire of the signing party that a particular referendum election be called, that is, language sufficient that one reading it before signing would not likely be misled as to the effect and import of his or her signature. Smith. 493 So.2d at 341.

Therefore, it is the opinion of this office that the language "a petition" found in Section 19-3-79 does not limit the number of petitioning documents that may be circulated; however, each page of each petitioning document should clearly indicate what referendum is being called to a vote. Whether such language is sufficient is a question of fact which must be decided by, in this case, the Board of Supervisors and ultimately by a court of competent jurisdiction on a case by case basis.

Sincerely,

MIKE MOORE, ATTORNEY GENERAL

Alan M. Purdie Assistant Attorney General

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