Oregon Advisory Opinions January 06, 1950: OAG 50-2 (January 6, 1950)
Collection: Oregon Attorney General Opinions
Docket: OAG 50-2
Date: Jan. 6, 1950
Advisory Opinion Text
OAG 50-2.
District Attorney, Columbia County
Dear Sir: Under date of December 30, 1949, you state that a petition has been filed with the county clerk of Columbia county for an election for the incorporation of a hospital district to be known as Columbia Hospital District, as provided for by chapter 548, Oregon Laws 1949, and that the organizers of the proposed district have demanded of said clerk that he prepare and furnish voters' pamphlets to each elector of said proposed district. You conclude with the following statement:
" It is mandatory or authorized that the clerk prepare or furnish such pamphlets in an election of this nature?"
I assume from the punctuation mark at the end of this concluding statement that the first two words "It is" have been transposed and that you intended an interrogatory rather than an affirmative statement.
I also assume, for the purpose of this opinion, that by the use of the words "voters' pamphlets" the demand is for a form or printed booklet containing arguments and other matter favoring or opposing the question involved, similar to those required in initiative elections under chapter 21, Title 81, O. C. L. A., and related statutes.
Chapter 548, Oregon Laws 1949, authorizing "districts to incorporate as municipal corporations for the purpose of supplying their inhabitants with facilities for the care of sick and injured persons", is a statute complete within itself and self-executing. It is not a proposal for the enactment of a law induced from the first by the petitioners "independent of the legislative assembly" (§ 1, Art. IV, Ore. Con.), but is an authorization within the legislative power setting forth specifically the question to be submitted and the procedure to be followed in securing an affirmative and negative vote of the people thereon (§ 3, ch. 548, O. L. 1949).
It is a cardinal principle of law that public officers have only such authority and power as prescribed by statute (State v. Deschutes Land Co., 64 Or. 167, 175; Wallace and Co. v. Ferguson, 70 Or. 306, 310; Hagquist v. U.S.F. & G. Co., 125 Or. 13, 21, 25). Such grants of power are usually subject to a strict interpretation and will be construed as conferring those powers only which are expressly imposed or necessarily implied (Mechem's "Public Offices and Officers", § 511, p. 335). Therefore, unless there can be found within chapter 548, provisions en-
joining the county clerk with the duty of furnishing the "voters' pamphlets" demanded, he would, in furnishing such pamphlets, not only be acting outside of the authority specifically imposed in him by the statute, but his action would be his own individual and personal responsibility and not binding upon the county.
The duties commanded of the county clerk by said chapter 548 are as follows:
Filing the petition required by § 1 and presenting the same to the county court on the first day of the regular session of the court held for the transaction of county business; recording the order for the election, if made; preparing the official ballot; designating the place and number of polling places and naming such polling places; appointing three judges and three clerks of election for each polling place; and as required by § 3 thereof, preparing the election notices and mailing two of said notices to each judge and each clerk of election for each polling place designated, "as provided for in the cases of general elections": § 81-1402, O. C. L. A., as amended by chap. 50, § 12, Oregon Laws 1945. He shall receive the canvass of the votes from the election boards and present it to the county court for its canvass and, if the vote is in favor of the incorporation, it is his duty to enter the proclamation in the journal of the county and to issue certificates of election to the five directors receiving the highest number of votes (§ 6). The only remaining duty of the county clerk under this statute is to pay the members of the election boards for their services (§ 8).
Nowhere in this enactment is there any express provision imposing upon the county clerk the duty of furnishing "voters' pamphlets" for the election provided for therein, nor does it contain any language from which such a duty can be necessarily implied.
It follows, and it is my opinion, that the county clerk is not authorized by chapter 548, Oregon Laws 1949, to comply with the demand made upon him for "voters' pamphlets".