Omdahl, Lloyd B.

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North Dakota Law Review Volume 47 Number 3 Article 4 1970 Unusual Majority Requirements and North Dakota School Elections Lloyd B. Omdahl Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/ndlr  Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Omdahl, Lloyd B. (1970) "Unusual Majority Requirements and North Dakota School Elections," North Dakota Law Review: Vol. 47 : No. 3 , Article 4. Available at: https://commons.und.edu/ndlr/vol47/iss3/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Law at UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in North Dakota Law Review by an authorized editor of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact und.commons@library.und.edu. UNUSUAL MAJORITY REQUIREMENTS ANDNORTH DAKOTA SCHOOL ELECTIONSLLOYD B. OMDAHL*At least 10 states, among them North Dakota, have challengespending in state and federal courts contesting the legitimacy of re-quiring 60% or other unusual majorities for elections in schoolbonding or school mill levies. The case against unusual majoritiesrests substantially on the premise that such a requirement gives, thenegative voters more voting power than the positive voters, therebyviolating the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amend-ment.When the Supreme Court gives it opinion, it will have significantImpact on school fiscal policies in North Dakota since state lawshave several requirements for unusual majorities.In North Dakota, a 60% majority is required for increasing ageneral fund mill levy, over 25%; a 60% majority is required toapprove a bond issue; a two-thirds majority is required to transfermoney from a special reserve fund or building fund to a generalfund; a two-thirds majority is required to levy for the operationof a junior college; a 60% majority is required to establish a schoolbuilding fund of not more than 10 mills.Because of the renewed interest in requirements for unusualmajorities, caused primarily by recent litigation, the University Bu-reau of Governmental Affairs initiated a comprehensive compilationof statistics in school bond and mill levy elections in North Dakotafrom July 1, 1961 through June 30, 1970. Statistics for the first fouryears of this period were adopted from an independent study byRonald L. Broeker and loaned to the Bureau by the University Collegeof Education. New data was gathered for the period of July 1, 1965to June 30, 1970.During this 9-year period, voters in the various school districtsof North Dakota considered 295 bond issue proposals of which 182(61.7%) passed and 113 (38.3%) failed. These figures of themselvesare not particularly significant until closer scrutiny is given to those113 which lost. Then we find that 88 (77%) of those that failed0 Director, University of N. Dak. Bureau of Governmental Affairs.NORTH DAKOTA LAW REVIEWdid have majorities in excess of 50% but not quite large enoughto meet the unusual majority requirements. In other words, hadthere not been a requirement for unusual majorities, 270 (91%)of the bond issue proposals would have succeeded.When the data on bond issue proposals was arrayed by calendaryear, no significant patterns were detected in the win-loss ratios.They tended to be very erratic. It is interesting to note, however,that the number of bonding proposals submitted during the last threefull years (1967, 1968, 1969) was down somewhat from that for eachof the previous five full years.BOND ISSUE PROPOSALS BY YEARPass Fail Total1961 (From July 1) 21 63.6% 12 36.4% 331962 28 70.0% 12 30.0% 401963 21 72.4% 8 27.6% 291964 19 47.5% 21 52.5% 401965 28 71.8% 11 28.2% 391966 26 65.0% 14 35.0% 401967 12 52.2% 11 47.8% 231968 9 40.1% 13 59.9% 221969 16 61.5% 10 38.5% 261970 (To July 1) 2 66.7% 1 33.3% 3182 61.7% 113 38.3% 295To establish general guides for grouping schools into three classes,enrollment was used for the schools for which the bond proposalswere being made. Schools were divided by enrollment groups of1 to 199, 200 to 499, and 500 and over. When school enrollment wasmeasured against the pass-fail ratio, statistics indicated that thesuccess ratio was very high in small school districts-or 88.5%.As the table below indicates, 46 passed and 6 failed. Larger schooldistricts had poorer success ratios and both of those categories wererelatively similar.SUCCESS OF BOND PROPOSALS BY SCHOOL ENROLLMENTEnrollment Pass Fail Total1-199 46 88.5% 6 12.5% 52200-400 80 55.9% 63 44.1% 143500 and over 56 56.0% 44 44.0% 100408182 61.7% 113 38.3% 295REQUIREMENTS AND ELECTIONSAnother table was prepared relating size of enrollment to com-munity support but this time a finer definition was made of the degreeof support for the various bond proposals. In the following table, wenote the extraordinary strength of community support for bond issuesin small schools-with 76% or more voter approval in 65.4% of theelections.VOTE ON BOND ISSUES BY SCHOOL ENROLLMENTEnrollment Per Cent in Favor of Issue0-25% 26-50P 51-75% 76-100%1-199 0 0.0% 3 5.8% 15 28.8% 34 65.4% 52200-499 1 0.7% 16 11.2% 91 63.6% 35 24.5% 143500 and over 0 0.0% 15 15.0% 58 58.0% 27 27.0% 1001 0.3% 34 11.5% 164 55.6% 96 32.6% 295As an auxiliary compilation, the research staff prepared a tableaveraging the size of proposed bond issues by school enrollment.The proposals for the larger schools were considerably larger, onthe average, than the proposals for the smaller schools.AVERAGE SIZE OF BOND PROPOSAL BY ENROLLMENTAverage Amount Total ofof Proposal in Number of ProposedEnrollment This Group Proposals Bond Issues1-199 $106,950 52 $ 5,561,412200-499 $229,353 143 $32,797,509500 and over $558,641 100 $55,864,051Since wide variations can exist in the impact of particular bondissues in the various districts, an attempt was made to place thebond proposal decisions on an equal basis by using the averageper pupil amount of the bond issue proposed. This was done by divid-ing the amount of the bond issue proposed by the number of studentsenrolled in the district. These were grouped into three categoriesand the pass-fail statistics were arranged accordingly.Those bond issues that carried a smaller obligation in terms ofthe student enrollment had considerably more success than thosewhich carried high bonding obligations. The lowest category-$1 to$499 per pupil-had an almost 70% pass record while the highestcategory fell off to 50%.409410 NORTH DAKOTA LAW REVIEWSUCCESS OF BOND ISSUES BYPER PUPIL AMOUNT OF BOND ISSUEPer Pupil Amount of Bond Issue Pass Fail$1-499 72 69.9% 31 30.1% 103$500-999 93 58.9% 65 41.1% 158$1000-1500 17 50.0% 17 50.0% 34182 61.7% 113 38.3% 295The next three tables relate to those 88 bond proposals thatreceived more than 50% voter approval but fell short of the unusualmajority requirements and were therefore lost.When the statistics on these 88 proposals were tabulated by year,there were no discernible trends or significant conclusions to bedrawn.BOND ISSUE BY YEARNumber of Received Over 50% Percent of allYear Proposals Approval Yet Failed Elections in Year1961 (From July 1) 33 8 24.2%1962 40 12 30.0%1963 29 7 24.111964 40 17 42.5%1965 39 8 20.5%1966 40 12 30.0%1967 23 9 39.191968 22 8 36.4%1969 26 7 26.9%1970 (Until July 1) 3 0 0.0%295 88 29.8%As indicated by the following table, the smallest schools seemedto suffer least from the unusual majority requirements because theywere able to muster massive majorities in support of their bondingproposals. However, the medium and large schools lost one-third oftheir bonding proposals because of the unusual majority requirement.BOND ISSUE BY ENROLLMENTOver 50% ApprovalEnrollment Total Number Yet Bond Issue Failed1-199 52 6 11.5%200-499 143 49 34.3%500 and over 100 33 33.39295 88 29.8%REQUIREMENTS AND ELECTIONS. When the state was roughly divided into four regions, the north-east and southeast regions did the poorest, geographically speaking,in securing passage of their proposals, thus suffering most fromthe unusual majority requirements. Both regions lost around one-thirdof their proposals by the unusual majority requirement while thenorthwest suffered the least.BOND ISSUE PROPOSALS RECEIVING 50%BUT FAILED BY REGIONNumber of Over 50% Approval % ofRegion Proposals But Failed ElectionsNortheast 127 46 36.2%Southeast 68 22 32.4%Southwest 39 11 28.2%Northwest 61 9 14.8%295 88 29.8%During the 9-year period covered by the statistics compiled, theschool districts in North Dakota held 711 elections relating to milllevies. Of these, 483 (67.9%) proposals were approved and 228(or 32.1%) were rejected. A smaller percentage of the defeated milllevy proposals-around 41(-were killed by the unusual majorityrequirement than had been lost in bonding elections. Ninety-fourproposals of the 228 defeated won by 50% or more but less than theunusual majority required in the various types of mill levy elections.When the election statistics were arranged on a year-by-yearbasis, no significant patterns developed to indicate particular trendstaking place in such elections.VOTE ON MILL LEVY PROPOSALS BY YEARPass Fail TotalYear No. % No. *1961 (From July 1) 10 55.6 8 44.4 181962 55 73.3 20 26.7 751963 31 59.6 21 40.4 521964 64 72.7 24 27.3 881965 57 81.4 13 18.6 701966 68 61.8 42 38.2 1101967 63 84.0 17 22.7 751968 58 62.4 35 37.6 931969 53 63.1 31 36.9 841970 34 73.9 17 37.0 46483 67.9 228 32.1 711When the mill levy elections were correlated with school enroll-NORTH DAKOTA LAW REVIEWment, the statistics indicated that the smaller schools had a muchhigher success ratio--over 85o-than did the larger schools-55.9%.SUCCESS OF MILL LEVY PROPOSALSBY SCHOOL ENROLLMENTEnrollment1-199200--499500 and overPassNo. TTotal212 85.8 35 14.2 247181 59.7 122 40.3 30390 55.9 71 44.1 161483 67.9 228 32.1In view of the interest in those proposals losing because of therequirements for unusual majorities, the mill levy proposals defeatedin that fashion were given special attention. As in the bond proposals,these were arranged by calendar year to determine whether ornot trends were developing. As the table below indicates, there doesnot seem to be any pattern developing as a result of the unusualmajority requirement.MILL LEVY PROPOSALS RECEIVING OVER 50%APPROVAL BUT FAILED BY YEARNu~mber ofProposalsYear Total* of AU MillLevy Elections1961 18 0 0.0%1962 75 10 13.3%1963 52 12 23.1%1964 88 12 13.6%1965 70 1 1.4%1966 110 14 12.7%1967 75 8 10.7%1968 93 15 16.1%1969 84 16 19.0%1970 46 6 13.0%13.2%When the 94 mill levy proposals that lost with over 50% of thevote were correlated with enrollment, the statistics again revealedthat the smaller schools are being less affected by the unusual ma-jority requirement-having lost only 8.1% of the proposals in thisfashion. The larger schools, on the other hand, were losing almosttwice as many, over 15%, in this fashion.REQUIREMENTS AND ELECTIONSMILL LEVY PROPOSALS RECEIVING OVER 50% APPROVALBUT FAILED BY ENROLLMENTEnrollment Number of Proposals Total % of Elections1-199 247 20 8.11200-499 303 48 15.8%500 ,and over 161 25 15.5%711 94 13.2%When checked against geographical regions, figures indicatedthat the southeastern portion of North Dakota had lost the leastunder the unusual majority-3.8%-while the southwest was hit hard-est with 24.3%.MILL LEVY PROPOSALS RECEIVING 50%BUT FAILED BY REGIONNumber of Over 50% % of All MillRegion Proposals But Lost Levy ElectionsNortheast 303 42 13.9%Northwest 129 27 20.9%Southeast 209 8 3.8%Southwest 70 17 24.3%711 94 13.2%In summary, 182 bonding and mill levy proposals out of 1,006total proposals were defeated because of the unusual majority re-quirements. Since this constitutes slightly over 18% of all proposalssubmitted, it must be concluded that the requirement for unusualmajorities has had a significant impact on school fiscal policy inNorth Dakota. No doubt, the requirement discouraged a considerablenumber of additional proposals from being submitted out of fearof defeat.It must also be concluded that the requirement for unusual ma-jorities has been more adverse to the larger schools than smallerschools since the larger schools have been losing more proposalsunder the requirement. Thus, the requirement seems to be discourag-ing improvement and strengthening of larger schools in the state.NOTESCartoon by Scott Long reprinted from theMinneapolis Tribune, 1970.Seems Like Only Yesterday..

Unusual Majority Requirements and North Dakota School Elections

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Unusual Majority Requirements and North Dakota School Elections

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