More Legal Challenges Likely

Tuesday’s Superior Court ruling on the Orange County slow-growth initiative may or may not end a battle that could be only the first in a long war to make the measure law.

While supporters of the initiative won on Tuesday when Judge John C. Woolley refused to remove the initiative from the June 7 countywide ballot, opponents say they will probably appeal. And the initiative could face further legal challenges down the road, even if approved by voters.

What Woolley decided Tuesday, after reviewing mountains of written arguments and holding a two-hour hearing last week, involved fairly narrow legal issues that don’t go to the heart of the debate over the initiative.

The California courts have set tough tests for determining when a judge may remove an initiative from the ballot, preferring not to interfere with the initiative process unless absolutely necessary.

In the opinion he filed Tuesday, Woolley relied upon previous rulings that said an initiative must be so clearly unconstitutional or illegal that to allow it on the ballot would be futile, since it would clearly be struck down later by the courts.

In his six-page ruling, Woolley boiled down the legal arguments of the initiative’s opponents to two basic contentions:

* The initiative would shut down construction by setting confusing and impossibly high standards, causing a “de facto moratorium” on building.

* The initiative would deprive property owners of their constitutional rights by imposing unfair requirements on the use of their property.

While the two arguments may be fruitful ground for later suits, Woolley said, he found no evidence in the initiative to justify accepting them at face value, without further proof that could not be adduced solely from the initiative.

“Whether or not a moratorium prohibiting development or a violation of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution will result from the passage of this initiative depends on specific facts not presently before this court,” he wrote.

In reaching that conclusion, Woolley followed a standard from previous cases that required “on the face of the initiative . . . a clear showing of invalidity” before it could be kept off the ballot.