Opinion

County of Volusia v. Quinn

  • 700 So. 2d 474
  • 1997 Fla. App. LEXIS 12010
  • 1997 WL 662380
Court
District Court of Appeal of Florida
Filed
Oct 24, 1997
Status
Published
On the bench
Antoon, Harris, Orfinger
Cited by
1 cases
Authority
More cited than 49.7%

The opinion

PER CURIAM.

The County of Volusia (County), and the School Board of Volusia County (School Board), appeal the trial court’s order holding unconstitutional an amendment to the Volu-sia County Home Rule Charter. We reverse.

The facts of this case are not in dispute. Effective January 1971, Volusia County was approved to be a chartered county with home-rule authority. The Volusia County Home Rule Charter provided, among other things, that elections for county officers would be on a nonpartisan basis. In 1994, the electors of the county approved an amendment to the Charter. The amendment provided that, after January 1995, elections for school board members would also be nonpartisan. On Monday, July 17, 1996, the first day after qualifying for the 1996 general election, Don Quinn and the Republican Executive Committee (appellees) filed a declaratory judgment action asserting that the charter amendment was unconstitutional.

The dispositive question here is whether chartered counties can elect their school board members on a nonpartisan basis. We are satisfied that this question has been answered in the affirmative by our supreme court in School Board of Palm Beach County v. Winchester, 565 So.2d 1350 (Fla.1990). Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s ruling based upon Winchester . In doing so, we note that after the trial court entered its ruling, the Florida Legislature enacted two special acts directing that school board elections in Volusia County be conducted on a nonpartisan basis. 1

ORDER REVERSED.

HARRIS and ANTOON, JJ., and ORFINGER, M., Senior Judge, concur.

. See Ch. 97-338; 97-357, Laws of Florida.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

A word about cookies

We need a few to keep you signed in and the library working. The rest help us see which pages people use and where they get stuck. They stay off unless you say yes.