Opinion
No. SC88476
August 27, 2007
Appeal from Supplemental Opinion filed in appeal from Cole County Circuit Court.
Charles W. Hatfield, Jane E. Dueker and Gretchen Garrison, Counsel for Appellant.
Alana M. Barragan-Scott, Counsel for Respondent.
Opinion
This slip opinion is subject to modification until the Court has ruled on the parties' motions for rehearing, if any, and will become final only after the Court issues its mandate. To see when the Court issues its mandate, please check the docket entries for the case on Case.net.
The campaign finance reform bill, H.B. 1900, became effective on January 1, 2007. James Trout filed suit challenging its constitutionality the following day. In its opinion of July 19, 2007, the Court found the removal of campaign limits could not be severed from the blackout provision that the trial court found to be unconstitutional. The Court invited interested parties to submit letter briefs as to the appropriate remedy, particularly whether the Court's decision should be applied prospectively only.
The law concerning whether a decision is given retroactive or prospective application is simple in theory. "An unconstitutional statute is no law and confers no rights. This is true from the date of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it." State ex rel. Miller v. O'Malley, 117 S.W.2d 319, 324 (Mo. banc 1938); see also Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425, 442 (1886). Solely prospective application of a decision is the exception not the norm because it involves judicial enforcement of a statute after the statute has been found to violate the Constitution and to be void and without affect ab initio. State ex rel. Cardinal Glennon Mem'l Hosp. for Children v. Gaertner, 583 S.W.2d 107, 118 (Mo. 1979). Sumners v. Sumners, 701 S.W.2d 720, 722-23 (Mo. banc 1985), reaffirmed the "general rule of retroactive effect of changes in the law wrought by [the court's] decisions." Cardinal Glennon and Sumners hold, however, that one may be excepted from such retroactive application of a decision, "to the extent that [retroactive application] causes injustice to persons who have acted in good faith and reasonable reliance." Id. There is no suggestion here that any candidate has acted in bad faith; the issues are whether there was reasonable reliance and whether injustice was shown.
In applying these principles, the Court uses a balancing test to determine the scope of any hardship or injustice that would justify making an exception to the general rule of retroactive application. Sumners, 701 S.W.2d at 723. "A court must balance the hardship imposed on those who may have relied on [the previous rule] against the hardship which may result for those who do not benefit from the application of a change in [the rule]." Id. at 723-24. In balancing the determination of whether to grant prospective relief, the court must also evaluate the extent and conditions of such extraordinary relief.
Application of this balancing test to Mr. Trout is simple. He has not suggested that he would experience injustice if the decision is applied retroactively to him. To the contrary, he has refused to raise funds in excess of the limits the legislature previously imposed in his incipient candidacy for elected office. Therefore, as to Mr. Trout, the usual rule applies, and the decision is fully retroactive.
The injustice of applying the July 19 decision retroactively to those candidates (and their committees) whose campaigns were concluded prior to that date is also evident, even on this limited record. In such cases, the candidates would already have expended most or all the funds collected and would have a greatly reduced ability and little incentive to raise additional funds, thus working a manifest injustice if the invalidation were retroactively applied to them. All parties concede that the balancing of relevant factors unequivocally favors prospective-only application to such candidates.
Such a bright-line rule cannot be drawn as to other candidates that are not parties to this action, however, because the question whether retroactive application would work an injustice as to them necessarily is dependent on the degree of notice, reliance and hardship shown by that particular candidate or class of candidates. It cannot be determined from the limited record before this Court whether few or numerous such other candidates or classes of candidates exist for whom fully or partially prospective application would be appropriate, and it would be inappropriate for this Court to speculate about fact situations not before it in this case.
The Court cannot determine, for example, whether non-parties reasonably relied on the validity of the prior statute because the record is silent as to the extent and nature of their awareness of this pending litigation, and its consequences for campaign contributions. While all existing candidates raised money with at least constructive knowledge that the statute in question was being challenged, the issue of their actual notice of this litigation is undeveloped. Questions may arise whether the invalidity of the provision eliminating contribution limits was reasonably foreseeable by these persons. It was implicitly raised at trial, but was not expressly discussed until proceedings on appeal in this Court. On the other hand, it has been clear since suit was filed that if the clear title challenge was successful, the entire section would be invalid, including the provision removing campaign limits. Without some record regarding actual notice, the Court cannot determine whether there was reasonable reliance. See Akin v. Missouri Gaming Comm'n, 956 S.W.2d 261, 265 (Mo. banc 1997) (refusing prospective-only application of a decision to entities that clearly had notice of the litigation and therefore, could not have reasonably relied).
The validity of the blackout provision was clearly raised at trial and addressed in the trial court's January order enjoining its enforcement. The question whether the remainder of the statute would be severable and valid was, thus, at least implicitly before the trial court. Mr. Trout expressly mentioned non-severability of the contribution limits in his notice of appeal, which was filed on April 19, and he developed the argument further in his opening brief to this Court, which was filed on May 4. The parties subsequently briefed the issue in full, and it was addressed by the Court and the parties at oral argument on June 21.
In Cardinal Glennon, 583 S.W.2d 107, unlike here, the harm of retroactive application to all entities was both uniform and readily ascertainable: all those who relied on the statute to toll the statute of limitations would have been left out of court by retroactive application. In this case, the harms to individual candidates can vary greatly, from Mr. Trout, to whom there is no harm in retroactive application, to concluded campaigns, as to which all agree great harm would result, to other non-party candidates, whose circumstances are as yet unknown. Judge Limbaugh's separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part finds that, as a matter of law, these other non-party candidates would suffer a grave injustice from retroactive application of this ruling. But, before reaching that issue, they must show reasonable reliance on the provision lifting contribution limits. Whether they can show such reliance and hardship depends on many factors, including their awareness of the potential invalidity of that provision.
Unlike Cardinal Glennon, therefore, a factual record could support different conclusions regarding the hardship that retroactive application would impose on individual candidates or their committees. For this reason, this Court simply is unable to determine these issues as a matter of law (although, contrary to the concern of Judge Limbaugh's separate opinion, there is no reason typical factual records could not be quickly ruled on by the Ethics Commission).
The record is similarly silent as to the extent of the hardship that a bright-line rule of retroactivity might cause for particular candidates or committees. The hardship determination will depend, in part, upon the amount of contributions that any such candidate or candidate committee may have accepted over the limits previously imposed, and the extent to which any candidate has spent or encumbered those contributions. Depending on the amount of money involved, it could become prohibitively difficult and expensive to require candidates to refund this money. It might also be a futile effort, as the donors could skirt the limitations on direct contributions using the indirect avenues of contribution that the legislature intended to render obsolete when it abandoned individual contribution limits. Without a record as to the amount of those contributions, however, the Court simply cannot reach a conclusion as to whether it presents sufficient hardship to deviate from the usual rule.
Moreover, no candidate's campaign can be considered in a vacuum. It could create, rather than alleviate, hardship and injustice if only certain candidates who enjoyed periods of unlimited fundraising are granted prospective application of the Court's July 19, 2007, opinion. Those candidates who have not yet or have only recently entered the field might have great difficulty matching the sums their opponents raised if they were subjected to campaign contribution limits that had not been applied to their opponents. It is well accepted that "virtually every means of communicating ideas in today's mass society requires the expenditure of money. . . . The electorate's increasing dependence on television, radio, and other mass media for news and information has made these expensive modes of communication indispensable instruments of effective political speech." Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 19 (1976). Such an uneven playing field raises obvious equitable and constitutional concerns. See Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 802 (1983); see also Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 564 (1964) ("[f]ree and honest elections are the very foundation of our republican form of government"). In balancing these variables in an election case such as this, one must endeavor to avoid doing so in a way that creates a political advantage for one candidate over another by virtue of the decision.
In the case of this particular statute, the balancing of hardships and the determination whether retroactive application would work an injustice is further complicated by the fact that this Court's July 19 decision does not preclude the legislature from again enacting legislation lifting limits on campaign contributions. The Court invalidated the statute at issue in this case solely because it could not be severed from the blackout period the trial court found to be unconstitutional, rather than because a bill lifting contribution limits is inherently unconstitutional. Nothing in the July 19 decision precludes the legislature from enacting, in general or special session, new legislation that constitutionally lifts campaign limits entirely. Alternatively, it could enact new legislation that effectively reaffirms that campaign limits are in place because of the lack of a blackout period. Indeed, it would not be precluded from adopting more novel approaches in an effort to even the playing field, such as by enacting much higher campaign contribution limits or by enacting legislation that would impose contribution limits on a candidate only at such time, if any, as that candidate had reached the same level of contributions over permissible contribution limits as had other candidates for that office prior to this Court's July 19 ruling. The Missouri Constitution commits any such decision to the discretion of the legislative branch.
Finally, and of key importance, is the fact that it is not this Court, but the Missouri Ethics Commission, that must initiate any enforcement action to require disgorgement of campaign contributions as to those not before this Court. See, e.g., State ex rel. Amer. Family Mut. Ins., Co. v. Scott, 988 S.W.2d 45, 47 (Mo.App.S.D. 1998) ("Missouri courts have consistently held that no judgment can be granted against one who is not a party.") See also Sec. 511.020, RSMo 2000 (defining "judgment" as the "final determination of the right of the parties in the action") (emphasis added). Thus, any factual decision as to the reliance or hardship shown by this Court as to non-parties would only be dicta.
This Court holds that its decision is fully retroactive as to Mr. Trout and is fully prospective as to those whose campaigns were concluded prior to this Court's July 19, 2007 opinion. As to other candidates, not parties to this action, however, it will be up to the Ethics Commission to weigh relevant factors, including those specified in this opinion, in determining whether to take enforcement action against other candidates or committees for campaign contributions they received prior to this Court's July 19 opinion or such earlier date as they could no longer claim good faith and reasonable reliance.
In any case in which an enforcement action is taken, those individuals or committees must be given the opportunity to present, as a defense to that action, their individual facts and circumstances that they may contend present sufficient hardship to justify a departure from the usual rule of fully retroactive application. See State ex rel. Cardinal Glennon Mem'l Hosp. for Children v. Gaertner, 583 S.W.2d 107, 118 (Mo. 1979); Sumners v. Sumners, 701 S.W.2d 720, 723 (Mo. banc 1985). If a candidate believes that retroactive application of the decision would be a hardship in his or her particular circumstances because he or she acted in good faith and in reasonable reliance and retroactive application would work an injustice, that candidate must develop with specificity what those circumstances are to the Missouri Ethics Commission. In considering these factors in particular cases or classes of cases, however, the Commission must ensure that it not become a vehicle for creating an uneven playing field for a particular office; to do so would itself create an undue hardship for and injustice to the other candidates for that office.
So, for example, if the Ethics Commission grants a hardship exception to an individual candidate in the 2008 election cycle, the Commission — in the absence of legislative action that would level the playing field — has a duty to ensure that all candidates for that particular office are subject to equal treatment.
These are difficult concerns that can present in myriad ways for which the Court simply lacks a record at this time. The Court trusts that the parties possessed of enforcement authority, existing and future candidates, and the Missouri legislature will reach both individual and collective determinations that will maintain the even playing field for the political discourse necessary to maintain Missouri's vibrant democracy.
I agree with the majority opinion's statement of the law concerning retroactive/prospective application of decisions finding statutes to be unconstitutional. "An unconstitutional statute is no law and confers no rights. . . . from the date of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it." State ex rel. Miller v. O'Malley, 117 S.W.2d 319, 324 (Mo. banc 1938); see also Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425, 442 (1886). Prospective relief is the exception and not the rule because it involves judicial enforcement of a statute found to violate the constitution and to be void ab initio. This is an intrusion of judicial power into the arena ordinarily reserved for the legislative branch of government. State ex rel. Cardinal Glennon Mem'l Hosp. for Children v. Gaertner, 583 S.W.2d 107, 118 (Mo. banc 1979), did not change this. A decision finding a statute to be unconstitutional should be applied prospectively only "to the extent that it causes injustice to persons who have acted in good faith and reasonable reliance." Id.
I also agree that a balancing test is used to determine the scope of any hardship or injustice exception to the general rule of retrospective application. Sumners v. Sumners, 701 S.W.2d 720, 722-23 (Mo. banc 1985). Courts should look to the impact of prospective/retroactive application not only upon those who relied upon the statute, but upon all of those who might be affected by the Court's determination. Id. In balancing the determination of whether to grant prospective relief, a Court should also balance the extent and conditions of such extraordinary relief. I disagree with the majority opinion, however, on the proper application of the balancing test.
The letter briefs of the parties make clear the complications of applying this balancing test to the situation at bar. On the one hand, a number of candidates are said to have raised substantial sums in preparation for the 2008 elections. This money constitutes the political expressions of its donors. Refunding this money would be difficult and expensive. It might also be a futile effort, as the donors could evade those funding limitations using the very methods and techniques the legislature intended to eliminate. On the other hand, candidates who have not yet entered the field would have great difficulty matching those sums if they were subjected to the campaign contribution limits that had not been applied to their opponents. Such an uneven playing field raises obvious equitable and constitutional concerns. See Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 802 (1983).
One could also argue that prospective relief is not justified because there is no reasonable reliance. Existing candidates raised money with the knowledge that the statute in question was being challenged. This Court has previously cautioned against prospective application in such situations. Akin v. Missouri Gaming Comm'n, 956 S.W.2d 261, 265 (Mo. banc 1997).
In fact, the candidates could only raise the funds in question during the legislative session in reliance upon the trial court's January 8, 2007, temporary restraining order indicating the unconstitutionality of the blackout period prohibiting fundraising during any legislative session. As this Court held, the blackout portion of H.B. 1900 was so important that the legislature would not have passed the law without it. Thus, once the blackout period was invalidated, the candidates were aware of the likelihood that the entire law would be struck down, thereby invalidating all contributions over the limits previously imposed by section 130.032, RSMo 2000.
The decision to incorporate this provision in H.B. 1900 is puzzling. A virtually identical statute was struck down in 1996 as violating the First Amendment. Shrink Missouri Government PAC V. Maupin, 922 F. Supp 1413 (E.D. Mo. 1996). There is no special virtue in exploiting a statute of known constitutional infirmity.
In balancing the above conflicting interests, courts should be extremely cautious. "Free and honest elections are the very foundation of our republican form of government." Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 564 (1964) (citations omitted). It is well accepted that "virtually every means of communicating ideas in today's mass society requires the expenditure of money. . . . The electorate's increasing dependence on television, radio, and other mass media for news and information has made these expensive modes of communication indispensable instruments of effective political speech." Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 19 (1976).
To the extent that prospective only application of the Court's July 19, 2007, opinion would allow only certain candidates to enjoy the fruits of their unlimited fundraising, it would create, rather than alleviate, hardship and injustice. All candidates in any particular race must be subject to the same opportunity and/or limitations on their ability to raise money and participate in the political discourse crucial to our democratic process. If certain candidates are allowed the opportunity to retain and spend funds raised without limitation, then the same opportunity must be extended to all other candidates in the same race.
The Court must have no role in creating political advantage for one candidate over another.
Neither full retrospective nor full prospective application properly balances these considerations. Accordingly, I would apply this Court's decision prospectively from July 19, 2007, with the exception that any candidate may match the amount of contributions collected, between January 1, 2007, and July 19, 2007, by any other candidate for the same office, that exceeded the contribution limits specified by section 130.032, RSMo 2000. This would avoid injustice and hardship both to existing and future candidates and maintain the even playing field for the political discourse necessary to maintain Missouri's vibrant democracy. This approach would subject all candidates and their campaign committees to a single substantive rule with only the amount of unlimited contributions allowable varying race by race.
While I appreciate the majority's attempt to fashion a fair and workable remedy, I fear that their approach will prove to be neither. Although the majority provides the Ethics Commission with a general outline of its duties, they fail to offer clear guidance on how the Commission is to carry out its broad and vital mandate. The result is likely to be as many remedies as there are races. Not only is such a patchwork result unsatisfying, but it will only be achieved after a prolonged period of expensive litigation on a race by race basis both before the Missouri Ethics Commission and then — again — in the courts.
I respectfully dissent from the holding of the supplemental opinion that "a bright-line rule cannot be drawn" and that "the question whether retroactive application would work an injustice . . . necessarily is dependent on the degree of notice, reliance and hardship shown by [the] particular candidate or class of candidates." In my view, this Court's sole function is to decide whether its decision is prospective or retrospective as to all persons affected as has been this Court's practice with every case heretofore decided in which the prospective/retrospective issue was raised. Although the majority correctly decides that the decision is prospective for candidates who have completed their campaigns, I would hold that the decision is prospective for all candidates.
An across-the-board "prospective only" holding is fully supported by the law and the record. As the majority correctly notes, citing State ex rel. Cardinal Glennon Mem'l Hosp. for Children v. Gaertner, 583 S.W.2d 107, 118 (Mo. banc 1979), this Court will not make a decision retrospective "to the extent that it causes injustice to persons who have acted in good faith and reasonable reliance upon a statute later held unconstitutional." The injustice here is readily apparent from the fact (as tacitly stipulated by the parties) that between January 1 and July 19 hundreds of then-legal "over-limit" contributions were made to scores of candidates, Democrats and Republicans alike, for statewide, legislative, county, municipal, and judicial offices. These contributions would be deemed illegal and subject to refund if this Court's holding were retrospective. In this way, these candidates would be penalized for their initiative and resourcefulness in declaring their candidacy and raising funds early on, and they would lose any campaign advantage that they had rightfully earned. This is true for these candidates categorically: they suffer an injustice, great or small, whether they have to repay a million dollars or only a thousand dollars.
It is no answer to this injustice that it must somehow be weighed against a supposed corresponding injustice to the many candidates who did not declare and raise funds early on. These "might-file" candidates had the same opportunity and the same level playing field as the other candidates who took advantage of the opportunity. For this reason, any corresponding injustice to "might-file" candidates is of their own making. Furthermore, it goes without saying that none of these hypothetical future candidates has any entitlement or vested right that the law would not be changed before they eventually declared their candidacies. Indeed, the majority invites the legislature to do just that! This means too, as the majority would necessarily concede, that it is altogether uncertain what the law will be for the "might-file" candidates who wait.
The other requirement for prospective application of the holding — the candidates' good faith and reasonable reliance on the statute repealing the contribution limits — is evident by the very fact that so many candidates from both parties availed themselves of the statute. Their good faith and reasonable reliance should be presumed. But as I understand the majority opinion, candidates will be deemed to have unreasonably relied on the statute simply if they had actual notice of a lawsuit challenging the statute, even a lawsuit to which they were not named as a party. However, no case (until now) has ever so held. Must all persons acting in reliance on a statute now stop in their tracks whenever they learn of a challenge to the statute? And whatever the merits of the challenge? The only case the majority cites in support of the proposition that the courts should "refus[e] prospective-only application of a decision to entities that clearly had notice of the litigation" is Akin v. Missouri Gaming Comm'n, 956 S.W.2d 261 (Mo. banc 1997). But that opinion is fundamentally miscast because the entities (the gaming companies) that were refused prospective application of the decision were the actual defendants in the lawsuit.
Even if non-parties are to be charged with notice of a lawsuit, it is certainly inappropriate to do so here because notice of this particular lawsuit could not have afforded fair notice of the actual grounds on which this Court ultimately rendered its decision. In other words, notice to non-parties that a suit was filed challenging a statute on certain grounds is not sufficient notice that the suit may be successfully challenged on grounds the parties failed to raise. That is the point the majority seems to make when it states that ". . . the issue of [the candidates'] actual notice of this litigation is undeveloped. Questions may arise whether the invalidity of the provision eliminating contribution limits was reasonably foreseeable by these people." I see no need, however, to resolve those questions by referring the matter to an independent fact finder.
The challenge raised in plaintiff's petition was not specific to the repeal of the contribution limits, and as the majority concedes, there was no claim that the repeal of the contribution limits was itself unconstitutional. Instead, the exclusive focus was the alleged invalidity of sections 115.342 and 115.350 and the black-out provision of section 130.032.2. Even if these claims were well-taken, the parties (not to mention the candidates who were not parties) could reasonably rely on the presumption in section 1.140 that the invalid sections of HB 1900 were severable from the valid sections and that the bill would not be invalidated in its entirety. And, as expected, although the trial court did invalidate the challenged sections, the balance of the bill was left intact. Furthermore, at no time during the pendency of the case did the parties raise, or did the trial court address, the issue of the severability of the unconstitutional black-out period from the repeal of the campaign contribution limits. Indeed, the trial court's judgment is silent on the matter. It was not until May 4 that appellant Trout first raised the issue in the final point (no. 6) in his brief to this Court, and even then, the overriding focus of the brief, and thereafter of the state's brief, too, was the challenge to sections 115.342 and 115.350. In short, up to the time of appeal, this Court's invalidation of the repeal of campaign contribution limits was an apparently unforeseen collateral consequence of the invalidation of the black-out period, a consequence unforeseen even to the parties themselves. Under these circumstances, I would not impute notice to non-parties to the lawsuit, much less hold that they were not entitled to good faith reasonable reliance on the statute.
The best case on the application of the Cardinal Glennon prospective/ retrospective analysis is the Cardinal Glennon case itself. In that case, this Court invalidated all of Chapter 538, a statutory scheme under which any person having a malpractice claim against a health care provider must refer the claim to the "Secretary of the Professional Liability Review Board Authority" before filing an action in court. State ex rel. Cardinal Glennon Mem'l Hosp., 583 S.W.2d at 110. Chapter 538, the Court ruled, was invalid because it imposed a procedure as a precondition to access to the courts, in violation of the "open courts" provision of the Missouri Constitution. Id. One component of the statutory scheme in section 538.020 provided a means of tolling the statutes of limitations during the time required for the board to consider a malpractice claim and make its recommendations. In a supplemental opinion giving prospective application to the decision to the extent that it invalidated the tolling provision, this Court stated:
We are now reminded that during the period from the effective date of Chapter 538 until February 13, 1979, a substantial number of claims against health care providers have been submitted under Chapter 538 and that such claimants have undoubtedly relied on the protection afforded them by the tolling provision of section 538.020. . . . If the tolling provision of section 538.020 is viewed as retroactively unconstitutional, those claimants who have reasonably and in good faith relied upon section 538.020 to protect their rights to ultimately submit their claims to the courts would suffer a manifest injustice. We, therefore, order that the statutes of limitations shall be tolled pursuant to section 538.020 as to those claims submitted to the Professional Liability Review Board between the effective date of Chapter 538 and February 28, 1979 [the date of the supplemental opinion].
Id. at 118. I cannot fairly distinguish these circumstances from those in the case at hand. In my view, the many claimants who relied on the tolling of the statute of limitations (despite the suit contesting the statute's validity) are in no different position than the many candidates who relied on the repeal of the campaign contribution limits.
Although the majority discounts this holding because "the harm of retroactive application to all [claimants] was both uniform and readily ascertainable," it overlooks the fact that there was a corresponding and equally uniform and readily ascertainable harm to the many health care providers whose absolute defense of the statute of limitations was taken away. Ironically, under the majority's current analysis, the balancing of the uniform and readily ascertainable harms would have required the Cardinal Glennon Court to give retrospective effect to its decision.
Finally, it seems to me that the majority's remedy for determining whether retroactive application would work an injustice is itself unworkable. To assign this problem to the Ethics Commission for a case-by-case analysis of the injustice to each candidate will present a monumental task that likely is well beyond the resources of the Commission. As I understand the majority ruling, the Ethics Commission is now charged with investigating and prosecuting claims for refunds against scores of candidates who collected over-limit contributions and then determining whether an injustice would result by requiring refunds of the contributions. I see no practical way to accommodate that procedure during the current election cycle, especially considering the many appeals to the court system that are sure to follow. In addition, it will be a further injustice to the candidates themselves who will have to go to the additional time, expense, and trouble to defend themselves, and to do so in many instances where there is no other candidate against whom to weigh the so-called relative injustices. The better course was taken in Cardinal Glennon and in Sumners, the very two cases cited by the majority in support of its position that there must be an evaluation of the injustice to non-parties caused by the retrospective operation of a decision. In both of those cases, this Court applied the holdings prospectively to all persons potentially affected, Cardinal Glennon, 583 S.W.2d at 118; Sumners v. Sumners, 701 S.W.2d 720, 722-25 (Mo. banc 1985), and there was no effort to determine who had notice of the pending suit and who did not, nor to conduct a case-by-case analysis with independent fact finders to evaluate the relative injustices. The same approach should be made here. See also In re Extension of Boundaries of Glaize Creek Sewer Dist. of Jefferson County, 574 S.W.2d 357, 364-65 (Mo. banc 1978) (giving prospective application to all persons and entities potentially affected by decision invalidating statute pertaining to annexation of sewer districts because of injustice to those who relied on the statute); Abernathy v. Sisters of St. Mary's, 446 S.W.2d 559, 606 (Mo. 1969) (giving prospective application to all persons potentially affected by decision eliminating doctrine of charitable immunity because of injustice to those who relied on prior decisions).
For these reasons, I would hold that the decision invalidating the repeal of the campaign contribution limits should be applied prospectively from the date of the decision — July 19, 2007.