Trout v. State, SC 88476.

• Citation: 231 S.W.3d 140
• Decision Date: 19 July 2007
• Docket Number: No. SC 88476.,SC 88476.
• Parties: James TROUT, Appellant/Cross-Respondent, v. STATE of Missouri, et al., Respondents/Cross-Appellants.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

231 S.W.3d 140

James TROUT, Appellant/Cross-Respondent, v. STATE of Missouri, et al., Respondents/Cross-Appellants.

No. SC 88476.

Supreme Court of Missouri, En Banc.

July 19, 2007.

Supplemental Opinion August 27, 2007.

Charles W. Hatfield, Jefferson City, Jane E. Dueker, Gretchen Garrison, St. Louis, for Appellant/Cross-Respondent.

Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Atty. Gen., Alana M. Barragan-Scott, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for Respondent/Cross-Appellants.

LuAnn V. Madsen, Jefferson City, for amicus curiae Society of Governmental Consultants.

Harvey M. Tettlebaum, Robert L. Hess II, Jefferson City, for amicus curiae Missouri Republican State Committee.

Stephen L. King, Kelly E. Shamel, St. Louis, for amici curiae Laura T. Bryant and David Griege.

Edward D. Robertson, Jr., Jefferson City, for amicus curiae Majority Funds, Inc.

Todd P. Graves, Edward D. Greim, Kansas City, for amicus curiae Senator Charlie Shields, Missouri 34^th District.

Joshua M. Schindler, St. Louis, for amicus curiae Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield.

Albert A. Riederer, Kansas City, for amicus curiae Riederer for Mayor Committee.

STEPHEN N. LIMBAUGH, JR., Judge.

This case involves procedural challenges to the validity of H.B. 1900—the so-called campaign finance reform bill enacted in 2006 — on the basis of alleged violations of the clear title, single subject and original purpose requirements of article III, sections 21 and 23 of the Missouri Constitution. The trial court invalidated two statutes within the bill, section 115.342, RSMo Supp.2006, (disqualifying persons who are delinquent on certain taxes from running for office) and section 115.350, RSMo Supp.2006, (disqualifying felons from running for office), and severed those statutes from the bill. In addition, the trial court invalidated and severed section 130.032.2, RSMo 2006 — which banned statewide candidates from accepting contributions during the legislative session — on separate First Amendment grounds. Appellant Trout appeals the trial court's judgment to the extent it does not invalidate the entire bill. Respondents appeal the court's invalidation and severance of sections 115.342 and 115.350, but they do not appeal the invalidation and severance of section 130.032.2. This Court has jurisdiction. Mo. Const. art. V, sec. 3. Affirmed in part and reversed in part.¹

The facts are straightforward and undisputed: H.B. 1900 was introduced and read the first time on February 28, 2006. As originally introduced, H.B. 1900 was titled, "An Act to repeal [seven statutory sections] and to enact in lieu thereof seven new sections relating to campaign finance." Thereafter, the full House took up and adopted a House committee substitute that contained virtually the same title as the original bill except to reflect that only six sections instead of seven were being repealed and reenacted. A Senate substitute was then introduced with multiple amendments, and the title of the bill was changed to "An Act to repeal [thirteen sections] and enact in lieu thereof sixteen new sections relating to ethics, with an effective date." After more amendments were made on the Senate floor, the bill was adopted and sent to a conference committee to reconcile the differences. The House and Senate adopted a final version on May 11, 2006, that contained essentially the same title as the Senate substitute but repealed twelve sections and enacted sixteen new sections. The bill was signed by the Governor and became effective January 1, 2007.

Plaintiff then filed his petition for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief asserting that H.B. 1900 must be struck down in its entirety. Based on the stipulated facts, the trial court held that H.B. 1900 did not violate the clear title requirement of article III, section 23 but that the addition of sections 115.342 and 115.350 dealing with candidate disqualification constituted a change in the original purpose of H.B. 1900 and introduced an additional subject in violation of article III, sections 21 and 23, respectively. That original purpose and subject, the court explained, related solely to campaign finances, not to the broader topic of "ethics," as in the bill finally passed. As noted, the court also held that the section 130.032.2 ban on campaign contributions during the legislative session violated the First Amendment. The court then severed these three sections from the bill and upheld the validity of the remainder. This appeal followed.

This Court's disposition of the procedural challenges to H.B. 1900 is informed by a closely analogous case decided just last month, Jackson County Sports Complex Authority v. State of Missouri, 226 S.W.3d 156 (Mo. banc 2007), though neither the parties nor the trial court had the benefit of that precedent. In that case, the Sports Complex Authority brought suit to invalidate a statute mandating competitive bids for certain expenditures made by a county sports complex authority because the statute was a part of two bills enacted in violation of the constitution's original purpose and clear title requirements. The precise basis for the original purpose challenge was that amendments to the bills had changed their original purpose from a narrow purpose (one bill "affected the duties of county commissions in procuring supplies and permitted [certain] water supply districts ... to recover from an occupant of real estate sums due for services provided," and the other bill "related to salaries of county officials, annual assessments by county assessors and salaries for county public administrators") to the new, different and larger purpose of "relating to political subdivisions." Id. at 159-60. With respect to the clear title challenge, the argument was that the title "relating to political subdivisions" was impermissibly overbroad and too amorphous to clearly identify the contents of the bill.

At the outset, this Court restated the standard of review, applicable here as well, which is that:

laws enacted by the legislature and approved by the governor have a strong presumption of constitutionality.... [T]he use of procedural limitations to attack the constitutionality of statutes is not favored.... [T]his Court `interprets procedural limitations liberally and will uphold the constitutionality of a statute against such an attack unless the act clearly and undoubtedly violates the constitutional limitation' . . . [and] the burden of proof rests on the statute's challenger.

Id. at 160 (citations omitted).

In denying plaintiff's challenge on the merits, this Court first reiterated the well-established rules pertaining to original purpose jurisprudence:

Article III, section 21, prohibits any bill from being "so amended in its passage through either house as to change its original purpose." This Court has long held that the original purpose prohibition does not restrict legislators from making "[a]lterations that bring about an extension or limitation of the scope of [a] bill," and "even new matter is not excluded if germane." Rather, the prohibition is against amendments that are clearly and undoubtedly not "germane"; that is, they are not "[r]elevant to or closely allied" with a bill's original purpose. "As the cases illustrate, the general purpose is often interpreted as an overarching purpose, not necessarily limited by specific statutes referred to in the bill's original title or text." Moreover, a bill's original purpose is not limited to what is stated in the bill's original title, which can be changed without violating article III, section 21.

Id. (citations omitted). Applying these rules, this Court then held that "the general, or overarching purpose of [both bills] as originally introduced can fairly be said to be the regulation of political subdivisions" and that "[t]he purpose was not so narrowly limited, as the trial court held, to the subject matter of the specific statutes referenced in the original text." Id. at 160-62.

Regarding the clear title claim, this Court again reiterated the well-established rules, as follows:

Article III, section 23 states that "[n]o bill shall contain more than one subject which shall be clearly expressed in its title." This provision contains two distinct but related procedural limitations — a single subject rule and a clear title requirement. The clear title requirement is intended to keep "legislators and the public fairly apprised of the subject matter of pending laws." To do this, the title need only "indicate in a general way the kind of legislation that was being enacted." ... Only if the title is (1) underinclusive or (2) too broad and amorphous to be meaningful is the clear title requirement infringed. Furthermore, for bills that have "multiple and diverse topics" within a single, overarching subject, that subject may be "clearly expressed by ... stating some broad umbrella category that includes all the topics within its cover."

Id. (citations omitted).

In holding that there was no clear title violation, this Court stated, "The term, `political subdivision' in the larger sense, is a broad umbrella category that includes all of the differing definitions of `political subdivisions' under its cover." Id. at 162. The import, then, was that the title of the bill "relating to political subdivisions" was not an impermissibly overbroad category, and the statute requiring competitive bidding by the Sports Complex Authority was simply a statute pertaining to a particular kind of political subdivision in a bill pertaining to several kinds of political subdivisions.

Drawing on our analysis in Sports Complex Authority, this Court holds that the trial court in this case correctly denied plaintiff's clear title challenge but erred in sustaining the original purpose challenge. The title, "relating to ethics," is the same kind of broad, umbrella category this Court has approved not only in Sports Complex Authority but in other relatively recent cases as well. See, e. g., Missouri...