Colorado Criminal Justice Reform v. Ortiz

• Decision Date: 17 October 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04CA0879.,04CA0879.
• Citation: 121 P.3d 288
• Parties: COLORADO CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM COALITION, a nonprofit Colorado corporation; Christie Donner; Stephen Raher; Philip Cherner; and Ari Armstrong, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Joe ORTIZ, in his official capacity as executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections; Peter Steinhauer, in his official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Cindy Carlisle, in her official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Patricia Hayes, in her official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Susan C. Kirk, in her official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Tom Lucero, in his official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; James A. Martin, Jr., in his official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Jerry G. Rutledge, in his official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Paul Schauer, in his official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Gail Sheridan Schwartz, in her official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Bill Owens, in his official capacity as Governor of Colorado; and the State of Colorado, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

121 P.3d 288

COLORADO CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM COALITION, a nonprofit Colorado corporation; Christie Donner; Stephen Raher; Philip Cherner; and Ari Armstrong, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Joe ORTIZ, in his official capacity as executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections; Peter Steinhauer, in his official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Cindy Carlisle, in her official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Patricia Hayes, in her official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Susan C. Kirk, in her official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Tom Lucero, in his official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; James A. Martin, Jr., in his official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Jerry G. Rutledge, in his official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Paul Schauer, in his official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Gail Sheridan Schwartz, in her official capacity as Regent of the University of Colorado; Bill Owens, in his official capacity as Governor of Colorado; and the State of Colorado, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 04CA0879.

Colorado Court of Appeals, Div. III.

April 7, 2005.

Certiorari Denied October 17, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Paul Grant, Englewood, Colorado, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

John W. Suthers, Attorney General, Elizabeth H. McCann, Assistant Attorney General, Paul S. Sanzo, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Defendants-Appellees Joe Ortiz, Bill Owens, and State of Colorado.

Joanne M. McDevitt, University Counsel, Charles Sweet, University Counsel, Denver, Colorado, for Defendants-Appellees Peter Steinhauer, Cindy Carlisle, Patricia Hayes, Susan C. Kirk, Tom Lucero, James A. Martin, Jr., Jerry G. Rutledge, Paul Schauer, and Gail Sheridan Schwartz.

CASEBOLT, J.

In this declaratory judgment action, plaintiffs, Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, Christie Donner, Stephen Raher, Philip Cherner, and Ari Armstrong, appeal the judgment in favor of defendants, Joe Ortiz, in his official capacity as executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections; Peter Steinhauer, Cindy Carlisle, Patricia Hayes, Susan C. Kirk, Tom Lucero, James A. Martin, Jr., Jerry G. Rutledge, Paul Schauer, and Gail Sheridan Schwartz, in their official capacities as members of the Board of Regents of the University of Colorado; Bill Owens, in his official capacity as Governor of Colorado, and the State of Colorado. We affirm.

In 2003, the Colorado General Assembly enacted House Bill 03-1256, which authorizes the state to enter into lease-purchase agreements to finance two state construction projects, namely, a high-custody correctional facility for the Colorado Department of Corrections and new academic facilities for the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center at Fitzsimons.

Before the legislation was implemented, plaintiffs brought this declaratory judgment action challenging the constitutionality of HB 03-1256, asserting that it violates two separate provisions of the Colorado Constitution: the single subject requirement of article V, section 21; and article X, section 20(4)(b), known as the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR), which, as relevant here, requires voter approval in advance for the creation of any multiple-fiscal year debt or other financial obligation by the state.

The parties filed various dispositive motions. After full briefing, the trial court determined that HB 03-1256 did not violate the single subject requirement or run afoul of TABOR.

I.

Plaintiffs contend that HB 03-1256 violates the single subject requirement because funding for a prison and funding for academic facilities constitute two separate subjects. We are not persuaded.

Statutes are presumed to be constitutional. Thus, a party challenging a statute on constitutional grounds ordinarily must prove the statute's unconstitutionality beyond a reasonable doubt. See City of Greenwood Village v. Petitioners for Proposed City of Centennial, 3 P.3d 427 (Colo.2000).

Article V, section 21 of the Colorado Constitution provides, in relevant part, that "[n]o bill . . . shall be passed containing more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title." The purposes of this provision are (1) to notify the public and legislators of pending bills so that all may participate in the legislative process; (2) to make the passage of each legislative proposal depend on its own merits; and (3) to enable the governor to consider each single subject of legislation separately in determining whether to exercise the veto power. Parrish v. Lamm, 758 P.2d 1356 (Colo.1988); In re House Bill No. 1353, 738 P.2d 371 (Colo.1987).

In furtherance of these purposes, the single subject requirement prohibits the joining in a single act of "disconnected and incongruous matters," In re Breene, 14 Colo. 401, 404, 24 P. 3, 3 (1890), or of "subjects having no necessary or proper connection." Catron v. Bd. of Comm'rs, 18 Colo. 553, 557, 33 P. 513, 514 (1893). Generally, the provision was not designed to hinder or unnecessarily obstruct legislation. To prevent it from having that effect, it must be liberally and reasonably construed. Catron v. Bd. of Comm'rs, supra.

So long as the matters encompassed in a bill are necessarily or properly connected to each other rather than disconnected and incongruous, the single subject requirement is met. See Parrish v. Lamm, supra.

Here, the title of HB 03-1256 notes that it concerns "the authority of the state to enter into lease-purchase agreements, and, in connection therewith, authorizing lease-purchase agreements for a high-custody correctional facility and for the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center at Fitzsimons." Thus, the subject is the use of lease-purchase agreements to fund capital construction of certain state facilities.

The legislation provides for two projects, both of which will use lease-purchase financing, and details the structure of those agreements. The fact that the bill authorizes two specific agreements for the construction of two projects does not convert the single subject into two disconnected and incongruous matters. Both projects are properly connected because they involve capital construction and the same type of financing procedures: lease-purchase agreements. Hence, they have a unifying or common objective, see In re Proposed Initiative on Pub. Rights in Waters II, 898 P.2d 1076 (Colo.1995), and are not disconnected and incongruous. See Catron v. Bd. of Comm'rs, supra; In re Breene, supra.

We are not persuaded by plaintiffs' argument that the statute is a product of unconstitutional "logrolling." That term encompasses "the practice of jumbling together in one act incongruous subjects in order to force a passage by uniting minorities with different interests when the particular provisions could not pass on their separate merits." Colo. Gen. Assembly v. Lamm, 704 P.2d 1371, 1383 (Colo.1985). Here, the subjects are congruent. Moreover, plaintiffs provide no record support for their argument that some legislators favored only one type of facility and not the other. Plaintiffs merely assume, without proof, that supporters of the hospital facilities would not have supported the prison, and vice versa.

Plaintiffs' reliance upon In re House Bill No. 1353, supra, is also misplaced. There, the court found a violation of the single subject requirement in a measure that was forty-four pages long and contained such disparate subjects as reduction of state contributions to various state employees' retirement funds, creation of a commission on information management in the department of administration, imposition of a charge against accounts of inmates of the department of corrections for each medical visit, imposition or increase of fees to be charged by various state agencies, extension of the termination date of the joint review process with respect to permits and licenses relating to the development of natural resources, and provision for forfeiture of abandoned intangible property held by banking and financial organizations and for crediting the proceeds to the state. Thus, the legislation did not rest on any single subject.

Here, in contrast, the single subject is authorization for lease-purchase agreements to fund two capital construction projects.

Plaintiffs' reliance upon In re House Bill No. 168, 21 Colo. 46, 39 P. 1096 (1895), is also misplaced. There, the court held a measure unconstitutional as a violation of the single subject requirement in article V, section 32, a section of the constitution different from the one at issue here. The appropriations bill at issue provided for "the Assessment, Levy and Collection of a State Tax, for the Support and Maintenance of Certain State Educational Institutions, Mentioned Therein; to Define the Duties of the County Treasurer in Connection Therewith; to Provide for the Election of a Treasurer of Each of Said Institutions, Define His Duties and to Repeal All Acts and Parts of Acts Inconsistent Therewith." The title itself demonstrates that the measure contained more than one subject, namely, funding for institutions, election of treasurers, definition of treasurers' duties, and repeal of any laws inconsistent with its provisions.

Moreover, the legislation at issue there was an appropriations measure, a subject about which the court noted the citizens of this state are particularly interested. And although without explaining what further restrictions section 32 imposes that section 21 does not, the court stated:

Section 32 of Article V of the Colorado Constitution was adopted not merely to make emphatic the exception found in section 21. Its special office is to guard against improper appropriations of the public revenue, and to impose restrictions upon the manner of making the same not contained in, and in addition to those found in, section 21.

In re House Bill No. 168, supra, 21...