Colton v. Branstad

• Decision Date: 31 July 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-1011,84-1011
• Citation: 372 N.W.2d 184
• Parties: Milo COLTON, Leo P. Miller, Josephine Gruhn, Johnie Hammond, Elaine Baxter, Sue Mullins, Julia Gentleman, Janet A. Carl and Kay Chapman, Individually and as Members of the 70th General Assembly of Iowa, Appellees, v. Terry E. BRANSTAD, Governor of the State of Iowa, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 184

372 N.W.2d 184

Milo COLTON, Leo P. Miller, Josephine Gruhn, Johnie Hammond, Elaine Baxter, Sue Mullins, Julia Gentleman, Janet A. Carl and Kay Chapman, Individually and as Members of the 70th General Assembly of Iowa, Appellees, v. Terry E. BRANSTAD, Governor of the State of Iowa, Appellant.

No. 84-1011.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

July 31, 1985.

Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., and Julie F. Pottorff, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.

Gerald H. Grask and Barbara A. Buhr of Neiman, Neiman, Stone & Spellman, Des Moines, for appellees.

Considered en banc.

REYNOLDSON, Chief Justice.

Plaintiffs, nine members of the 70th General Assembly, 1983 session, filed this action seeking a declaration that the action of defendant Governor Terry E. Branstad in item vetoing a section of an appropriation bill was unconstitutional and therefore void. After defendant answered, trial court granted plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment. We reverse and remand.

The facts in this controversy are undisputed. In its 1983 session the legislature enacted H.F.613, entitled:

AN ACT relating to the funding of state agencies for designated service programs including health programs, specialized child health service programs, substance abuse programs, civil rights, veterans' services, and programs for minority, elderly, and disadvantaged persons for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1983, and ending June 30, 1984.

See 1983 Iowa Acts ch. 206. Only two sections of this bill are relevant here.

Section 4(6) of H.F.613 appropriates $1,164,699 in state funds to the state department of health for "Personal and family health services," for a number of specified purposes including mobile and regional child health speciality clinics, the childhood cancer diagnostic and treatment network program, rural comprehensive care for hemophilia patients, statewide perinatal programs, and sexual abuse investigations.

Section 12 of the above act includes the following:

As a condition of the appropriation under section 4, subsection 6, the state department of health shall relinquish to the family planning council of Iowa through the department of health and human services federal dollars appropriated under Title X of the Public Health Service Act and allocated for Lyon, Sioux, Plymouth, Woodbury, Cherokee, Ida, Delaware, Dubuque, Jackson, Washington, Louisa, Henry, Lee, and Des Moines counties in order to permit established local family planning providers to continue services without state involvement.

See 42 U.S.C. §§ 300, 300(a) (1982).

June 13, 1983, the defendant transmitted the bill to the secretary of state, approving it with the exception of the above-quoted portion of section 12. See 1983 Iowa Acts at 633-35. The transmittal letter explained that prior to 1980 the federal government routed all Title X (family planning) funds through the department of health (DOH) to provide for state oversight and administrative control. When certain local planning agencies took exception to this oversight in 1980, DOH "allowed all local planning agencies to opt out of the state administrative program. ... [S]even local agencies pulled out and formed their own Family Planning Council of Iowa (FPCI) to receive and distribute federal Title X funds." In 1982 DOH renewed its three-year federal contract for the program and again provided local agencies an opportunity to opt out of the state program. None did. The transmittal letter further stated that during the first year of the three-year contract, three more local planning agencies decided to join the FPCI. After DOH refused to release them because of the federal contract commitment, these agencies petitioned the legislature and obtained insertion of the section 12 language. This provision, the letter asserts, apparently was designed to give FPCI, rather than DOH, authority to administer federal funds to be distributed to local family planning agencies centered in Sioux City, Dubuque and Burlington.

The defendant assigned the above contractual as well as public policy considerations as his reasons for vetoing the section 12 sentence. He asserted more time was required for dialogue between the local agencies and DOH, that DOH-administered funds concentrated less on urban areas and reached a higher percentage of the poor, and that these and other important health needs had not been fully assessed.

September 23, 1983, plaintiffs filed their petition seeking a declaration that this veto was void. They alleged the quoted section 12 language was a condition upon the section 4(6) appropriation of funds from the state of Iowa to the DOH, that defendant's veto "calls into question the legitimacy of the funds appropriated under House File 613 to the Iowa Department of Health," and injured the plaintiffs by usurping "the Iowa Legislature's inherent power to appropriate public funds and to impose conditions or restrictions upon the purpose or use of the money appropriated." Defendant's answer denied these allegations and requested a declaratory ruling that his action was constitutional and legal.

February 2, 1984, plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment, asserting there was no genuine issue of material fact and plaintiffs were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Defendant's resistance alleged there were genuine issues of material fact, and affirmatively asserted there was no significant relationship between the utilization of federal funds granted DOH under Title X and state funds appropriated to DOH for other purposes. Attached to the resistance were affidavits that supported the following allegations:

Title X funds are awarded to the Department of Health as a federal grantee for the Iowa State Family Planning Program.

The Iowa State Family Planning Program is administered under the division of Personal and Family Health Services [of DOH].

The salaries of personnel who directly administer the Iowa State Family Planning Program are paid entirely by federal funds under Title X.

No state funds appropriated to the division of Personal and Family Services under section 4, subsection 6, of House File 613 are used for family planning services.

Defendant's trial brief asserted that under Iowa decisions the relationship between the "conditioning language" and the appropriated funds is critical in resolving the validity of the exercise of an item veto. He argued there must be a nexus between the vetoed language and the appropriated state funds in order to successfully challenge the veto.

Trial court filed its ruling on May 17, 1984. It concluded it would be "inappropriate" to receive evidence on the issue whether there was a significant relationship between the state funds appropriated in section 4(6) of H.F.613 and the federal funds referred to in section 12. The court found the section 12 language did not violate the Brady "lump-sum" rule noted in Welden v. Ray, 229 N.W.2d 706, 714 (Iowa 1975), although this issue was not raised by defendant's resistance or his district court brief. See People ex rel. State Board of Agriculture v. Brady, 277 Ill. 124, 115 N.E. 204 (1917). It further found the section 12 sentence did not violate the Iowa Constitution, article III, section 29 (one bill--one subject), another issue not relied on by defendant. The court reasoned that although "section 12 was a separate, severable provision in terms of subject matter, it explicitly made other sections conditional upon its approval ... [and] dicta [in State ex rel. Turner v. Iowa State Highway Commission, 186 N.W.2d 141, 153 (Iowa 1971) ] indicates that a provision may be determined to be a condition solely on the basis of the 'specific draftsmanship' used in its construction." In this situation, the court concluded, it was "clear that section 12 was drafted to be a condition on the appropriations in section 4, subsection 6," and entered summary judgment for plaintiffs.

June 14, 1984, the defendant filed timely notice of appeal, and we granted his motion for a stay of any obligation to transfer federal funds from the personal and family health services division of the DOH to the FPCI, effective through June 30, 1984.

This controversy presents three issues:

1. Is the controversy moot, and if so, should we nevertheless consider it?

2. Did district court err in rejecting defendant's contention that the case presented a genuine issue of material fact?

3. If the court made no error with respect to the second issue, did it err in holding section 12 of H.F.613 was a valid condition that defendant could not veto?

We address these issues in the above order.

I. Mootness Issue.

Plaintiffs' brief correctly points out that appropriations under H.F.613 expired June 30, 1984. They assert, nonetheless, that the controversy meets the "public interest" exception to the mootness doctrine, citing Rush v. Ray, 332 N.W.2d 325, 326-27 (Iowa 1983). Defendant does not request that we avoid the merits by invoking the mootness doctrine. We agree that in this murky and troublesome area the basic question is of great public importance and likely to recur. The Rush two-prong test being met, we proceed to the remaining issues.

II. Summary Judgment Issue.

The general principles governing summary judgment are well established. Summary judgment is appropriate only when the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, admissions on file and affidavits show there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Iowa R.Civ.P. 237. Barnhill v. Davis, 300 N.W.2d 104, 105 (Iowa 1981). The moving party has the burden of demonstrating there is no genuine issue of material fact. Knapp v. Simmons, 345 N.W.2d 118, 121 (Iowa 1984). The court is required to view the record in a light most favorable to the party against whom the summary judgment is sought. Hildenbrand v. Cox, 369 N.W.2d 411, 413 (Iowa 1985); Walker Shoe Store v. Howard's Hobby Shop, 327 N.W.2d 725, 728 (Iowa 1982) ("[S]ummary judgment...