Common Cause of Pennsylvania v. Com.

• Decision Date: 13 November 1995
• Citation: 668 A.2d 190
• Parties: COMMON CAUSE OF PENNSYLVANIA, Petitioner, v. COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, and Thomas J. Ridge, Governor, and Catherine Baker Knoll, Treasurer, Respondents.
• Court: Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court

Page 190

668 A.2d 190

COMMON CAUSE OF PENNSYLVANIA, Petitioner, v. COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, and Thomas J. Ridge, Governor, and Catherine Baker Knoll, Treasurer, Respondents.

Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued Sept. 13, 1995.

Decided Nov. 13, 1995.

Eric B. Schnurer, for petitioner.

Calvin R. Koons, Senior Deputy Attorney General, for respondent, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Gregory E. Dunlap, Deputy General Counsel, for respondent, Thomas J. Ridge, Governor.

Richard D. Spiegelman, for intervenor, North Philadelphia Health System.

Joseph R. Podraza, Jr., and Geoffrey C. Jarvis, for intervenor, Biotechnology Foundation, Inc.

Before COLINS, President Judge, DOYLE, McGINLEY, SMITH, PELLEGRINI, FRIEDMAN and KELLEY, JJ.

COLINS, President Judge.

Before the Court is petitioner's motion for summary judgment or in the alternative judgment on the pleadings in this original jurisdiction action, which challenges various aspects of the 1995-96 General Appropriation Act (GAA) as unconstitutional. The matter is before us on stipulated facts, which we set forth as an appendix to this opinion. Portions of this opinion are adopted from the August 1, 1995 opinion of the Chancellor.

I. BACKGROUND

On July 19, 1995, petitioner Common Cause of Pennsylvania (Common Cause) filed a petition for review in the nature of a complaint in mandamus, equity and for declaratory relief in this Court's original jurisdiction. Counts 1 through 3 of the petition for review allege constitutional defects in the procedure by which the GAA was enacted (the procedural counts), while Counts 4 through 7 allege that certain individual appropriations contained in the GAA are constitutionally prohibited (the line item counts).

Common Cause filed an application for peremptory judgment and summary relief pursuant to Pa.R.C.P. No. 1098 and Pa.R.A.P. 1532(b), an application for preliminary injunction and declaratory relief pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1532(a), and an application for expedited consideration. This Court set a hearing on petitioner's various requests for preliminary relief, which was held on Thursday, July 27, 1995. By memorandum opinion and order dated August 1, 1995, President Judge Colins, sitting as Chancellor, denied peremptory judgment in mandamus and summary relief in the nature of declaratory judgment. The Chancellor also denied preliminary injunctive relief as to the procedural counts, but preliminarily enjoined respondents from disbursing any funds pursuant to the specific appropriations challenged in the line item counts. The Chancellor's August 1, 1995 order indicated the Court's intention to hear this matter on the merits on September 13, 1995, if an appropriate motion were then before the Court.

Following several additional proceedings before the Chancellor, which resulted in the grant of intervenor status to two additional parties, modification of the preliminary injunction in several respects, and denial of Respondent Governor Thomas J. Ridge's motion to reconsider or dissolve the preliminary injunction, petitioner filed the motion for summary judgment or in the alternative judgment on the pleadings which is currently before us. We note that the pleadings are now closed, the parties have stipulated to the facts and no cross-motions for summary judgment have been filed.

Summary judgment may be granted only in cases where there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Pa.R.C.P. No. 1035(b); Consumer Party of Pennsylvania v. Commonwealth, 510 Pa. 158, 175, 507 A.2d 323, 331 (1986). Because Common Cause, the Governor and the Treasurer have stipulated to the facts, there are no factual disputes; thus we may proceed to examine the constitutional provisions at issue. ¹

II. ALLEGED PROCEDURAL CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATIONS

A. CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS

Common Cause asserts, in the procedural counts, that the manner of enactment of the GAA violated Article III, sections 1, 2, 3, 4, and 11 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. These sections provide as follows:

Section 1. No law shall be passed except by bill, and no bill shall be so altered or amended, on its passage through either House, as to change its original purpose.

Section 2. No bill shall be considered unless referred to a committee, printed for the use of the members and returned therefrom.

Section 3. No bill shall be passed containing more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in the title, except a general appropriation bill or a bill codifying or compiling the law or a part thereof.

Section 4. Every bill shall be considered on three different days in each House. All amendments made thereto shall be printed for the use of the members before the final vote is taken on the bill and before the final vote is taken, upon written request addressed to the presiding officer of either House by at least 25% of the members elected to that House, any bill shall be read at length in that House. No bill shall become law, unless on its final passage the vote is taken by yeas and nays, the names of the persons voting for and against it are entered on the journal, and a majority of the members elected to each House is recorded thereon as voting in its favor.

Section 11. The general appropriation bill shall embrace nothing but appropriations for the executive, legislative and judicial departments of the Commonwealth, for the public debt and for public schools. All other appropriations shall be made by separate bills, each embracing but one subject.

B. ENACTMENT OF THE 1995-96 GAA

The 1995-96 GAA was enacted as House Bill No. 1169 (HB 1169) ². As demonstrated by the stipulated facts, HB 1169, as originally introduced, was not a general appropriation bill, but rather was entitled "AN ACT Making appropriations from a restricted revenue account within the General Fund and from Federal augmentation funds to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission." With minor amendments, all germane to the Public Utility Commission (PUC) appropriation, HB 1169 was passed by the House of Representatives on March 21, 1995, after being considered on three different days.

HB 1169 then was referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee, which made further amendments, involving only the amount of money appropriated to the PUC. This version of HB 1169 was considered on three different days in the Senate and was passed on April 24, 1995. Because the version passed by the Senate differed from the House version, HB 1169 was returned to the House, and was referred to the House Rules Committee. It is at this juncture that the alleged unconstitutional procedures began.

The House Rules Committee again amended HB 1169, and reported the bill with amendments on June 13, 1995. The amendments made by the House Rules Committee, however, encompassed considerably more than the appropriation to the PUC. Instead, the House Rules Committee converted HB 1169 into the GAA by inserting the entire state budget into the bill, while retaining the appropriation to the PUC. The bill in this form was passed by the House on June 14, 1995 by a vote of 126-77. Later that same day, the Senate also passed the amended bill by a vote of 30-20.

C. ARGUMENTS

Common Cause asserts that HB 1169, as originally introduced, was not a general appropriation bill, but rather was a specific appropriation bill that was unconstitutionally amended during its enactment to become a general appropriation bill in violation of Article III, sections 3 and 11. Common Cause argues that this procedure also violates Article III, section 1, in that HB 1169 was amended or altered during its passage so as to change its original purpose.

Because HB 1169, after its substantial amendment in the House Rules Committee, was not subsequently referred to committee in either chamber, Common Cause argues that Article III, section 2 has been violated. Furthermore, because HB 1169 was not again considered on three different days after its amendment by the House Rules Committee, Common Cause asserts a violation of Article III, section 4.

In the alternative, Common Cause contends that if the original version of HB 1169 can be construed to be a "general appropriation bill," so as to avoid the above-detailed constitutional infirmities, the bill would have to be stricken as violative of Article III, section 3, because the original title was narrowly limited to appropriations to the PUC from a restricted account, which, Common Cause urges, does not clearly express the subject of the bill as a general appropriations bill.

The Treasurer, represented by the Attorney General ³, contends that, given the strong presumption of constitutionality of legislative acts, Common Cause has not met its burden of showing that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The Treasurer further argues that the procedure by which the GAA was enacted did not violate the relevant constitutional provisions. Specifically, the Treasurer asserts that the House Rules Committee's amendment inserting the entire GAA into a bill previously containing only an appropriation to the PUC did not substantially change either the title or the subject matter for the purposes of Article III, sections 1 and 3. The Treasurer contends that if these constitutional provisions were not violated, then the remaining provisions cited by Common Cause would not have been violated.

D. JUSTICIABILITY

Initially, we agree that the GAA, as with all legislative enactments, is entitled to a strong presumption of constitutionality. 1 Pa.C.S. § 1922(3); Snider v. Thornburgh, 496 Pa. 159, 436 A.2d 593 (1981). The courts have abstained from consideration of many perceived procedural irregularities under the enrolled bill doctrine, which, as explained in Kilgore v. Magee, 85 Pa. 401, 412 (1877), states that:

[W]hen a law has been passed and approved and certified in due form, it is no part of the duty of the judiciary to go behind the law as duly certified to...