Flanders v. Morris, 44269

• Decision Date: 07 January 1977
• Docket Number: No. 44269,44269
• Citation: 88 Wn.2d 183,558 P.2d 769
• Parties: Lois FLANDERS, Petitioner, v. Charles MORRIS, Secretary, and Milton Burdman, Deputy Secretary of the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, Respondents.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

Page 183

88 Wn.2d 183

558 P.2d 769

Lois FLANDERS, Petitioner, v. Charles MORRIS, Secretary, and Milton Burdman, Deputy Secretary of the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, Respondents.

No. 44269.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

Jan. 7, 1977.

Spokane County Legal Services, Norman R. McNulty, Jr., J. Dinnen Cleary, Spokane, for petitioner.

Slade Gorton, Atty. Gen., Walter E. White, Asst. Atty. Gen., Olympia, for respondents.

HUNTER, Associate Justice.

Lois Flanders, petitioner in this original mandamus action, is 28 years old, unemployed and in need. Therefore she is entitled to public assistance under the codified public assistance laws of this state: RCW 74.08.025, .04.005(6), (13), and .08.040. However, the supplemental appropriations bill for the 1975--1977 biennium, House Bill 1624 (Laws of 1975, 2nd Ex.Sess., ch. 133, p. 472) contains a provision which limits general, non-continuing public assistance to persons who, if single, are at least 50 years old. Under this law, she is ineligible for assistance.

Petitioner previously moved this court for a stay, preventing implementation of that provision (Section 17, subsection 10, House Bill 1624), which motion was granted pending determination of whether the provision is an unconstitutional enactment under this state's constitution. The two constitutional provisions upon which this legislation is challenged are Const. art. 2, § 19, and Const. art. 2, § 37. Const. art. 2, § 19 provides that 'No bill shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.' Const. art. 2, § 37 provides that 'No act shall ever be revised or amended by mere reference to its title, but the act revised or the section amended shall be set forth at full length.'

Petitioner contends that the action of the legislature in this instance, that of including in a budget bill a new limitation on public assistance eligibility, is offensive to both these provisions of our constitution. Petitioner argues that section 17, subsection 10 of House Bill 1624, is legislation of a substantive nature, amendatory of existing public assistance law, and as such was improperly enacted. The legislature should be required to pass a separate act, which would be codified as an amendment to existing law. Petitioner argues that although the legislature has the power to authorize expenditures in an appropriations bill, and customarily does place limitations on the expenditure of public monies under the title of the appropriations bill, such a title is not sufficient to encompass conditions which amount to substantive changes in the law.

The title of House Bill 1624 is as follows:

AN ACT Relating to expenditures by state agencies and offices of the state; making appropriations for the fiscal biennium beginning July 1, 1975 and ending June 30, 1977 . . .

Section 17, subsection 10 of that bill, challenged by petitioner, provides in pertinent part:

General assistance for unemployed, employable persons may be provided in accordance with eligibility requirements and standards established by the department to an applicant who:

(a) Meets the eligibility requirements of RCW 74.08.025; and

(b) Is a resident of the State of Washington; and

(c) Is either:

(i) A single person who is fifty years of age or over; or

(ii) A married couple . . .

Tracing the history of the above quoted provision, we find that it epitomizes the very type of legislation that the two cited constitutional provisions were designed to protect against. We refer to two previous attempts unsuccessfully made to create such an age limitation on public assistance.

First, the Department of Social and Health Services promulgated a regulation. It was struck down by this court as in excess of the agency's administrative authority and in conflict with existing statutes. Fecht v. Department of Social & Health Serv., 86 Wash.2d 109, 542 P.2d 780 (1975). Subsequent to Fecht Senate Bill 3278 attempted to enact the same limitation under the title:

AN ACT Relating to public assistance; and adding new sections to Chapter 26, Laws of 1959, and to Chapter 74.08, RCW.

The bill was twice voted down in House Committee, and therefore never enacted.

Thus, a law which could not pass on its own merit, under a proper title, became law by being slipped into a 45-page appropriations bill. Aside from the problem of whether legislators were properly put on notice by the title that such a provision was contained within, there is the additional problem that even if they were, they would feel somewhat constrained to reject that single provision. Frequently the appropriations bill is the result of a free conference committee. As such it must be voted on in its entirety and cannot be amended. See Rule 12, 1975 Joint Rules of the Senate and House of Representatives. It is obvious why a legislator would hesitate to hold up the funding of the entire state government in order to prevent the enactment of a certain provision, even though he would have voted against it if it had been presented as independent legislation.

Article 2, section 19 of our state constitution has a dual purpose: (1) to prevent 'logrolling', or pushing legislation through by attaching it to other necessary or desirable legislation, and (2) to assure that the members of the legislature and the public are generally aware of what is contained in proposed new laws. In State ex rel. Washington Toll Bridge Authority v. Yelle, 54 Wash.2d 545, 550--51, 342 P.2d 588, 591 (1959), we quoted language which explains the need for this constitutional provision:

'. . . there had crept into our system of legislation a practice of engrafting upon measures of great public importance foreign matters for local or selfish purposes, and the members of the legislature were often constrained to vote for such foreign provisions to avoid jeopardizing the main subject or to secure new strength for it, whereas If these provisions had been offered as independent measures they would not have received such support. . . .' Neuenschwander v. Washington Suburban Sanitary Comm., (1946), 187 Md. 67, 48 A.2d 593, 598, 599.

Without the protection created by the constitutional requirement . . . appropriation bills would be peculiarly vulnerable to this legislative evil.

(Italics ours.)

In this 1959 Toll Bridge case we held that the inclusion in an appropriations act of a provision authorizing the State Highway Commission to annually divert proceeds from a certain excise tax to the Toll Bridge Authority was violative of both article 2, section 19, and article 2, section 37, of our state constitution. We reasoned that the provision was an amendment to existing law, and also that it was legislation of a general and continuing nature lasting beyond the biennium, which went beyond limiting disbursements or qualifying the appropriations. We found it to be a substantive enactment which did not constitutionally belong in an appropriations bill, going on to define such a bill as follows, quoting from State ex rel. Blakeslee v. Clausen, 85 Wash. 260, 272, 148 P. 28 (1915):

'. . . An appropriation bill is not a law in its ordinary sense. It is not a rule of action. It has no moral or divine sanction. It defines no rights and punishes no wrongs. It is purely Lex scripta. It is a means only to the enforcement of law, the maintenance of good order, and the life of the state government. Such bills pertain only to the administrative functions of government. . . .'

State ex rel. Washington Toll Bridge Authority v. Yelle, 54 Wash.2d 545, 551, 342 P.2d 588, 592 (1959).

An appropriations bill which 'defines no rights' certainly cannot abolish or amend existing law. It cannot add restrictions to public assistance eligibility and still be said to define no rights. The proper legislative procedure is to enact separate, independent, properly titled legislation.

Clearly, greater latitude must be granted the legislature in enacting multisubject legislation under the appropriations bill title than any other, since the purpose of appropriations bills is to allocate monies for the state's multitudinous and disparate needs. The fact that many states exempt appropriations bills from the subject-title restriction in their constitutions makes clear the difficulty involved in conforming such legislation to the requirement and still getting the job done. See generally 1A C. Sands, Sutherland Statutory Construction § 17.01 (4th ed. 1972). We have frequently stated that a title need not be an index to the contents of a bill. Where the title to any act expresses a single general subject or purpose, all matters which are naturally and reasonably connected with it, or any measures which will further its purpose, will be held to be germane. State ex rel. Washington Toll Bridge Authority v. Yelle, 32 Wash.2d 13, 200 P.2d 467 (1948); Gruen v. State Tax Commission, 35 Wash.2d 1, 211 P.2d 651 (1949); Water Dist. 105, King County v. State, 79 Wash.2d 337, 485 P.2d 66 (1971).

However, even construing the title and subject of this appropriations bill most liberally, the provision must be found to be in...