New Jersey Ass'n on Correction v. Lan

• Decision Date: 08 June 1979
• Citation: 403 A.2d 437,80 N.J. 199
• Parties: NEW JERSEY ASSOCIATION ON CORRECTION, a New Jersey Not-For-Profit Corporation, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Donald T. LAN, Secretary of State of the State of New Jersey, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 199

80 N.J. 199

403 A.2d 437

NEW JERSEY ASSOCIATION ON CORRECTION, a New Jersey Not-For-Profit Corporation, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Donald T. LAN, Secretary of State of the State of New Jersey, Defendant-Appellant.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued March 19, 1979.

Decision Rendered April 2, 1979.

Opinion Filed June 8, 1979.

John J. Degnan, Atty. Gen., for defendant-appellant (John J. Degnan, attorney; Michael R. Cole, Asst. Atty. Gen., of counsel and on the brief; Charlotte Kitler, Deputy Atty. Gen., on the brief).

Thornton G. Edwards, Buffalo, N. Y., a member of the New York bar, for amicus curiae New Jersey Steven H. Gifis, Princeton, for plaintiff-respondent.

Ass'n of Retarded Citizens, Inc. (Wilentz, Goldman and Spitzer, Woodbridge, attorneys).

ORDER

It appearing that the issues involved in this matter are of public importance and that an early announcement of the Court's judgment would be in the public interest, and it being the unanimous determination of the Court that the Institutional Construction Bond Act of 1978 (L.1978, c. 79) is constitutional;

It is hereby ORDERED that the judgment of the Appellate Division is reversed, and the judgment of the trial court is reinstated. A full opinion in this matter will be filed in due course.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

HUGHES, C. J.

This issue comes before the Court on appeal by the State, as of right, R. 2:2-1(a)(1). The case originated in the adoption of L.1978, C. 79, which was labeled the "Institutional Construction Bond Act of 1978" (hereafter "Act" or "statute") and which projected a bond issue of $100 million to provide construction of or improvement to various public buildings for purposes described in the statute. Conformably to the Constitution, which inhibits the creation of such State debt absent approval by the people, N.J.Const. (1947), Art. VIII, § II, par. 3, the statute provided for submission of the following question and Interpretive Statement to the electorate in the then forthcoming general election:

INSTITUTIONAL CONSTRUCTION BOND ISSUE

Should the "Institutional Construction Bond Act of 1978" which authorizes the State to issue bonds in the amount of $100,000,000.00 for construction and improvement of facilities serving the mentally retarded and mentally ill; for construction of correctional institutions including Trenton State Prison; and for the acquisition and construction of facilities, including facilities to serve blind and handicapped persons and a forensic laboratory for the State Medical Examiner; and to provide means to pay the principal and interest on these bonds, be approved?

INTERPRETIVE STATEMENT

Approval of this act will authorize sale of $100,000,000.00 in bonds to be used (1) to provide facilities for the mentally retarded and mentally ill which will improve the quality of care and allow the State to receive partial Federal reimbursement for such services; (2) for construction and improvement of correctional facilities to provide safe and humane conditions; (3) to offer library services to the blind and handicapped; and (4) to provide for a forensic laboratory for the State Medical Examiner.

The statute was challenged shortly after its adoption in an action filed under the Declaratory Judgments Act (N.J.S.A. 2A:16-50 Et seq.) and the trial court upheld its constitutional validity in judgment rendered on October 18, 1978. The plaintiff in that action was the New Jersey Association on Correction (hereafter "Association"), formerly known as the Morrow Association, and a foremost and distinguished proponent of correctional reform. It promptly appealed the issue to the Appellate Division, where the matter was pending when the electorate approved the bond issue at the election of November 7, 1978. Thereafter the Appellate Division, on December 1, 1978, reversed the trial court, holding the underlying statute, and the bond issue it proposed, to be in conflict with the Constitution of New Jersey. The State appealed, and for reasons to be delineated herein, we were and are of the opinion that the Appellate Division was in error, and that the statute and its authorized bond issue were indeed in compliance with that Constitution. Because of the urgent public question involved, we so declared by our Order entered herein on April 2, 1979, subject to amplification by this opinion.

The Association had originally argued a deficiency in the title of the Act based on conceptual or semantic differences between "public buildings" (as in the title) and "institutions" (as in the body) of the Act. It thought this appeared to offend N.J.Const. (1947), Art. IV, § VII, par. 4, that " * * * every law shall embrace but one object, and that shall be expressed in the title." This "title" contention was overruled by the trial court, was not addressed by the Appellate Division and the Association does not present it to this Court for consideration. Rather the not dissimilar gravamen of the Association's case implicated the "one object" factor of Art. IV, § VII, par. 4 and another constitutional mandate of like import which reads:

The Legislature shall not * * * create * * * a debt or debts * * * unless the same shall be authorized by a law for some single object The body of the Act illuminated the specific uses of the buildings contemplated as follows:

or work distinctly specified therein. * * * No such law shall take effect until it shall have been submitted to the people at a general election and approved by a majority of the legally qualified voters of the State voting thereon. * * * (N.J.Const. (1947), Art. VIII, § II, par. 3).

Bonds of the State of New Jersey in the sum of $100,000,000.00 are hereby authorized for the construction and acquisition of public buildings and institutions as defined herein. Of such total the proceeds from the sale of bonds shall be allocated, to the maximum extent practicable and feasible, according to the following estimates of cost:

a. The construction of public buildings for the mentally retarded in conjunction with the Federal Program for Intermediate Care Facilities/Mentally Retarded $51,000,000.00; and for improvements and additions to facilities for the mentally ill $8,000,000.00 to be implemented by the Department of Human Services.

b. The construction of institutions for the incarcerated, including the completion of the reconstruction of Trenton State Prison, to be implemented by the Department of Corrections $30,000,000.00.

c. Construction of public buildings for records and for library facilities for blind and handicapped persons, to be implemented by the Department of Education $6,500,000.00.

d. Construction of a forensic science facility for the activities of the State Medical Examiner to be implemented by the Department of Law and Public Safety $4,500,000.00. (L.1978, C. 79, § 5).

And as stated by the Appellate Division, these purposes were linked in that

(a)ll of these building projects were legislatively found to be "critically" and "immediately" needed to carry out public responsibilities to the people of this State (L.1978, C. 79, § 2). All were recommended by the Commission on Capital Budgeting and Planning; all were designed to serve the administrative and institutional needs of State Government. (164 N.J.Super. 115 at 119-20, 395 A.2d 889, at 891).

The question presented, then, is whether these different projects constituted a single object in the intendment of the Constitution. The Association asserts that (t)he unconstitutionality of L.1978, C. 79, can be found * * * in the inclusion in one enactment of several objects to be served by the issuance of the bonds authorized by this enactment(;) that these purposes are essentially unrelated to each other, or related only at a prohibited level of abstraction, and are each to be administered by different departments of the Executive Branch(; that) their inclusion within one enactment requiring voter approval for its effectiveness violates the express constitutional mandate designed, in part, to enable independent voter appraisal of each purpose for which bonds were to be issued. (164 N.J.Super. at 120-21, 395 A.2d at 892).

The argument of the State was perceived by the Appellate Division as follows:

The State's response to this argument is, as stated in its brief, that "(w) hile the bond proceeds may be allocated to several construction projects, serving different societal needs, and administered by different departments of State Government, all share the common characteristic of being public facilities, operated for the public good." Although each proposed facility would serve different functions, each would nonetheless, "be operated as public buildings used for providing services for the public's good." The different projects are all related to, and in furtherance of, that general purpose, thereby satisfying the test of compliance with the state constitutional standard. (164 N.J.Super. at 121, 395 A.2d at 892).

As applicable to both constitutional "object" provisions, we agree with the Appellate Division's synthesis of the issue:

Both parties properly identify the standard by which compliance with the single object rule will be measured, the relatedness Vel non of the various matters embraced within one enactment. As observed in Newark v. Mount Pleasant Cemetery Co., 58 N.J.L. 168, (171, 33 A. 396) (E. & A. 1895):

The evil intended to be guarded against (by the single object rule) was not the inclusion in one act of more than a single matter, but the inclusion therein of matters not properly related among themselves. So by its obvious construction this constitutional provision justifies and permits legislation by one statute, looking toward a single general object, although it contains and enacts various and multiform matters, if those matters are properly related to each other and tend to effectuate the general object.

(164 N.J.Super. at 121, 395 A.2d at 892).

In further refinement of the issue, we...