Scott v. State Bd. of Assessment and Review
| Decision Date | 05 May 1936 |
| Docket Number | 43540. |
| Parties | SCOTT v. STATE BOARD OF ASSESSMENT AND REVIEW et al. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Marshall County; Carl B. Stiger, Judge.
Action in equity attacking the constitutionality of chapter 82 of the Acts of the Extraordinary Session of the Forty-Fifth General Assembly, being chapter 329-F1 of 1935 Code (section 6943-f1 et seq.). The District Court upheld the constitutionality of the act, from which plaintiff appealed.
Affirmed.
Ray P Scott, of Marshalltown, and Geo. F. Heindel, of Ottumwa, for appellant.
C. E Walters, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., of Iowa, John K. Valentine, of Centerville, and Clair Hamilton, Asst. Atty. Gen., of Iowa for appellees.
Chapter 82 of the Acts of the Extraordinary Session of the Forty-Fifth General Assembly of Iowa (Code 1935, § 6943-f1 et seq.) purports to impose a personal net income tax, a business tax on corporations, and a retail sales tax. Plaintiff, an income tax payer within the purview of the act, brought this action in equity on his own behalf, and allegedly on behalf and for the benefit of all other personal net income tax payers, alleging that aforementioned chapter 82 was not legally enacted, and praying that defendants be enjoined from the assessment against or collection from plaintiff and all others of the personal net income tax imposed in said chapter. Defendants are the officials of the state on whom the act conferred the powers of its administration, including the collection of the taxes.
Pertinent to plaintiff's claim that above-mentioned chapter 82 was not legally enacted, we first outline the facts as shown in the record. This act originated as a bill introduced in the House of Representatives on November 9, 1933, designated as House File No. 1. Subsequently it was read a first and second time, and amended in certain particulars. On January 25, 1934, the bill was read a third time and immediately placed upon its final passage, and upon a yea and nay vote the bill as amended was passed by the House by a constitutional majority, the ayes and nays being entered on the Journal. On the last-mentioned date the bill reached the Senate, where on later days it was read a first and second time. Amendments were proposed and adopted. On February 7, the bill was read a third time, placed immediately upon its final passage, and upon a yea and nay vote passed the Senate by a constitutional majority, the ayes and nays being entered on the Journal. On February 8, the House refused to concur in the Senate amendments. On February 12, a joint conference committee of the two Houses was appointed. On February 20, 1934, the conference committee having come to an agreement, their report recommending that the bill as passed by the House be amended in certain respects, was filed in both Houses. In the House of Representatives, on February 21, 1934, on the question, " Shall the house adopt the conference report and concur in the amendments proposed therein?" a majority of all the members elected to that House voted aye, the vote being taken by ayes and nays and entered on the Journal. On February 22, 1934, in the Senate, on the question, " Shall the report be adopted and the amendments therein proposed concurred in?" there was an affirmative vote by a majority of all the members elected to the Senate, the vote being taken by ayes and nays and entered on the Journal. Thereafter the bill was enrolled, was signed by the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House, approved by the Governor, published, and lodged in the office of Secretary of State.
Such being the facts, we now digress to quote the language of section 17 of article 3 of the Constitution of Iowa, which is as follows:
Upon this constitutional provision plaintiff bases his proposition that the act in question was not legally enacted. His contention is that the passage of the bill by the adoption of and concurrence in the conference committee's report by each House, in the manner above shown, is violative of above-quoted section 17, article 3, because, as plaintiff claims, the bill as amended by the conference committee's report could be passed only by the question being taken in each House immediately upon a last reading of the bill as so amended, with the ayes and nays entered on the Journal. It has been shown above that the question on the adoption of and concurrence in the conference committee report was by ayes and nays in each House, entered upon their respective Journals, and that the constitutional majority in each House as defined in said section 17, voted aye. It follows that the record establishes that the bill was passed by the assent of a majority of all the members elected to each branch of the General Assembly as required by the first phrase of above section 17, unless the manner of ascertaining such assent was violative of the second phrase of the section. In attacking the manner of ascertaining such assent as violative of constitutional procedure, the only complaint plaintiff can make is the one already mentioned, namely, the fact that the bill as amended by the conference committee report was not read, or did not have " its last reading," followed immediately by the question being taken upon the " final passage." As we understand plaintiff's contention, the effect of the omission just mentioned is determinative of this controversy.
It is an interesting matter of observation that it was in the middle portion of the preceding century that it became the practice to lay down, in the constitutions of the various states, procedural requirements and restrictions to be observed by legislatures in the process of enacting laws. Previously legislatures had been largely untrammeled in the matter of controlling their own legislative procedure. Many of these comparatively recent constitutional provisions are expressive of regulations which legislatures had anciently prescribed for their own guidance. One of these old and commonly adopted rules provided that a bill upon being introduced in a legislative house should be read three times on as many different days before submission of the question of its passage. The writers of our Constitution did not in terms include therein this rule. Yet we think its almost universal adoption and observance by legislative bodies was recognized in the writing of our Constitution, because section 17, above quoted, contemplates a " last reading" of all bills. The writers of the Constitution evidently contemplated that the legislatures of Iowa would follow this rule, and that they would do so for the accomplishment of its primary purpose, that is, avoidance of the evils that might follow in the train of enactment of bills immediately upon presentment to the legislative house. The purpose of the rule is to inform legislators, and the people, of legislation proposed by a bill, and to prevent hasty legislation. Smith v. Mitchell, 69 W.Va. 481, 72 S.E. 755, Ann.Cas.1913B, 588.
The foregoing considerations should be kept in mind if we are to rightly understand the intent expressed in above section 17 and particularly the purpose in the use of the words " final passage," around which two words revolve the arguments of these litigants. Defendants contend that " final passage" as contemplated by section 17, with respect to which certain procedure is prescribed, is the passage of a bill by either one of the Houses, as the case may be, by a constitutional majority, following the last one of the consecutive readings of a bill which has been newly introduced or newly received from the other House. Plaintiff cannot well question the correctness of such proposition in a situation where the House of origin and the receiving House each so passes the bill in the same identical form. But in a case where the receiving House passes the bill in accordance with section 17, but in an amended form, and then the two Houses compromise their differences and arrive at agreement through a joint conference committee, which is another ancient instrumentality of legislatures, plaintiff would extend the intendment of the words " final passage" so as to include such a situation, plaintiff claiming that the proposed legislation as set out in the conference committee report must...
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