Smathers v. Smith, s. 50288 and 50302

• Decision Date: 11 October 1976
• Docket Number: Nos. 50288 and 50302,s. 50288 and 50302
• Citation: 338 So.2d 825
• Parties: Bruce A. SMATHERS, etc., Appellant, v. Chesterfield SMITH, etc., Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 825

338 So.2d 825

Bruce A. SMATHERS, etc., Appellant, v. Chesterfield SMITH, etc., Appellee.

Nos. 50288 and 50302.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Oct. 11, 1976.

Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., and William C. Sherrill, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.

Warren M. Goodrich, Bradenton, and William H. McBride, Jr., of Holland & Knight, Tallahassee, for appellee.

Paul W. Lambert, D. Stephen Kahn and Sally G. Munroe, Tallahassee, for intervenors.

Arthur C. Canaday, Tallahassee, Allan Milledge, Coconut Grove, and Daniel W. O'Connell, Tallahassee, for amicus curiae.

ENGLAND, Justice.

We have before us a challenge to a proposed constitutional amendment which was adopted by joint resolution of the 1976 Florida Legislature for submission to the people of the state on November 2, 1976. Chesterfield Smith, a citizen, taxpayer and elector of the State of Florida, brought suit in the Leon County Circuit Court seeking to enjoin the Secretary of State from expending state funds and otherwise acting to submit the amendment to the voters at the general election on that date. Select legislators were permitted to intervene for the purpose of presenting legal arguments to the circuit court. That court granted Smith's motion for summary judgment and enjoined the Secretary of State from submitting the amendment to the voters. Pursuant to Article V, Section 3(b)(1) of the Florida Constitution, an appeal was brought here by the Attorney General on behalf of the state. We reverse the trial court's order.

By Senate Joint Resolutions 619 and 1398, the 1976 Legislature proposed an amendment to Section 18 of the Florida Constitution's Declaration of Rights (Article I) which would add the underscored language and cause that section to read:

'SECTION 18. Administrative penalties.--No administrative agency shall impose a sentence of imprisonment, nor shall it impose any other penalty except as provided by law. Any administrative rule of any agency of the executive branch may be nullified by concurrent resolution of the Legislature on the ground that the rule is without or in excess of delegated legislative authority and may be suspended as provided by law on the same ground; however, by a majority vote of the governor and cabinet the suspension may be deferred until acted upon by the Legislature. Failure of the Legislature to disapprove the suspension at the next regular session shall automatically reinstate the rule.'

Smith asserts several reasons why the proposed amendment is improper. He suggests that its language is unclear, its meaning obscure and its purpose too vague; that the Legislature lacks power to propose as a constitutional amendment a revision of governmental powers as sweeping and broad as he contends this amendment contains; that the amendment would violate the 'one person-one vote' guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution; that the notice of the contents of the amendment which would appear on the ballot violates Section 101.161, Florida Statutes (1975); and that the amendment is inadequate to inform the public of the substantial shift in governmental power which it would effect. Smith also contends that the amendment in reality alters the separation of powers guaranteed in Article II, Section 3 of the Florida Constitution, in that it gives to the Legislature authority to exercise an interpretive power previously reposed exclusively in the judiciary.

The Attorney General, of course, refutes all of Smith's contentions, and further suggests that the defects alleged are in any event not the proper subject for judicial intervention at this stage. This admonition cannot be ignored, and we approach the subject matter of the case mindful of our limited role in reviewing constitutional proposals which have been adopted by the Legislature for direct submission to the people.

'Another thing we should keep in mind is that we are dealing with a constitutional democracy in which sovereignty resides in the people. It is their Constitution that we are construing. They have a right to change, abrogate or modify it in any manner they see fit so long as they keep within the confines of the Federal Constitution. The legislature which approved and submitted the proposed amendment took the same oath to protect and defend the Constitution that we did and our first duty is to uphold their action if there is any reasonable theory under which it can be done. This is the first rule we are required to observe when considering acts of the legislature and it is even more impelling when considering a proposed constitutional amendment which goes to the people for their approval or disapproval.' ¹

It is in that framework that we limit our discussion to the critical issue which is here presented by the parties, and we rest our decision solely on the question of whether the amendment was proposed by the Legislature in conformity with Article XI, Section 1 of the Constitution. ² That section provides:

'Amendment of a section or revision of one or more articles, or the whole, of this constitution may be proposed by joint resolution agreed to by three-fifths of the membership of each house of the legislature. The full text of the joint resolution and the vote of each member voting shall be entered on the journal of each house.'

Because there is doubt as to whether the Legislature has violated what appear to be strictures on their amendatory powers, we are compelled to sustain this legislative action.

The Constitution of Florida is a document of limitation by which the people of the state have restricted the forces of government in the exercise of dominion and power over their property, their rights and their lives. ³ In this document the people have provided a scheme for its periodic modification involving four alternatives. In construing any provision of the Constitution this Court is obliged to consider the document as a whole in order to effect its overall purpose. ⁴ This fundamental rule of construction directs that we consider the four methods of modifying the Constitution in a way which will harmonize them rather than distort them.

The alternatives for amendment are set out in Article XI. First, the people can by initiative amend any 'portion or portions' of the Constitution in any way that they see fit, provided that the amendment brought to vote by an initiative petition confines itself to a single subject matter. ⁵ Second, the people have reserved the power to call a constitutional convention to consider a revision of their 'entire' Constitution. ⁶ Third, they have directed that a constitutional revision commission be convened at regular intervals to propose a 'revision' of the Constitution or any 'part', if any be thought desirable, for submission to the voters. ⁷ These alternatives are not in any way affected by our decision today.

A fourth method for revising or amending the Constitution, which is the one involved here, permits the Legislature to propose an 'amendment of a section or revision of one or more articles, or the whole' of the Constitution, at any time. It is immediately apparent that two of three amendatory alternatives given the Legislature--that of amending a 'section' and revising an 'article'--are tied to locational specificity. No similar limitations are placed on the amendatory rights which the people reserved to themselves. ⁸ Initially, then, we must decide whether this distinguishing feature of the amendatory authority given the Legislature has legal significance.

We have consistently held that different words in amendatory articles of the Constitution must be read differently, and each given vitality. Adams v. Gunter, 238 So.2d 824 (Fla.1970); Crawford v. Gilchrist, 64 Fla. 41, 54, 59 So. 963, 968 (1912). The state does not quarrel with this proposition as a general matter, but it argues that it has no place here and that the characterizations in Section 1 are irrelevant because, having been granted three choices by express grant, the Legislature can frame by any name whatever would be valid under any one of them. To limit the Legislature in an attempt to do one when the same objective would have been permissible by an alternative method, we are told, is to elevate form (or semantics) over substance. While this suggestion seems plausible enough, it may overlook too much.

For one thing, if an article revision or a rewrite of the whole Constitution could be characterized, equated with or disguised as a mere section amendment, then the people's deliberate choice of terms is wholly without significance. ⁹ Every proposal could be defended as a revision of the whole Constitution, no matter how narrow its purpose or subject matter. A fault with the state's suggestion, then, is that it seeks total nullification of two of three amendment procedures the people have given to the legislative branch. We, of course, lack judicial authority to rewrite Section 1 of Article XI as the state seems to request.

Another fault in the state's assertion is that it ignores a very real significance for having three locational limitations on legislative action. The deliberative processes of the Legislature are surrounded by guarantees that the duly elected representatives of the people will know what they are doing when they act in their law-making role. Our Constitution limits their law-making to one subject matter at a time ¹⁰ and it requires three separate considerations of each proposed law. ¹¹ These are notice-giving requirements designed to assure knowledgeable law-giving. The state's suggestion that a proposed section amendment may in reality effect a revision of the entire Constitution completely ignores the even more compelling notice-giving needs which legislators should have for constitutional amendments. ¹²

Another fault in the state's position is that we cannot treat as merely linguistic distinctions the two site limitations on amendment power which the state would have us abrogate--'s...