Tayloe v. Davis

• Decision Date: 06 November 1924
• Docket Number: 3 Div. 658
• Citation: 102 So. 433,212 Ala. 282
• Parties: TAYLOE et al. v. DAVIS et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

102 So. 433

212 Ala. 282

TAYLOE et al. v. DAVIS et al.

3 Div. 658

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 6, 1924

Rehearing Denied Dec. 4, 1924

Appeal from Circuit Court, Montgomery County; Walter B. Jones Judge.

Bill in equity by W.H. Tayloe and W.C. Swanson against Harwell G Davis, William B. Allgood, Charles E. McCall, and George W Ellis, to enjoin payment of increased salaries to respondents as state officers. From a decree sustaining demurrer to the bill, complainants appeal. Affirmed.

p>Page and S.D. Logan, of Centreville, for appellants.

Thomas C. McClellan, of Birmingham, and James J. Mayfield and Marion Rushton, both of Montgomery, for appellees.

BOULDIN J.

This is a taxpayers' bill to enjoin the state auditor from issuing, and the state treasurer from paying, certain warrants to members of the budget commission, for compensation allowed them by acts of the Legislature, and further compensation to the Attorney General under an act relating to his office.

The theory of the bill is: That certain section of the act to create the state budget commission (Gen.Acts 1919, p. 33) are unconstitutional and void. That, therefore, the entire act is void, and imposes no legal powers or duties upon the members of the budget commission for which compensation may be allowed, as provided by General Acts of 1919, p. 878. That if the Budget Act is valid, the Compensation Act is violative of sections 118 and 281 of the Constitution, forbidding increase or decrease of the compensation of officers during the term for which they shall have been elected; or, is violative of section 280 forbidding any person to hold two offices of profit at one and the same time.

The same objections are urged against the compensation allowed under the act to further regulate the office of Attorney General. Acts 1923, p. 40.

The act first assailed in argument is styled:

"An act to better secure the administration of the financial affairs of the state in respect to expenditures and appropriations; and for that purpose to establish a state budget commission, and prescribe rules and regulations governing the same." Gen.Acts 1919, p. 33.

It creates a state budget commission, composed of the Governor, as chairman, the Attorney General, and the state auditor. By amendment, the chief examiner of accounts was added to the commission. Acts 1923, p. 22.

Each state officer and head of department or institution receiving appropriations from the state treasurer is required at stated times to file with the commission a detailed estimate of the needs of the department or institution for the next quadrennial period, with probable revenues; also statement of revenues and expenditures during the last quadrennium. The state auditor is required to furnish further detailed information of revenues and expenditures, with the financial status of each department. From this and other information the budget commission shall prepare and submit a budget containing a complete plan of proposed expenditures and estimated revenues for the ensuring quadrennium. This is a summary of sections 1 to 4 of the act. Section 5 reads:

"The Governor shall transmit to the presiding officer of each house, the budget, and bills for all proposed appropriations of the budget, clearly itemized and classified, and the Governor shall secure the introduction of the said bill or a copy thereof in each house, as soon as practicable after they have been presented to the presiding officers and are ready for introduction. If before final action thereon by the state Legislature the budget commission may desire the bills to be amended or supplemented, it may through its chairman deliver such amendment or supplement to the presiding officer of both houses or otherwise cause them to be presented in said houses under the rules and regulations governing their procedure, to the end that such supplements or amendments may be offered and may become a part of the budget bill, as if originally inserted therein, and such amendment or supplement when properly made, shall thereby become a part of said budget bills as an addition to the items in said bills as originally introduced or as a modification of or substitute for any item in said bills which such amendment or supplement may affect."

This action is attacked upon the ground that it seeks to confer power on the Governor and budget commission to dictate the introduction of bills in the Legislature and amendments thereto while pending. The direction to the Governor to "secure the introduction" of such bills is entirely compatible with the constitutional duty of the Governor to recommend for the consideration of the Legislature such measures as he may deem expedient (Const. § 123), and the duty of the Governor, Auditor and Attorney General to prepare a general revenue bill to be presented to the House of Representatives by the Governor. Const. § 70. Construing this section fairly, with a view to give it a meaning in keeping with the Constitution, we think the words "secure the introduction" mean no more than to present and recommend the bills to the Legislature that they may be introduced in the regular way. The wording takes no note of the remote possibility that no member of the Legislature would introduce a bill prepared and presented by the Governor and his associates as required by law. The section expressly declares that proposed amendments shall be presented under the rules and regulations governing the procedure of each house, that they may be offered or introduced in such manner as to become a part of the budget bill. This language clearly implies that amendments shall be offered only in the manner declared in the Constitution.

Section 6 of the act reads:

"That the following regulation and restriction shall be deemed and treated as a rule of procedure in the two houses, and the same will be observed in dealing with the budget bills, to wit: The legislature will not alter said bills except to strike out or reduce items therein, unless by a vote of two-thirds of the members elected in both houses, provided, however, that appropriations necessary for the payment of interest or principal due on the public debt will not be reduced or eliminated."

This section deals with the procedure on pending budget bills, the manner in which they may be amended. "Each house shall *** determine the rules of its proceedings." Const. § 53.

In United States v. Ballin, Joseph & Co., 144 U.S. 1, 12 S.Ct. 507, 36 L.Ed. 321, dealing with a like provision of the federal Constitution as applied to a rule for ascertaining the presence of a quorum, it was said:

"Neither do the advantages or disadvantages, the wisdom or folly, of such a rule present any matters for judicial consideration. With the courts the question is only one of power. The Constitution empowers each house to determine its rules of proceedings. It may not by its rules ignore constitutional restraints or violate fundamental rights, and there should be a reasonable relation between the mode or method of proceeding established by the rule and the result which is sought to be attained. But within these limitations all matters of method are open to the determination of the house, and it is no impeachment of the rule to say that some other way would be better, more accurate or even more just. It is no objection to the validity of a rule that a different one has been prescribed and in force for a length of time. The power to make rules is not one which once exercised is exhausted. It is a continuous power, always subject to be exercised by the house, and within the limitations suggested, absolute and beyond the challenge of any other body or tribunal."

The power of each house to determine its rules is the power in either house to adopt the same rules as the other, the power to make joint rules not inconsistent with the Constitution.

The point of concern in dealing with section 6 of the Budget Act, above quoted, arises upon a consideration of the rules of procedure prescribed by the Constitution itself. Section 53 must be construed in connection with other provisions. The power to make rules cannot overturn those rules relating to the course of pending legislation imbedded in the Constitution.

What are these constitutional rules? No law shall be passed except by bill, and no bill amended so as to change its original purpose. Section 61. No bill shall become a law until it shall have been referred to and acted upon by a standing committee. Section 62. Every bill shall be read on three different days in each house, the final reading to be at length, and passed by a majority vote of yeas and nays entered on the journals. Section 63. Section 64 reads:

"No amendment to bills shall be adopted except by a majority of the house wherein the same is offered, nor unless the amendment with the names of those voting for and against the same shall be entered at length on the journal of the house in which the same is adopted, and no amendment to bills by one house shall be concurred in by the other, unless a vote be taken by yeas and nays, and the names of the members voting for and against the same be recorded at length on the journal; and no report of a committee of conference shall be adopted in either house, except upon a vote taken by yeas and nays, and entered on the journal, as herein provided for the adoption of amendments."

There are rules for the style of laws, the titles of laws, and the form of amendments to existing laws (section 45); rules for the passage of local laws (section 106); and other rules will suggest themselves. No argument is needed to demonstrate that no rule of either house can evade or avoid the effect of these provisions. Precedents without number may be readily recalled.

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