Thomas v. Askew, 42909
| Decision Date | 06 December 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 42909,42909 |
| Citation | 270 So.2d 707 |
| Parties | Jerry THOMAS et al., Appellants, v. Reubin O'D. ASKEW et al., Appellees. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Mark R. Hawes, St. Petersburg, for appellants.
Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., and John P. Ingle, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Arnold L. Greenfield and Robert E. Niro, Tallahassee, Dept. of General Services, for appellees.
Kenneth E. Easley, Clearwater, for Save Our Capitol, Inc., as amicus curiae.
Appellants filed suit in the Leon County Circuit Court against Appellees as Head of the Department of General Services of the State of Florida in an attempt to halt construction of the twenty-five million dollar state capitol complex building. The trial court granted Appellees' motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action; Appellants appealed that decision to this Court and raised the following issues:
I. Whether the construction of a new capitol and demolition of the existing building is unauthorized and in violation of Sections 272.122, 272.124 and 272.126, Florida Statutes;
II. Whether Chapter 72--409(4)(25), Laws of Florida 1972, an item of the 1972 General Appropriations Act providing $25,000,000 from the General Revenue Fund for the Florida State Capitol Complex, is an unconstitutional inclusion of substantive law in an appropriations act; and,
III. Whether the title to Chapter 72--409, Laws of Florida 1972, is constitutionally defective for failure to put interested persons on notice of its authorization of a new capitol.
The Statutes relied upon by Appellants provide in pertinent part as follows:
'272.124 Division of building construction and maintenance; power to contract.--The division of building construction and maintenance of the department of general services is authorized and empowered to make and enter into any contract or agreement, with any person or agency, public or private, to lease, buy, acquire, construct, hold or dispose of real and personal property necessary to carry out the objects and purposes of this act; provided however no contract may be entered into without specific authorization of the Legislature for the project.'
It is the Appellants' contention that the requirement in Sections 272.122 and 272.124 of specific legislative authorization for construction within the capitol center means that a statute, separate from the General Appropriations Act, specifically authorizing construction of a new state capitol must be enacted before construction of such building can commence. That is not the intention of these Sections.
Sections 272.122, 272.124 and 272.126 were the result of enactments of the legislature in earlier sessions in the years 1965, 1967, 1969 and 1971, prior to the enactment of the 1972 General Appropriations Act. Such enactments cannot restrict subsequent legislative general appropriations. Only limiting provisions of the State Constitution (hereinafter discussed) can have restrictive effects on the legislative power to appropriate.
The capitol center in Tallahassee, Florida, is filled with buildings constructed without benefit of specific Statutory authorization. The authorization requirement of Chapter 272 historically has been met by the specific inclusion in a general appropriation act of the monies necessary for the construction of the specified building. That was done in this case.
Chapter 72--409(4)(25), Laws of Florida 1972, the General Appropriations Act, provides:
'Section 4. The monies in the following items are appropriated from the named funds to the Department of General Services for the named agencies for capital outlay--buildings and improvements for the 1972--73 fiscal year as listed herein; provided, however, that no contract shall be entered into or any of the funds encumbered in any manner without the approval and consent of the Department of General Services. * * *
Provided, however, no expenditure shall be made under Items 14, 25, and 28 prior to the establishment of a capitol center planning district.
"Item Amount
------------------------------ -----------
$
GENERAL SERVICES
DEPARTMENT OF
25. Florida State Capital
Complex
From General Revenue
Fund................... 25,000,000"
It is clear that the Legislature, in enacting this item of the Appropriations Act, intended and directed that the Department of General Services should be the administrative body to let the necessary contracts and supervise the planning and construction details incident to the state capitol complex building project. All items of appropriation of necessity refer to the official, agency, recipient, or purpose contemplated to use, receiver, or expend the funds. None is appropriated in a vacuum. Furthermore, in appropriating twenty-five million dollars for the new capitol building, the Legislature expressly superseded Section 272.126's earlier requirement that the legislative wings be built and the present capitol be reconstructed for no more than ten million dollars.
Appellants' contention that the construction of a new capitol building is in conflict with Chapter 272, Florida Statutes, F.S.A., therefore, has no merit because, as noted, prior statutes cannot tie the hands of succeeding legislatures acting within their constitutional powers.
The trial court must be affirmed unless we find that the inclusion of the twenty-five million dollar capitol appropriation in Chapter 72--409 violates some constitutional limitation, i.e., in this case either Article III, Section 6, or Article III, Section 12, of the Florida Constitution, F.S.A., as Appellants contend.
Those sections provide in pertinent part as follows:
'Section 6. Laws.--Every law shall embrace but one subject and matter properly connected therewith, and the subject shall be briefly expressed in the title. . . .'
Their purposes are:
'First, to prevent hodgepodge or logrolling legislation;
'Second, to prevent surprise or fraud upon the Legislature by means of including a provision in a bill of which the title gives no intimation and which might therefore be overlooked and carelessly and unintentionally adopted; and
'Third, to fairly apprise the people, through such publication of legislative proceedings as is usually made, of the suggestions of legislation that are being considered, in order that they may have opportunity of being heard thereon, if they shall so desire. Dickinson v. Stone, Fla.1971, 251 So.2d 268, 272.
In contending Chapter 72--409(4)(25) violates Article III, Section 12, by including substantive law in an appropriations act, Appellants rely upon our decision in Dickinson v. Stone, supra. There, we held that portion of the 1971 General Appropriations Act, which provided for the transfer of personnel and data processing equipment from the Comptroller to the Department of General Services (Section 2, Chapter 71--357, Laws of Florida 1971), was in violation of the above constitutional provisions.
The section which contained an appropriation to the Carlton Data Center stated:
We found that the above provision violated Article III, Section 12, Florida Constitution, because it constituted an attempt in express language to amend substantive law by a provision in an appropriations act transferring duties, property, and personnel from one executive department to another. This transfer was not, we felt, 'so relevant to, interwoven with, and interdependent upon the appropriation of funds for the operation of the Carlton Data Center so as to justify . . . its inclusion within the General Appropriations Act.' Dickinson v. Stone, supra, at 251 So.2d 274.
The item in the 1972 General Appropriations Act providing twenty-five million dollars for construction of the new capitol, however, deals solely with an appropriation for the purpose stated without more. It is not logrolling legislation; it is nothing other than an often-used line-item appropriation of funds for a...
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