Tuck v. Blackmon
| Decision Date | 08 March 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 2000-CA-00759-SCT.,2000-CA-00759-SCT. |
| Citation | 798 So.2d 402 |
| Parties | Amy TUCK, Lieutenant Governor, State of Mississippi v. Senators Barbara BLACKMON, Robert Johnson, John Horhn, Willie Simmons, Johnnie Walls, David Jordan and Sampson Jackson. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Office of the Attorney General by T. Hunt Cole, Jr., Attorney for Appellant.
Trent Walker, Canton, Attorney for Appellees.
EN BANC.
¶ 1. This matter comes to the Court on appeal from an order of the Chancery Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County wherein the chancellor declared that Lieutenant Governor Amy Tuck, in failing to order the reading in full of a conference report presented to the Mississippi Senate during the 2000 legislative session, upon the demand of a member of the Senate, violated Article 4, Section 59 of the Mississippi Constitution. The powers of government in our state, as in our nation, are vested in the citizens. Through our Constitution, certain of these powers are distributed by the citizens among three separate branches of government under a tripartite constitutional structure which grants to each branch broad but nevertheless limited and often exclusive powers beyond the scope of each of the other branches. Today we hold as we have held throughout our history that only after heightened consideration and under exigent circumstances will judicial authority to regulate the internal actions of the Legislature be exercised. Therefore, we reverse the judgment of the chancery court and stay the hand of the court in attempting to regulate the legislative process.
¶ 2. During the closing days of the 2000 legislative session, the Senate was considering conference committee reports when Senator Barbara Blackmon rose on a point of order and asked that "whatever that is going to be passed into law, whatever is going to pass into the state statute, or whatever the Governor is going to sign, be read in full before final passage." The request was made pursuant to Article 4, Section 59 of the Mississippi Constitution of 1890, and the Lieutenant Governor, then presiding, ruled that the Senator was not entitled to have House Bill 1609 read because the matter before the Senate was not a bill, but was a conference report, not subject to the requirements of Section 59. Senate Rule 112 allows an appeal from a ruling of the presiding officer to the whole Senate; however, Senator Blackmon and six other senators aggrieved by the ruling chose not to seek such redress, but rather filed their complaint in the chancery court seeking injunctive relief to compel the enforcement of Section 59 as they understood it. ¶ 3. On Sunday afternoon, April 30, 2000, as the 2000 legislative session was drawing to an end, the seven members of the Senate filed in the chancery court a Complaint for Temporary Restraining Order, Writ of Mandamus and Injunctive Relief, seeking judicial action to prevent the Lieutenant Governor in her capacity as President of the Senate from enforcing her ruling denying the request that House Bill 1609 be read in full after it had passed and the conference committee report had been filed. On the following evening, the chancellor entered a temporary restraining order granting the relief sought, apparently with no formal notice to the Lieutenant Governor, and set the matter down for hearing on the merits of the complaint on the following day, May 1, at 1:30 p.m. At the conclusion of that hearing, the chancellor entered her order granting the requested injunction and further declaratory relief which required that, on the request of any Senator, full conference reports must be read immediately before a vote on final passage. The legislative deadline for action on appropriations and revenue bills during that session of the Legislature was 2:00 p.m. of the same day. Appropriation conference reports were required to be passed and filed by 6:00 p.m. and bond conference reports by 12:00 midnight of the same day. In less than forty-eight hours, the proceeding in the chancery court had gone from the filing of the complaint to a final declaratory judgment. At risk were over one hundred appropriation bills and over $170,000,000 in appropriation and bond measures.
¶ 4. After the chancellor's order was entered, on motion of the Lieutenant Governor, this Court stayed the chancery court's order, and this appeal was filed.
¶ 5. On appeal, the Lieutenant Governor challenges the chancery court's authority to issue its restraining order and declaratory judgment and the procedures followed in that court.
¶ 6. With respect to the separate powers of each branch of governments, the courts will generally refrain from interfering with the Legislature's interpretation and application of its procedural rules and with its internal operations. In Dye v. State ex rel. Hale, 507 So.2d 332 (Miss. 1987), this Court was presented with a challenge to the delegation of powers by the Senate to the Lieutenant Governor, in his capacity as President of the Senate. In Dye, the issue was a fundamental one of the unique position of the Lieutenant Governor as an executive officer with specific legislative duties as President of the Senate, presenting a crucial question of the interplay between the executive and legislative branches. This Court explained its role with regard to the workings of the Legislature in these words:
Without doubt, we will as a general rule decline adjudication of controversies arising within the Legislative Department of government where those controversies relate solely to the internal affairs of that department. On the other hand, legislators nor the bodies in which they serve are above the law, and in those rare instances where a claim is presented that the actions of a legislative body contravene rights secured by the constitutions of the United States or of this state, it is the responsibility of the judiciary to act, notwithstanding that political considerations may motivate the assertion of the claims nor that our final judgment may have practical political consequences. Where, as here, it is alleged that one arguably a member of the Executive Department of government is exercising powers properly belonging to the Legislative Department, we are of necessity called upon to decide whether the encroachment exists in fact and, if so, whether it contravenes the mandate of Sections 1 and 2 of our Constitution that the powers of government be separate....
Id. at 338-39 (citations omitted). After making clear that it had before it something more than mere rules for internal operations of the Senate, but rather questions basic to the separation of powers among the great branches of government, this Court spoke to its authority to declare Senate rules unconstitutional:
While this Court certainly has the authority to declare Senate rules unconstitutional, the Court should not do so unless those rules are "manifestly" beyond the Senate's constitutional authority. Indeed, the Court has zealously defended its authority to make rules regulating proceedings within the Judicial Department free of any restrictions found in statutes. Considerations of comity militate in favor of this Court's restraint in the face of a challenge to the Senate's similar prerogative to adopt its own rules, absent manifest unconstitutionality of a type not present here.
Id. at 345-46 (citations & footnote omitted). An interpretation by the Senate of the extent of its power under the Constitution, while not binding on the courts, should be accepted unless manifestly wrong. Witherspoon v. State ex rel. West, 138 Miss. 310, 326, 103 So. 134, 138-39 (1925), cited with approval in Dye, 507 So.2d at 345.
¶ 7. Our policy of restraint in venturing into the internal operations of the Legislature as expressed in Dye is rooted in longstanding recognition of the wisdom of such restraint as expressed in Ex parte Wren, 63 Miss. 512 (1886) and Hunt v. Wright, 70 Miss. 298, 11 So. 608 (1892). In Wren, the appellant who challenged the efficacy of a statute as signed by the Governor, tried to delve into the legislative process, specifically to offer journals to show that amendments had been adopted but dropped from the bill when it was submitted to the Governor. The Court disallowed this saying:
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...Nixon v. U.S., 506 U.S. 224, 113 S.Ct. 732, 122 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993) (all justices except Justices White and Blackmon); Tuck v. Blackmon, 798 So.2d 402 (Miss.2001) (all voting justices except Presiding Justice Banks and Justice Diaz). ¶ 63. Turning now to some of the separate opinions, Chief Ju......
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