Wiseman v. Boren
| Decision Date | 08 January 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 49087,49087 |
| Citation | 545 P.2d 753,1976 OK 2 |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
| Parties | William J. WISEMAN, Jr., Petitioner, v. David Lyle BOREN, Governor of the State of Oklahoma, et al., Respondents. |
Jane P. Wiseman, Wm. F. Latting, Tulsa, for petitioner.
Larry Derryberry, Atty. Gen., Mike D. Martin, Asst. Atty. Gen., Oklahoma City, for respondents.
James E. Hamilton, Poteau, pro se, and as a Member of the Oklahoma State Senate.
Fagin, Hewett, Mathews & Fagin by Arnold D. Fagin, Oklahoma City, for the Okl. Ed. Ass'n amicus curiae.
Glenn O. Young, Sapulpa, pro se, and for the Oklahoma Landowners Protective Ass'n, amicus curiae.
This is an application for this Court to assume original jurisdiction and issue writ of prohibition to prohibit Respondents from transferring further surplus from the State's General Revenue Fund to a Sinking Fund for the purpose of retiring State bonds without prior legislative appropriation.
Petitioner's request stems from an announcement by Respondent, Governor David Lyle Boren, that he had ordered the transfer of $80,265,824.66, representing surplus funds that had accrued to the State Treasury as of June 30, 1975, from the General Revenue Fund of the State to a Sinking Fund purported to be created by Article 10, § 23a, for use in retiring the outstanding and unpaid bonded indebtedness of the State of Oklahoma.
At the present time, the $80,265,824.66 in surplus funds has been transferred from the General Revenue Fund to certain sinking funds, but none has yet been paid out of the Treasury to retire any of the State's General obligation bonds.
The question before this Court is whether Respondents may constitutionally pay out the transferred funds without prior legislative appropriation in order to retire State bonds.
The cause has now been fully briefed and argued. We have concluded that this is a matter of great public concern. Accordingly, we assume jurisdiction.
While we are concerned with applying Art. 10, § 23a, as adopted in 1944, we must be cognizant of other related constitutional provisions. The movement for eliminating deficit spending in our State government started in 1941 with the submission and adoption of the so-called budget-balancing amendment by the Phillips administration.
During the war years the State's revenues flourished. It became apparent that the then outstanding State bonds could be paid off within a short time. The Governor and the Legislature decided to submit, by vote of a special legislative session, a constitutional amendment dealing with the subject. That amendment, when approved by the people on July 11, 1944, became Article 10, § 23a, which reads:
(Emphasis ours)
By these terms the people elected to dedicate a sufficient amount of the recurring General Revenue Fund surpluses into a Sinking Fund from which the 1935, 1939, and 1941 Funding Bonds could be retired. Petitioner argues that the executive and legislative intent was to safeguard the diminution of the last vestige of deficit financing in Oklahoma (as embodied in the 1935, 1939, and 1941 Funding Bonds), and that as § 23a functioned as an appropriation in 1944 then it ceased to have any further effect in 1945 (by its own terms) when its declared purpose was fulfilled. On the other hand, Respondents urge that in the enactment of § 23a the Legislature and the people of Oklahoma established not a temporary measure but a new, continuing fiscal policy that would prevent the State from ever operating at a deficit by requiring the State bonded debt to be paid off out of surplus funds in order to maintain a balanced fiscal position. Respondents contend that it would be ridiculous for the Governor and the Legislature to submit, and for the people to enact, a constitutional provision which would be in effect only ten months, until 1945, when it was determined by the Governor, the State Treasurer, and the Attorney General that sufficient monies had been accumulated in the Sinking Fund to pay off the 1935, 1939, and 1941 Funding Bonds.
It seems to us that Respondents' argument is refuted by the fact that although the certificate was issued May 29, 1945, as shown by the Certificate of Sufficiency issued by the Governor, State Treasurer, and the Attorney General, as above noted, which was some ten months after the July 11, 1944, enactment of § 23a, the records reflect that the bonds were not actually paid off until 1950 or perhaps later. There was, then, definite reason for protecting the surplus funds set aside for that purpose against possible appropriation by Legislators mindful of the needs for State services and the wishes of their constituents that these services be provided.
We conclude, as a result of applying the established canon of construction set out in Shaw v. Grumbine, 137 Okl. 95, 278 P. 311 (1929), which directs us to give effect to the clear meaning of unambiguous language, that the Petitioner's contention that Art. 10, § 23a, became functus officio when the last of the Refunding Bonds were paid off is correct. We are impressed by the specific statement that when 'the monies credited to said sinking fund together with the monies set aside to pay said bonded indebtedness, pursuant to the statutes authorizing the issuance of said bonds, are sufficient to pay all outstanding bonds and coupons heretofore issued by the State of Oklahoma, it shall no longer be necessary to credit surplus funds to the Sinking Fund herein created.' The words 'all outstanding bonds and coupons Heretofore issued' (emphasis supplied) certainly speak in terms of the past, not of the future. It 'shall no longer be necessary to credit surplus funds to the Sinking Fund herein created' (emphasis supplied) certainly has the connotation 'not any more', or 'never again'. Future operation of the amendment seems to us to be negated by these words. It is to be noted that on the ballot title by which Art. 10, § 23a, was submitted to the people, they were asked to vote 'Yes' or 'No' on a proposition stating, in significant part, 'providing when sufficient monies have accumulated to pay all outstanding bonds and coupons Heretofore issued by the State, surplus monies thereafter to the credit of the General Revenue Fund May be appropriated by the Legislature' (emphasis supplied). The ballot title in using the words 'heretofore issued' surely referred only to the outstanding bonds existing up to that time. We think that, at this late date, it would be improper to frustrate what clearly must have been the intention of the electors who voted in the affirmative upon a proposed amendment so clearly phrased to indicate a time limit for its effectiveness, and submitted to them upon a ballot so clearly indicating the same effect.
A number of other factors confirm our interpretation of this constitutional provision. In the first place, we take notice that on May 29, 1945, the Governor, the State Treasurer, and the Attorney General issued a certificate, in compliance with Art. 10, § 23a, reading, in significant part, as follows:
'WHEREAS, it appears that there is now on hand and in the custody of the State Treasurer sufficient monies and United States government securities to pay at maturity the principal and interest on all of the State's outstanding bonded indebtedness, and that the interest to be derived from said securities will be more than the amount necessary to pay the fiscal agency fees which are required to be paid to the fiscal agency by the State at the times the state bonds and coupons are paid and retired;
'NOW, THEREFORE, ROBERT S. KERR, THE GOVERNOR OF OKLAHOMA, A. S. J. SHAW, STATE TREASURER, AND RANDELL S. COBB, ATTORNEY GENERAL, do hereby make and certify the following determinations:
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