Case Title: In Re Advisory Opinion to the Governor

Citation: 223 So. 2d 35

Docket Number: 

State: florida

Court: Florida Supreme Court

Date: 1969-05-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
223 So. 2d 35 (1969)
In re ADVISORY OPINION TO THE GOVERNOR.
No. 38563.

Supreme Court of Florida.
May 14, 1969.
Dear Governor:
We have the honor to acknowledge your communication of April 24, 1969, requesting our opinion upon a question affecting your executive powers and duties as authorized by Section 1(c), Article IV, Florida Constitution.
Omitting the formal parts, your letter reads as follows:
In accordance with the provisions of Rule 2.1(h), Florida Appellate Rules, this request was filed with the Clerk. The Court, after conference, determined that such request was within the purview of Sec. 1(c), Art. IV, Fla. Const., 1968 and also determined that interested persons would be permitted to be heard on the questions presented through briefs and oral arguments. Notice of the hearing was given by the Clerk to the news media. William T. Mayo and Jess Yarborough, Chairman and Member, respectively, of the Florida Public Service Commission, through their attorney filed a brief and appeared at the oral argument.
We can look to historical backgrounds in construing the Constitution of 1968 to determine the cause and intent of its adoption. Lummus v. Adirondack School, 123 Fla. 810, 168 So. 232 (1936).
Art. XVI, Sec. 30, Fla. Const., 1885, provided as follows:
This section was not a grant of power to the Legislature, nor was it a limitation upon the power of the Legislature. It was simply an expressed recognition of a power existing in the legislative department of the state government. State v. Florida East Coast Railway Company, 57 Fla. 522, 49 So. 43 (1909). The Legislature had inherent authority to create and empower a Public Utilities Commission. See 73 C.J.S., Public Utilities, § 33, p. 1056.
Pursuant to this constitutional provision, which was merely declaratory of an inherent power, the Legislature in 1887 created what was then known as the Florida Railroad Commission. That agency was abolished by Ch. 4700, Laws of 1899, and a new railroad commission was created. The name of this agency was changed by several different acts of succeeding Legislatures until finally, in 1965, it became the Florida Public Service Commission. Ch. 65-52, § 1; Fla. Stat., § 350.11 (F.S.A.). This agency has never been a constitutional body, but is simply a creature of the Legislature. Beginning with railroads and related carriers in 1899 the jurisdiction of the Commission has been extended by succeeding Legislatures until, at the present time, it regulates the rates and service of railroads, motor carriers, freight forwarders, toll bridges and ferries, canal companies, telephone and telegraph companies, radio common carriers, private wire service, and gas and electric utilities. In addition the Commission regulates the rates and service of water and sewer systems in fifteen counties of the State. This jurisdiction has been granted the Commission by various acts of the Legislature. These laws are still in effect as § 6(a), Art. XII, Fla. Const., 1968 provides:
The omission of Sec. 30, Art. XVI, Fla. Const., 1885, or similar provisions, in the Constitution of 1968 is immaterial in view of the inherent power of the Legislature to regulate these types of business enterprises involved in public service.
However, Sec. 10, Art. XII, Fla. Const., 1968, provides as follows:
So it is that former Sec. 30, Art. XVI, Fla. Const., 1885 has now become a statute subject to modification or repeal as are other statutes.
Administrative law and the creation of administrative agencies are of common law origin and existed long before the term "administrative law" came into use. The first Federal administrative law was embodied in the 1789 Statutes, and shortly thereafter legal writers conceded that the old doctrine prohibiting the delegation of legislative power had "virtually retired from the field." Administrative Law Treatise by Davis, Vol. 1, § 1.04. Except in the comparatively rare cases, where a combination of powers in a single agency was deemed to threaten, in some measure, the respective primacies of the Legislature or of the Courts, the State courts have sustained the delegation of combined legislative, prosecutory, and judicial powers to agencies. State Administrative Law by Cooper, Vol. One, p. 25. The three large segments of administrative law relate to transfer of power from Legislatures to agencies, exercise of power by the agencies, and review of administrative action by the Courts. The theory of separation of powers, while still guiding the drafters of various state constitutions, has hardly any influence upon administrative arrangements or activities. The problems of delegation are of sharply diminishing importance in state law. Administrative Law Treatise by Davis, Vol. 1, § 1.01. This Court in Florida Motor Lines v. Railroad Commissioners, 100 Fla. 538, 129 So. 876 (1930) said:
Sec. 3, Art. II, Fla. Const., 1968, provides:
This is a restatement of the provisions contained in Art. II, Fla. Const., 1885, relating to division of power and its adoption by the people did not result in the abolishment of the Florida Public Service Commission. The Legislature may still delegate legislative powers and judicial powers to an administrative agency. In fact, Sec. 1, Art. V of the present Constitution provides that the "judicial power" of the state is vested in named courts "and such other courts * * * or commissions, as the Legislature may from time to time *39 ordain and establish." (Emphasis supplied.)
The following also appears in Florida Motor Lines v. Railroad Commissioners, 100 Fla. 538, 129 So. 876 (1930):
The Constitution of 1968 must be given effect according to its plain meaning and what the people must have understood it to mean at the time they adopted it. Advisory Opinion to Governor, 156 Fla. 48, 22 So. 2d 398 (1945). At the time of the adoption of the Constitution the Commissioners were an elected body responsible to the people and exercising quasi legislative and quasi judicial functions.
As early as 1897 the Legislature realized the great impact of public service corporations on the citizens of the state and a necessity of some type of control. An agency regulating public service corporations has more effect on the lives of more people than any other agency. Therefore, in formulating the statute, the Legislature gave the people the right to elect the Commissioners of this administrative body. Since 1897 the original statute has been changed many times but, because of the importance of its regulatory activities, the *40 agency has been allowed to maintain its power to enforce its own orders and the Commissioners are still elected. This is the State's only independently elected administrative body.
We have examined the Minutes of the Florida Constitutional Revision Commission during the debates concerning the proposed Sec. 4, Art. IV, Fla. Const., 1968 and find no reference to the Florida Public Service Commission. While these discussions were instructive as to background, nevertheless what was submitted to the people for adoption was Sec. 4, Art. IV and not any discussion or debate which may have taken place during the meetings of the Commission. See 16 C.J.S., Constitutional Law, § 31; City of Springfield v. Clouse, 356 Missouri 1239, 206 S.W.2d 539 (1947).
The analysis of the 1968 Constitution prepared by the Legislative Reference Bureau and widely distributed to the electorate stated that the new provision "would reduce the number of executive departments." (Emphasis supplied.)
Sec. 6, Art. IV, Fla. Const., 1968 by its very terms applies only to the executive branch, while the Florida Public Service Commission is a part of the legislative or the judicial branch of government.
While we hold the Commission is not one of the functions of the executive branch to be allotted among the twenty-five executive departments, there is no preclusion in the 1968 Constitution preventing the Legislature from making the members of the Commission either elective or appointive, or placing the Commission under the Governor, or the State Cabinet, or abolishing it, or modifying the composition of the Commission.
We advise therefore that the performance of the duties of the Florida Public Service Commission as presently constituted under Florida Statutes is not a function of the executive branch of state government so as to require the reorganization of the commission under Secs. 1(e) and 6, Art. IV, of the Constitution.