Case Title: STATE, EX REL. v. State Office Building Commission

Citation: 185 Kan. 563, 345 P.2d 674

Docket Number: 41,499

State: kansas

Court: Kansas Supreme Court

Date: 1959-11-07T00:00:00Z

Document:
185 Kan. 563 (1959)
345 P.2d 674
STATE OF KANSAS, ex rel. JOHN ANDERSON, JR., Attorney General, Plaintiff,
v.
THE STATE OFFICE BUILDING COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF KANSAS, and JOHN W. CASEBEER, JOHN O. ADAMS, CARL S. McCLUNG, ALVIN BAUMAN, F.O. DOTY, AMBROSE DEMPSEY and WADE M. FERGUSON, as Members of the State Office Building Commission of the State of Kansas, Defendants.
No. 41,499

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed November 7, 1959.
John Anderson, Jr., Attorney General, argued the cause and A.K. Stavely, Assistant Attorney General, and Robert E. Hoffman, Assistant Attorney General, were with him on the briefs for the Plaintiff.
Clayton E. Kline and Warren W. Shaw, both of Topeka, argued the cause and were on the briefs for the Defendants.
*564 The opinion of the court was delivered by
JACKSON, J.:
This is an original action of quo warranto in which the attorney general appears on behalf of the state to test the validity of one section of the statute, as amended, creating the defendant State Office Building Commission. The plaintiff challenges only the section providing for the appointment of the defendant commission as it was amended in 1953, and now appears in G.S. 1957 Supp. 75-3601. The contention is that since the section provides that only members of the legislature may be appointed by the governor to the commission, the statute is invalid under the state constitution as a violation of the provisions of the constitution providing for a separation of the powers of the executive, legislative and judicial departments of the state government. Plaintiff's contentions are set out in his amended petition filed with this court.
The defendants by proper denials in their answer put in issue only the question of law as to whether section 75-3601 violates the constitution.
The defendant commission was first created by L. 1945, ch. 314, at the time the present new state office building was in the proposal stage. The act was amended by L. 1947, ch. 428 to give the commission greater power. The act with the 1947 amendments appears in G.S. 1949, Chap. 75, Art. 36. This version of the statute was again amended by L. 1953, ch. 395, and these amendments appear in G.S. 1957, 75-3601 et seq. Section 75-3601, which is the only section questioned by the attorney general, reads as follows:
Until the amendment in 1953, members of the legislature might be appointed to the commission and all members served at the *565 pleasure of the governor. The constitutionality of the composition of the commission as created prior to 1953 was not tested by any proceeding in court. It will be noted from the above text of the section that it is now provided that at the time of appointment all members of the seven member commission must be members of the legislature, and that members are appointed for terms of four years. The validity of the section prior to 1953 is of course not an issue in this case.
The decision in this case must turn upon the answers to be given to a few fundamental questions. These questions may be stated as follows: First, what is the nature of the powers of the defendant commission? The attorney general contends that these powers are not legislative in any degree, but are purely executive and administrative powers.
If plaintiff be correct in the first proposition, then we must examine a second question. That question may be stated as being, do we find the constitutional principle of the separation of the powers of the executive, legislative and judicial departments of the state government provided for in the constitution of this state?
If the second question be answered in the affirmative, a third and final question must be determined. May members of the legislature hold executive office under the state government during the term for which they have been elected to the legislature?
I.
The powers of the defendant commission are set out in the act as amended and are to be found in the General Statutes and the Supplement thereto following section 75-3601. Plaintiff's brief has summarized these powers as follows:
A standard and often used definition of legislative power is found in 16 C.J.S. 545, § 130:
By the above standard or by any other standard known to us, the above powers of defendant commission must be said to be executive powers. We cannot find that this construction of the nature of the powers of defendant commission is disputed in defendant's brief.
Rather the first proposition in defendant's brief is that the instant case is controlled by the decisions in State, ex rel., v. Kansas Turnpike Authority, 176 Kan. 683, 273 P.2d 198, and State, ex rel., v. Fadely, 180 Kan. 652, 308 P.2d 537. As to this contention, we cannot agree.
In the Turnpike case, the court said on page 695:
The true meaning of the decision of the majority of this court in the Fadely case can be gleaned from the quotations set out below. In the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Schroeder, which was concurred in by Mr. Chief Justice Parker and Mr. Justice Price, it is said:
In the specially concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Robb is found the following language:
The specially concurring opinion continues with the citation and discussion of several Ohio decisions to the effect that if the powers exercised by the legislature could be said to be "quasi legislative," the statute should be upheld by the court.
It must be noted from the foregoing opinions, that the Turnpike case and especially the Fadely case were extremely borderline decisions. They do not control the present case because here the powers of the defendant commission are purely executive powers.
II.
Perhaps, in view of the above quotations from the Turnpike and Fadely cases, a full discussion of the principle of the separation of the powers of government under our state constitution is unnecessary. It must be apparent that the court in those cases did not hold that the legislature could usurp the powers of the executive department under the constitution. However, in view of the earnest argument in defendant's brief we proceed to a short examination of the constitution of the state of Kansas.
It has been said that our constitution was modeled after the constitution of Ohio. Be that as it may, the similarity of draftsmanship between the federal constitution and our state constitution can not be a happenstance.
In the first article of the federal constitution, all legislative power is conferred upon congress. In the second article of the state constitution, all legislative power is conferred upon the legislature. We shall not speculate as to why the legislature was relegated to the second article of the state constitution.
In the second article of the federal constitution, the executive power is vested in the President. In the first article of the state constitution all executive power is vested in the governor and other constitutional executive officers.
In the third article of both federal and state constitutions the *568 judicial power of the government is vested in the constitutional courts of the government.
The defendant states that the only prohibition against state officers holding other offices is to be found in Art. 3, sec. 13, relating to the judiciary. The argument apparently continues that the people of the state hold all power not conferred upon the federal government under the federal constitution (see Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution). Defendant says there is a difference between the state government and the federal government and the legislature is the repository of these reserve powers. The argument is condensed as follows on page 26 of defendant's brief:
We fear that defendant has overstated the proposition. It is the state or the people thereof to whom the power not granted to the federal government is reserved. Under the state constitution, the only power granted by the people to the legislature in Article 2 is legislative power. The legislature may exercise all legislative power possessed by the state, but can the legislature provide that its members may exercise executive or judicial power? If so, then under our constitution the legislature may change the government of this state to one which will conform to the government of the United Kingdom. There the actual chief executive officer is the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons. Furthermore, the supreme court of the nation and empire is the judiciary committee of the House of Lords.
It may be noted that the cases cited by defendant commission do not bear out the contention made in its brief.
In Leavenworth Co. v. Miller, 7 Kan. 479, 2nd Ed. star pages, the court said at page 491:
Again at page 501 of the above opinion, the court said:
Still later, on pages 507 and 508, the opinion in the Miller case continues:
There can be no question but that this court has always held that the legislature has all legislative power possessed by the state under our system of federal government. But defendants have failed to note that it is only legislative power which is conferred upon the legislature by the state constitution. There is no grant of executive power or of judicial power to the legislature. Those powers are granted to other departments of the state government by the state constitution, and the executive department and the judicial department represent the people of the state in the use of those powers just as the legislature does in its exercise of legislative power.
If the above propositions be true, and we earnestly believe them to be, the legislature of either the federal government or of the state of Kansas may not pass legislation conferring upon the legislature executive or judicial power. A brief inspection of the history down through the years and of decided cases under both constitutions shows that statesmen and lawyers have up to this time understood the above propositions to be the basis for the doctrine of separation of powers as that principle exists in the American system of government, first created by the constitutional convention of 1787.
Turning first to the material on the federal constitution, which we have shown to be almost identical to the Kansas constitution as to *570 the principle of separation of powers, we find that in the constitutional convention the principle of separation of powers was discussed and fully understood. A most readable discussion of the action of the constitutional convention opening in May, 1787, is found in the recent work of Hart and Wechsler, The Federal Courts and the Federal System, pages 13 to 16, inclusive. Liberal citations to Warren, The Making of the Constitution and to Ferrand, The Records of the Federal Constitution are found in the first cited work, if a more primary source is desired. Hart and Wechsler point out that on numerous occasions it was proposed that the supreme court, or certain members thereof, should be given power "to examine every act of the National Legislature before it shall operate." It is further shown that one of the prime reasons for the defeat of this proposal in all forms, and the substitution in its place of the president's power of veto was that to give the court such power would violate the principle of separation of powers between the departments of the government. It is further shown that at all times it was taken for granted that the supreme court would have power to hold statutes, both federal and state, unconstitutional for violating the federal constitution, when such statutes might come before the court in judicial "cases and controversies" as provided in Article 3 of the federal constitution. This last proposition is important since it lays to rest a popular concept that the framers of the constitution did not foresee the right of the court to declare statutes invalid.
In further considering the history of the federal constitution, it may be noted that the Federalist Papers deal with the matter of separation of powers in the proposed federal government and in the states as well. Papers numbers 47 to 51, inclusive, deal with this proposition. The first two of the series were written by James Madison and the last three by Alexander Hamilton. Both Madison and Hamilton were in complete agreement as to the proposition that the constitution, which they had been most influential in framing, provided for the separation of the powers of government between the three departments with a few exceptions spelled out in the constitution, such as the presidential veto power. We quote the following from Hamilton's last paper on the subject:
Of course, it may be observed that not only the framers of the federal constitution but the Supreme Court of the United States has consistently adhered to the proposition that the federal constitution, drawn on the same plan as the state constitution, provided for a separation of powers (Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 26 L. Ed. 377; Keller v. Potomac Elec. Co., 261 U.S. 428, 67 L. Ed. 731, 43 S. Ct. 445; Muskrat v. United States, 219 U.S. 346, 55 L. Ed. 246, 31 S.Ct. 250).
In the Thompson case, the court held congress had no judicial power under the constitution. In the Keller case, it was decided that under Art. 1, Sec. 8, clause 17, congress could provide that the courts of the District of Columbia might exercise administrative power since under the aforementioned clause congress had power to create a government for the district and to provide for such courts, but that the supreme court could not review such a decision of a court of the district since the supreme court had only been vested with judicial power over cases and controversies by the constitution. In the Muskrat case, it was held that congress might confer upon a legislative court, the Court of Claims, power to give an advisory opinion, but the supreme court had no such power under the constitution.
Turning now to the state constitution, we find that the framers of that constitution understood perfectly that by a division of the powers granted to the different departments of government, they had created a government in which the well-known American system of separation of powers existed (Wyandotte Convention of 1859, p. 128 to 130, inclusive).
All of the decisions of this court including all of the opinions in State, ex rel., v. Kansas Turnpike Authority and State, ex rel., v. Fadely, both supra, have taken for granted that the rule of separation of powers between the three great departments of the state *572 government was inherent in our constitution. Some of the other cases may be cited, although most of them were referred to in the opinions of the Turnpike and Fadely cases: Coleman v. Newby, 7 Kan. 82; In re Sims, Petitioner, 54 Kan. 1, 37 Pac. 135; In re Davis, 58 Kan. 368, 49 Pac. 160; In re Huron, 58 Kan. 152, 48 Pac. 574; State v. Johnson, 61 Kan. 803, 60 Pac. 1068; State v. Railway Co., 76 Kan. 467, 92 Pac. 606; Hicks v. Davis, 97 Kan. 312, 154 Pac. 1030; Ruland v. City of Augusta, 120 Kan. 42, 242 Pac. 456; Verdigris Conservancy District v. Objectors, 131 Kan. 214, 289 Pac. 966; and State, ex rel., v. Ancient Order of United Workmen, 178 Kan. 69, 283 P.2d 461.
III.
We shall now consider the eligibility of individual members of the legislature to hold executive office during the terms for which they have been elected to the legislature.
Defendants point to Art. 2, sec. 19 and Art. 15, sec. 1, of the state constitution and contend those provisions of the constitution give the legislature power to provide for the appointment and selection of all officers not otherwise provided for in the constitution. But does not the constitutional principle of separation of powers limit the legislature in the exercise of this power?
It would seem clear that if it had been provided in the 1953 act, now under discussion, that the defendant commission should be composed of members of the legislature appointed by the leader of the senate and the speaker of the house of representatives, there would have been little question as to the invalidity of the statute. Can the statute be made valid by the device of conferring upon the governor the right or duty of appointing the legislative committee to take over the performance of the executive functions?
This device of giving power of appointing members of "parliament" to executive office is not a new system. Under the British "parliamentary government" the prime minister is even today appointed by the crown. William Pitt, the friend of the American colonist, was first appointed in 1783, the year of Cornwallis' surrender and is said to have been the first prime minister directly responsible to parliament and not to the king. Even without modern communications in 1788, James Madison in his first Federalist paper on separation of powers, supra, was fully aware of the new British system. Madison in pointing out the difference between the British parliamentary government and the American government *573 to be created by the proposed federal constitution, says in part:
The great statesman continued by pointing out the legislative control over the judiciary, as well. Both Madison and Alexander Hamilton, see supra, described the legislature as being the department most apt to encroach upon the prerogatives of the other departments of government.
It may be pointed out that there have been certain checks supplied for the British parliament since 1787; that in importing the parliamentary system to France these later checks were not provided for and that the third and fourth French Republics suffered therefrom; that in the recently formed French Fifth Republic, the government of France has been turned away from the parliamentary system and toward the American system and the new constitution provides for an independent executive department.
Be that as it may, we believe that Madison and Hamilton would have thought the act now under consideration violated their proposed constitution in 1787, and we would point out, contrary to defendants' argument, that our state constitution is theoretically similar to the federal constitution as far as the theory of separation of powers is concerned.
Regardless of the lack of the modern British checks upon parliament in the Kansas constitution, it would seem that section 75-3601 as amended in 1953 violated the American theory of separation of powers set forth in the Kansas constitution at the time of enactment and is therefore still unconstitutional today.
By the provisions of Art. 2, sec. 29 of the state constitution, members of the house of representatives are elected for terms of two years and senators for terms of four years. They are constitutional legislative officers for the entire period of their terms. We know they may perform and do many lawful, legislative functions during the period when the legislature is not in session.
By Art. 2, sec. 5, members of the state legislature lose their seats in that body if after election they are thereafter elected or appointed to any office under the authority of the United States government. It is certainly arguable that the framers of the constitution believed that the principle of separation of powers would prevent any constitutional *574 legislative officer of the state from holding any office under the state in the executive or judicial departments.
Plaintiff has cited the cases of Book v. State Office Building Commission, (Ind.) 149 N.E.2d 237; Stockman v. Leddy, 55 Colo. 24, 129 Pac. 220; Spartanburg County v. Miller, Treas., 135 S.C. 348, 132 S.E. 673; Bramlette v. Stringer, 186 S.C. 134, 195 S.E. 257; and Ashmore et al. v. Greater Gr'ville Sewer D. et al., 211 S.C. 77, 44 S.E.2d 88. As called to our attention by defendants' brief, the constitution of Colorado, Indiana and South Carolina all specifically prohibit an officer in one department of the state government from performing duties in another department of the government.
However, we would direct attention to the opinion in Ruland v. City of Augusta, supra, wherein the late Mr. Chief Justice Harvey, in a case holding invalid the conference of legislative power upon part of the judiciary department, said:
Of this we are certain, that if the creation of a completely legislative committee to perform duties which are entirely within the executive department is not invalid, then the principle of separation of powers between the three departments of the state government does not exist under our state constitution. Stripped of all refinements, we believe that is the import of defendant commission's argument. *575 This court has always held that the constitution provided for a division of powers between the departments of the state government. Some of the cases are cited supra. We have no disposition to recede from our former decisions.
From what has been said, it is evident that plaintiff will be entitled to judgment. However, the validity of the defendants' actions during the space of time from 1953 to the filing of this opinion will immediately be in question. From the time of its creation in 1953 until the filing of this opinion, the acts of the members of defendant commission were those of de facto officers binding between all persons dealing with the commission as a public body composed of public officers, see State, ex rel., v. Hodgson, 183 Kan. 272, 326 P.2d 752, syl. 4 and cases cited in that opinion.
It is further held that upon the filing of this opinion, the duties of the defendant commission shall devolve upon the executive council, which has power to manage the property of the state (G.S. 1949, 75-2101 et seq.).
Judgment is entered for the plaintiff pursuant to the prayer of the amended petition and in accordance with the views expressed in this opinion.
It is so ordered.
PRICE, J., dissenting:
I have no quarrel with what is said concerning the doctrine of "separation of powers" and the "three branches of government." Except, however, for a slight difference in "degree," I am unable to distinguish this case, in principle, from what was said and held on the subject in State, ex rel., v. Kansas Turnpike Authority, 176 Kan. 683, 692-696, 273 P.2d 198, and State, ex rel., v. Fadely, 180 Kan. 652, 667, 308 P.2d 537, and to which I adhere.
I therefore respectfully dissent.
FATZER, J., concurring:
I fully concur in the holding of the court for the reasons so ably stated by Mr. Justice Jackson, and further, for the reason of what was said in my dissenting opinion in State, ex rel., v. Fadely, 180 Kan. 652, 668, 308 P.2d 537.