Case Name: STATE of New Mexico ex rel. Toney ANAYA, Attorney General, Petitioner, v. The Hon. Robert H. McBRIDE, District Judge, Second Judicial District of New Mexico, Respondent
Court: Supreme Court of New Mexico
Jurisdiction: New Mexico
Decision Date: 1975-06-18
Citations: 88 N.M. 244
Docket Number: No. 10346
Parties: STATE of New Mexico ex rel. Toney ANAYA, Attorney General, Petitioner, v. The Hon. Robert H. McBRIDE, District Judge, Second Judicial District of New Mexico, Respondent.
Judges: OMAN and MONTOYA, JJ., concur.
Reporter: New Mexico Reports
Volume: 88
Pages: 244–261

Head Matter:
539 P.2d 1006
STATE of New Mexico ex rel. Toney ANAYA, Attorney General, Petitioner, v. The Hon. Robert H. McBRIDE, District Judge, Second Judicial District of New Mexico, Respondent.
No. 10346.
Supreme Court of New Mexico.
June 18, 1975.
Order of Ouster July 1, 1975.
Toney Anaya, Atty. Gen., Jay F. Rosen-thal, Asst. Atty. Gen., Harry L. Bigbee, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Santa Fe, for petitioner.
Bruce D. Hall, Willard F. Kitts, Albuquerque, Olmsted & Cohen, Charles D. Olmsted, Santa Fe, for respondent.

Opinion:
OPINION
STEPHENSON, Justice.
This is a proceeding in quo warranto filed as an original action before us by the attorney general (petitioner) testing the constitutionality of the appointment of the Honorable Robert H. McBride (respondent) as district judge of the Second Judicial District. The controversy centers on Article IV, Section 28 of the Constitution of New Mexico which restricts the appointment of members of the legislature to civil offices under certain circumstances. Final resolution of the case has been delayed, pending the filing of a stipulation of counsel requested by us and which has now been received.
Respondent was elected to the New Mexico Senate at the general election held November 3, 1970 for a four-year term, and qualified in January, 1971. During the 1972 legislative session, the salaries of district judges were increased by $7,000.00 per annum. Respondent was again a successful candidate for election to the New Mexico Senate at the general election held November 5, 1974. However, before he qualified and prior to the commencement of the 1975 legislative session, Governor Apodaca appointed him to the district bench, filling a vacancy resulting from a resignation. Judge McBride qualified and has ever since been engaged in the discharge of those duties.
Petitioner contends that under the stated facts, respondent's appointment was in violation of N.M.Const. art. IV, § 28 which in part provides:
"No member of the legislature shall, during the term for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office in the state, nor shall he within one year thereafter be appointed to any civil office created, or the emoluments of which were increased during such term; $ ‡ ‡
A surplus of legal theories have been advanced in regard to this case by lawyers, both amateur and professional. However, the issues have markedly narrowed in scope during its pendency to an extent which reflects considerable credit upon the powers of analysis and breadth of vision of counsel for the parties. The petitioner's brief in chief contains seven points. The respondent's amended answer to the petition and his answer brief conceded the jurisdiction of the court, the propriety of a quo warranto proceeding under these circumstances, and the petitioner's standing to assert the constitutional prohibition to the respondent's appointment. Neither is it contended that the magnitude of the 1972 salary increase is de minimus.
Accordingly, counsel for respondent have answered to only two points raised by petitioner, one of which was an assertion that respondent had been appointed to a civil office during the term for which he had been elected in 1974. Counsel for the attorney general, in the reply brief, have even dropped this assertion, expressing doubt that mere election without subsequent qualification or acceptance of the office would bring the respondent within that portion of art. IV, § 28 which prohibits ap pointment during one's term. Moreover, inasmuch as respondent's successor as senator qualified on January 21, 1975 the petitioner now concedes that a holding that respondent should be ousted subject to immediate reappointment would serve no purpose.
Despite respondent's concession of jurisdiction and petitioner's standing to bring this action, the minority view in this case reasons that a procedural requirement in § 22-15-6, N.M.S.A.1953 was not satisfied because "the name of the person rightfully entitled to the office with a statement of his right thereto" was not set forth in the complaint. It is asserted that under State ex rel. Hannett v. Ct. 1st Dist., Santa Fe Co. et al., 30 N.M. 300, 233 P. 1002 (1925), this failure affects the subject matter jurisdiction of the court allowing us to raise the jurisdictional issue on our own accord and dismiss the action.
It is probably sufficient to say that this argument was not advanced by respondent, but in view of the nature of the case and the analysis of the dissent, we are not content to let the matter rest there.
As we understand the dissent, its primary thrust is to urge that quo warranto is "strictly statutory," that the pleading requirements specified in § 22-15-6, particularly the part requiring the name of the person rightfully entitled to the office, is "substantive," and, that allegation being omitted, we lack "jurisdiction."
We do not agree with any of this. Quo warranto is an ancient common law writ the origins of which are obscured by time. See 65 Am.Jur.2d "Quo Warranto" § 2 (1972). More to the point, N.M.Const. art. VI, § 3 states in part:
"The Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction in quo warranto against all state officers
Clearly, this court has power and authority to hear and determine quo warranto cases and to grant relief. There is thus no question at all concerning our jurisdiction. See Grace v. Oil Conservation Commission of New Mexico, 87 N.M. 205, 531 P.2d 939 (1975). Furthermore, the statutory provision requiring the name of the person rightfully entitled to the office is clearly procedural. Our constitutional power under N.M.Const. art. III, § 1 and art. VI, § 3 of superintending control over all inferior courts carries with it the inherent power to regulate all pleading, practice and procedure affecting the judicial branch of government. State v. Roy, 40 N.M. 397, 60 P.2d 646 (1936). See also Alexander v. Delgado, 84 N.M. 717, 507 P.2d 778 (1973); Sitta v. Zinn, 77 N.M. 146, 420 P.2d 131 (1966); State v. Arnold, 51 N.M. 311, 183 P.2d 845 (1947); City of Roswell v. Holmes, 44 N.M. 1, 96 P.2d 701 (1939); cf. State v. Gunzelman, 85 N.M. 295, 512 P.2d 55 (1973).
Under the Constitution, the legislature lacks the power to prescribe by statute rules of practice and procedure, although it has in the past attempted to do so. Certainly statutes purporting to regulate practice and procedure in the courts cannot be made binding, for the constitutional power is vested exclusively in this court.
In Alexander v. Delgado, supra, we referred to the statutes purporting to regulate certiorari to the Court of Appeals. We there said that:
" [t] his court has no quarrel with the statutory arrangements which seem reasonable and workable and has not seen fit to change by rule." 84 N.M. at 718, 507 P.2d at 779.
But we cannot give our approval to the portion of § 22-15-6 under discussion, at least not if it has the meaning attributed to it by the dissent, especially since the statute is inconsistent with Rule 12(a) of the Rules Governing Appeals [§ 21-12-12(a), N.M.S.A.1953 (1974 Interim Supp.)]. How would it be possible to make such an allegation here, or in any situation where a vacancy has been filled by appointment? Under the reasoning of the dissent, art. IV, § 28 would be read out of the Constitution and thus, a governor could make con stitutionally invalid appointments at his pleasure. Moreover, we would in such cases be shorn of our constitutional powers vis-a-vis quo warranto, and presumably, with additional bits of legislative ingenuity, of our powers to issue other extraordinary writs as well. Such could not have been the intention of the people when art. Ill, § 1 and art. VI, § 3 were adopted and we will not construe the Constitution to reach such an absurd result.
The part of the dissent under consideration relies primarily upon State ex rel. Hannett v. Ct. 1st Dist., Santa Fe Co. et al., supra, reasoning that quo warranto statutes must be "strictly applied." This is negated by Hannett's own words. Writing for the court, Chief Justice Parker said:
"It may be said, preliminarily, that statutes of this kind are remedial in character, and as such should be liberally interpreted to effectuate the objects intended." 30 N.M. at 305, 233 P. at 1004.
Hannett is not authority for the proposition that the procedural requirement under discussion adversely affects the subject matter jurisdiction of this court to determine a quo warranto action questioning the constitutional legality of one's appointment to public office. Hannett was a prohibition proceeding brought to challenge Manuel B. Otero's right to bring a quo warran-to action in his own name challenging the propriety of an election contest between him and Arthur T. (A. T.) Hannett. This court properly held, after reviewing the quo warranto statutes, ' that the state, through the attorney general, is an indispensable party plaintiff in a quo warranto proceeding "of this kind." The reason for this requirement, of course, is that:
" a private person cannot have the writ to adjudicate his title to an office, and, indeed, the proceeding in the nature of a quo warranto goes only to removing the intruder, and no further." Vigil v. Stroup, 15 N.M. 544, 552, 110 P. 830, 832 (1910).
Quo warranto is to:
" ascertain whether [the public officer] is constitutionally and legally authorized to perform any act in or exercise any functions of the office to which he lays claim." Holloman v. Lieb, 17 N.M. 270, 273, 125 P. 601, 602 (1912).
Nowhere in Hannett does the court even intimate that the procedural statute under discussion is jurisdictional.
Since the Constitution provides for separate and equal branches of government in New Mexico, any legislative measure which affects pleading, practice or procedure in relation to a power expressly vested by the Constitution in the judiciary, such as quo warranto, cannot be deemed binding. We cannot render inoperative a clause in the Constitution on so slender a reed. One of the primary purposes of quo warranto is to ascertain whether one is constitutionally authorized to hold the office he claims, whether by election or appointment, and we must liberally interpret the quo warranto statutes to effectuate that purpose. See Holloman v. Lieb, supra; State ex rel. Hannett v. Ct. 1st Dist., Santa Fe Co. et al., supra. The petitioner is properly before the court.
Thus, as matters stand, the sole legal issue which we have before us is whether art. IV, § 28, particularly that portion which prohibits appointment of a legislator to civil office within one year following his elected term if the emoluments of that office were increased during such term, was violated. This issue in turn is broken down into two parts.
Respondent's first theory, ingeniously contrived, superbly briefed and forcefully argued, contends that at the time district judges' salaries were raised in 1972, he was not actually a senator. This argument is premised upon a complex and subtle interplay of various legislative acts and court decrees, both federal and state, which reapportioned the New Mexico Senate. It is claimed that the four-year term as senator which respondent commenced to serve in January of 1971, actually terminated prior to the 1972 session, and that because the area represented by him had been expanded subsequent to the general election in 1970, he was required to run again to serve from 1972 onward, but did not do so.
However, facts discovered subsequent to the briefing and argument in this case clearly demonstrate that the respondent's senatorial district was not expanded subsequent to the 1970 general election. These facts are established by the stipulation of counsel to which we referred to at the outset. Thus, the factual premise upon which respondent's first argument is constructed is faulty and we need consider it no further.
However, it is necessary to again digress to the dissent which seems to find some legal significance in the claimed fact that the boundaries of respondent's senatorial district were expanded after the primary but before the general election in 1970 and, thereafter, contracted by the time of the 1972 general election, concluding on some unstated, and to us unknown, basis that "[a]t the very least, the respondent should have been a candidate for his Senate seat in 1972," and that his "service can obviously be called de facto in 1973 and 1974, negating any application" of art. IV, § 28.
There are so many things wrong with this it is difficult to know where to start, or to stop either. Again, this issue was not raised by the parties. The claimed facts about the expansion and contraction of respondent's senate district do not appear in the record. There was no testimony. For present purposes, however, we will accept these facts at face value.
Respondent has never attached any legal significance to any boundary changes other than an expansion of his district after the general election in 1970. As mentioned, this assertion was erroneous. Even the dissent does not claim this occurred. The only legal compulsion for respondent to have run in 1972 would have flowed from the legislation and court decrees we have mentioned. But they had the opposite effect since the glaring fact is that in the 1972 election, respondent's senatorial district lay entirely within the geographical boundaries of the district from which he was elected in 1970. This fact placed respondent's senatorial district squarely within § 10(A)(2) of the 1972 Senate Reapportionment Act (Laws 1972, ch. 79, § 10(A)(2)) quoted in the dissent. That act was upheld constitutionally by the Santa Fe County District Court in Cargo v. King, et al., No. 43123 (filed May 10, 1971; see Amended Order filed in open court, nunc pro tunc, as of March 10, 1972) and respondent was not, under the terms thereof, required to run again in 1972. Whether the district court made a correct decision we do not determine since no appeal was taken and no one, until now, has questioned it. The series of non sequi-turs in the dissent urging that respondent should have been a candidate in 1972, therefore, he was a de facto senator for two years, therefore, art. IV, § 28 does not apply, is void of persuasiveness. No reason is suggested as to why art. IV, § 28 does not apply to a legislator who becomes de facto during the term for which he was elected and during which emoluments were increased.
Even if we were to concede that respondent was a de facto senator in 1973 and 1974, which we do not, that status would render him no aid. The immutable facts are that in the fall of 1970 he was elected for a four-year term to the New Mexico Senate, that he qualified and was seated as a senator and acted as a senator throughout the entire four years, serving on various committees and on the floor of the Senate as an active and influential member. At no time has he questioned the constitutionality of the 1972 Senate Reapportionment Act or the court decree which held he did not have to run again in 1972. Having enjoyed the benefit of the law which allowed him to retain his position without contest in 1972, the respondent, even if he had raised it, would not be heard to question its propriety. See Clark v. Smith, 193 Tenn. 194, 245 S.W.2d 197 (1951). A de facto officer is estopped from taking advantage of his own want of title. State v. Mayeux, 228 La. 6, 11, 81 So.2d 426, 427 (1955).
The final legal proposition advanced by respondent argues that art. IV, § 28 is not applicable to appointments of legislators to fill judicial vacancies. He points out that art. IV, § 28 was adopted as an original provision of our state Constitution on January 21, 1911.
Our original Constitution created the elective executive offices of governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state auditor, state treasurer, attorney general, superintendent of public instruction, commissioner of public lands, and three corporation commissioners, and specified the amounts of compensation each could receive in full payment for all services.
The original Constitution also established the elective offices of supreme court justices and district court judges for specified terms, provided for appointments by the Governor to fill vacancies only until the next general election,' and specified the amounts of salary each was to receive ($6,000.00 and $4,500.00 per annum respectively). Only after publication of the 1920 United States Census could the legislature increase the number of supreme court justices and judicial districts. The salaries of all supreme court justices and district court judges, however, remained fixed by the Constitution until art. VI was amended in 1953 to provide:
"Sec. 11. The justices of the Supreme Court shall each receive such salary as may hereafter be fixed by law.
«
"Sec. 17. The legislature shall provide by law for the compensation of the judges of the district court."
Thus, the original Constitution itself created all elective executive and judicial offices and fixed the salaries. The legislature had the power to increase or decrease the compensation of executive officers from and after "ten years from the date of the admission of New Mexico as a state." As for judicial officers, the original Constitution conferred no power on the legislature to increase or decrease the salaries of such offices until 1953 when our Constitution was amended, in the manner we have stated, to otherwise provide.
From these constitutional and historical premises, respondent reasons that art. IV, § 28 of the Constitution could not at the time of its adoption have been intended by the people to apply to judicial appointments because the legislature lacked the power to increase judicial salaries.
The primary difficulty with respondent's argument is that it disregards a most fundamental idea in constitutional law. It is through the constitution that the people speak. In applying its provisions, we seek to learn and give effect to their intentions. If a constitutional provision is clear and unambiguous our duty is clear and our task an easy one. We simply apply the constitutional provision. Rather than searching for hidden meanings and nuances, we assume that the people meant and intended what they said. It is not for us to question their wisdom or to judicially convolute clearly expressed intentions.
It is not suggested that art. IV, § 28 is ambiguous.
In stark contrast to the dissent's analysis of the musty procedural statute by which we would be bound hand and foot and shorn of our jurisdiction, is the dissent's reasoning as to art. IV, § 28, which it would decline to apply.
It is said that the parallel clause in the federal Constitution had substantial opposition during the constitutional convention; that it is archaic and overbroad; and that it runs counter to the public policy of eligibility for public office. It is also argued that its purpose was to prevent corruption and, since no possibility of that is present here, art. IV, § 28 should not be given effect.
Again, we cannot so lightly brush aside the expressed will of the people. Much of what the dissent has to say would be persuasive were the issue whether, as citizens, we would vote for its repeal in an election called for that purpose. But our obligation as judges is different. Though the history and purpose of the clause be conceded, as well as possibly our own personal views that art. IV, § 28 probably does not comport with present day circumstances, in constitutional adjudication, judges are not free to indulge in their private proclivities. To quote and paraphrase the great proponent of judicial self-restraint, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "[t]he need or expediency of such [a clause] is not for us to consider." Advisory Opinion of the Justices, 155 Mass. 598, 607, 30 N.E. 1142, 1146 (1892). We are bound to apply the Constitution as it plainly reads to leave to the people the decision as to whether it should be changed.
Another infirmity in respondent's argument is that art. IV, § 28 is not couched in terms of salaries but rather speaks of "emoluments." What are "emoluments?" 63 Am.Jur.2d, Public Officers and Employees, § 71 (1972), states in part:
"The term 'emoluments,' as elsewhere defined, covers profits from an office. It does not refer to the fixed salary alone that is attached to the office, but includes such fees and compensation as the incumbent of the office is by law entitled to receive. In determining whether there has been an increase in the emoluments of a particular office, the various items of salary and other compensation which the incumbent was entitled to receive under the statute previously in effect must be taken together."
Clearly, "emolument" is a broader term than "salary." Counsel for the attorney general points out that even prior to the 1953 constitutional amendments, the legislature could have and in fact did, increase the emoluments of the office of district judge. The legislature accomplished this by establishing juvenile courts and providing for an additional salary to' be paid to its judges. Only district judges could hold that position. This device was first created by Laws 1921, Ch. 87, § 2 and was utilized until the constitutional amendment in 1953. These additional emoluments were never questioned.
Thus respondent's argument that at the time of adoption of the Constitution, the people could not have intended art. IV, § 28 to apply to appointments to the district court bench rings rather hollow. Being aware of the reservations with which the public regards those in public life, it seems more likely that what the people really intended was what Joseph Story stated in commenting upon the parallel clause in the federal Constitution. In this work on the Constitution, he wrote:
". The reasons for excluding persons from offices who have been concerned in creating them, or increasing their emoluments, are to take away, as far as possible, any improper bias in the vote of the representative, and to secure the constituents some solemn pledge of his disinterestedness. " 1 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 867 (5th ed. 1905).
No reason appears why art. IV, § 28 should not apply to judicial offices as it does to other civil offices.
Respondent places his principal reliance upon a South Dakota case which involved similar facts, State v. Ostroot, 75 S.D. 319, 64 N.W.2d 62 (1954). Art. III, § 12 of the Constitution of South Dakota provided in part:
"No member of the Legislature shall, during the term for which he was elected, be appointed or elected to any civil office in the state which shall have been created, or the emoluments of which shall have been increased during the term for which he was elected, "
At the general election held on November 4, 1952, Joe J. Foss was elected to the office of state representative for a two year term. He thereafter qualified for the office in January 1953 and served. During the 1953 session of the South Dakota legislature, the salary of the governor was increased. In 1954, Mr. Foss circulated and filed with the Secretary of State his petitions to nominate him as a candidate for governor at the primary election to be held on June 1, 1954. The action ensued when the plaintiff sought a writ of prohibition to prohibit the Secretary of State from certifying the name of Mr. Foss as a candidate for governor in the primary election.
In South Dakota, the governor's salary, as well as those of other constitutional officers, including members of the legislature, was fixed by the Constitution until 1946, when an amendment was passed which enabled the legislature to fix them.
The South Dakota court reasoned that, inasmuch as the governor's salary was initially fixed by art. 21, § 2 the people could not have intended art. 3, § 12 to apply to that office,' exactly as respondent would have us do here and in similar disregard of the rule of self-restraint to which we have referred. Special emphasis was placed on the fact that the 1946 amendment to art. 21, § 2 which enabled the legislature to fix such salaries, required a two-thirds vote of both houses in order for them to do so, a feature which is not present in the case at bar. The South Dakota court reasoned that as a result of the 1946 amendment "the whole concept of fixing salaries of constitutional officers was altered." The word "altered" is a singularly apt one to describe what the South Dakota court then did to art. 3, § 12. The holding was that it was to be given no further application to constitutional offices. This amounts to a repeal by implication, although the court did not so label it. This appears to have been in clear violation of another basic rule of construction — that repeals by implication are not favored and only take place when the portions of the constitution or statute under consideration are in irreconcilable conflict. This principle did not receive the attention of the South Dakota court.
The two portions of the South Dakota Constitution under consideration were not in conflict and did not even deal with the same subject matter. Art. 3, § 12 dealt with restrictions on the candidacy or appointment of legislators to civil office. Art. 21, § 2 dealt with the fixing of salaries of constitutional offices.
The cornerstone of the South Dakota court's reasoning was that since the salaries of constitutional officers were fixed by the Constitution "the legislature had no power to increase the salaries of these officers." Yet art. 3, § 12 spoke in terms of "emoluments," a feature we have discussed. Moreover, it does not appear from the opinion whether the emoluments were, or could have been, increased by the legislature prior to the 1946 amendment as was the case in New Mexico prior to the 1953 amendment.
Ostroot concluded by observing, and apparently accorded particular weight to, the proposition that if art. 3, § 12 were applied, legislators who raised their own salaries could not run for reelection. This apparently was unthinkable. There are also features lacking in the case before us since N.M.Const. art. IV, § 28 applies only to appointments and not to elections. In fact, the opinion in State v. Ostroot specifically limited its application to elections and not to appointments.
We are not persuaded in respondent's favor by State v. Ostroot. Cf. Dickinson v. Holm, 243 Minn. 34, 65 N.W.2d 654 (1954), and State v. Erickson, 180 Minn. 246, 230 N.W. 637 (1930) (in which the Supreme Court of Minnesota held under a similar constitutional provision and facts that a candidate was disqualified for a period of one year following the expiration of his legislative term of office).
Finally, we note the dissent's reasoning that the 1972 act did not increase the emoluments but merely effected a cost of living adjustment for the period following the last preceding increase in 1967.
The respondent conceded that the increase was not de minimus (which it obviously was not) and does not raise this issue. Moreover, the source of the figures is not known to us but, for present purposes, we accept them.
We doubt that when the people adopted art. IV, § 28 in 1911 they were thinking in terms of cost of living adjustments or that they intended to except such increases from the operation of that clause. Certainly, they did not say so. Nor do we understand the significance of the 1967 date. Clearly the emoluments were more after the increase than they were before — $7,-000.00 more.
We hold that art. IV, § 28 of the Constitution of New Mexico applies to appointments to the judiciary. We are of the opinion that the appointment of respondent to the office of district judge of the Second Judicial District, under the facts of this case, was in violation of art. IV, § 28 and that it was accordingly invalid.
We have reached this conclusion with regret. We believe that Judge McBride would have discharged the duties of the office in commendable fashion and would have rendered a high order of service to the people of New Mexico.
The relief sought by the attorney general's petition in quo warranto will be granted. A judgment of ouster will be entered.
It is so ordered.
OMAN and MONTOYA, JJ., concur.
McMANUS, C. J., dissenting.
. The antecedents of art. IV, § 28 of the Constitution of New Mexico are provided in art. 1, § 6, 2d para, of the Constitution of the United States, and § 9 of the Organic Act establishing the Territory of New Mexico (9 Stats. 446, ch. 49, enacted September 9, 1850).
. N.M.Const., art. V, § 1 (1911).
. Id., art. XI, § 2.
. Id., art. V, § 12 and art. XI, § 5.
. Id., art. VI, § 4.
. Id., art. VI, § 12.
. Id., art. XX, § 4.
. Id., art. VI, §11 and 17.
. Id., art. VI, § 10.
. Id., art. VI, § 16.
. Proposed by H.J.R. Nos. 15 and 16, Laws 1953, pp. 632-633; adopted at a special election on September 15, 1953.
. Id., art. V, § 12.