Case Name: Jerry THOMAS et al., Appellants, v. Reubin O'D. ASKEW et al., Appellees
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1972-12-06
Citations: 270 So. 2d 707
Docket Number: No. 42909
Parties: Jerry THOMAS et al., Appellants, v. Reubin O’D. ASKEW et al., Appellees.
Judges: ROBERTS, C. J., and ERVIN, CARLTON, ADKINS and McCAIN, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 270
Pages: 707–714

Head Matter:
Jerry THOMAS et al., Appellants, v. Reubin O’D. ASKEW et al., Appellees.
No. 42909.
Supremo Court of Florida.
Dec. 6, 1972.
Rehearing Denied Jan. 17, 1973.
Mark R. Hawes, St. Petersburg, for appellants.
Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., and John P. Ingle, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Arnold L. Greenfield and Robert E. Niro, Tallahassee, Dept, of General Services, for appel-lees.
Kenneth E. Easley, Clearwater, for Save Our Capitol, Inc., as amicus curiae.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
Appellants filed suit in the Leon County Circuit Court against Appellees as Head of the Department of General Services of the State of Florida in an attempt to halt construction of the twenty-five million dollar state capitol complex building. The trial court granted Appellees' motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action; Appellants appealed that decision to this Court and raised the following issues :
I.Whether the construction of a new capitol and demolition of the existing building is unauthorized and in violation of Sections 272.122, 272.-124 and 272.126, Florida Statutes;
II.Whether Chapter 72-409(4) (25), Laws of Florida 1972, an item of the 1972 General Appropriations Act providing $25,000,000 from the General Revenue Fund for the Florida State Capitol Complex, is an unconstitutional inclusion of substantive law in an appropriations act; and,
III.Whether the title to Chapter 72-409, Laws of Florida 1972, is constitutionally defective for failure to put interested persons o'n notice of its authorization of a new capitol.
The Statutes relied upon by Appellants provide in pertinent part as follows :
"272.122 Acquisition of land for state buildings and facilities in the Capitol Center. — The division of building construction and maintenance of the department of general services is hereby authorized and directed to acquire both land and buildings now needed or to be needed for use in whole, or in part, by state government . . . However, no building can be constructed nor land acquired under this section without specific legislative approval. The acquisition of the land, buildings and facilities may be financed by grants, direct appropriations or by the issuance of revenue bonds or certificates . . . "
"272.124 Division of building construction and maintenance; power to contract. — The division of building construction and maintenance of the department of general services is authorized and empowered to make and enter into any contract or agreement, with any person or agency, public or private, to lease, buy, acquire, construct, hold or dispose of real and personal property necessary to carry out the objects and purposes of this act; provided however no contract may be entered into without specific authorization of the Legislature for the project."
"272.126 Reconstruction of center section of capitol, parking facilities in legislative building, maximum cost of construction.- — -Any provision of this act to the contrary notwithstanding the division of building construction and maintenance of the department of general services is authorized to reconstruct the center section of the capitol building and to acquire land and construct a new legislative building to include parking facilities. The total amount for such construction shall not exceed ten million dollars."
It is the Appellants' contention that the requirement in Sections 272.122 and 272.124 of specific legislative authorization for construction within the capitol center means that a statute, separate from the General Appropriations Act, specifically authorizing construction of a new state capitol must be enacted before construction of such building can commence. That is not the intention of these Sections.
Sections 272.122, 272.124 and 272.126 were the result of enactments of the legislature in earlier sessions in the years 1965, 1967, 1969 and 1971, prior to the enactment of the 1972 General Appro priations Act. Such enactments cannot restrict subsequent legislative general appropriations. Only limiting provisions of the State Constitution (hereinafter discussed) can have restrictive effects on the legislative power to appropriate.
The capitol center in Tallahassee, Florida, is filled with buildings constructed without benefit of specific statutory authorization. The authorization requirement of Chapter 272 historically has been met by the specific inclusion in a general appropriation act of the monies necessary for the construction of the specified building. That was done in this case.
Chapter 72-409(4) (25), Laws of Florida 1972, the General Appropriations Act, provides :
"Section 4. The monies in the following items are appropriated from the named funds to the Department of General Services for the named agencies for capital outlay — buildings and improvements for the 1972-73 fiscal year as listed herein; provided, however, that no contract shall be entered into or any of the funds encumbered in any manner without the approval and consent of the Department of General Services.
Provided, however, no expenditure shall be made under Items 14, 25, and 28 prior to the establishment of a capitol center planning district.
*
"Item Amount
$
GENERAL SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF
25. Florida State Capitol
Complex
From General Revenue
Fund . 25,000,000"
It is clear that the Legislature, in enacting this item of the Appropriations Act, intended and directed that the Department of General Services should be the administrative body to let the necessary contracts and supervise the planning and construction details incident to the state capitol complex building project. All items of appropriation of necessity refer to the official, agency, recipient, or purpose contemplated to use, receive, or expend the funds. None is appropriated in a vacuum. Furthermore, in appropriating twenty-five million dollars for the new capitol building, the Legislature expressly superseded Section 272.126's earlier requirement that the legislative wings be built and the present capitol be reconstructed for no more than ten million dollars.
Appellants' contention that the construction of a new capitol building is in conflict with Chapter 272, Florida Statutes, F.S.A., therefore, has no merit because, as noted, prior statutes cannot tie the hands of succeeding legislatures acting within their constitutional powers.
The trial court must be affirmed unless we find that the inclusion of the twenty-five million dollar capitol appropriation in Chapter 72-409 violates some constitutional limitation, i. e., in this case either Article III, Section 6, or Article III, Section 12, of the Florida Constitution, F.S.A., as Appellants contend.
Those sections provide in pertinent part as follows:
"Section 6. Laws. — Every law shall embrace but one subject and matter properly connected therewith, and the subject shall be briefly expressed in the title.
"Section 12. Appropriation bills. — Laws making appropriations for salaries of public officers and other current expenses of the state shall contain provisions on no other subject."
Their purposes are:
"First, to prevent hodgepodge or logrolling legislation;
"Second, to prevent surprise or fraud upon the Legislature by means of including a provision in a bill of which the title gives no intimation and which might therefore be overlooked and carelessly and unintentionally adopted; and
"Third, to fairly apprise the people, through such publication of legislative proceedings as is usually made, of the suggestions of legislation that are being considered, in order that they may have opportunity of being heard thereon, if they shall so desire." Dickinson v. Stone, Fla.1971, 251 So.2d 268, 272.
In contending Chapter 72-409(4) (25) violates Article III, Section 12, by including substantive law in an appropriations act, Appellants rely upon our decision in Dickinson v. Stone, supra. There, we held that portion of the 1971 General Appropriations Act, which provided for the transfer of personnel and data processing equipment from the Comptroller to the Department of General Services (Section 2, Chapter 71-357, Laws of Florida 1971), was in violation of the above constitutional provisions.
The section which contained an appropriation to the Carlton Data Center stated:
"It is the intent of the legislature that the electronic data processing division of the department of general services shall assume complete control and supervision of the designated data centers in this section, including accounting, purchasing, personnel and other administrative services for the purpose of providing adequate data processing services to the various users of these centers. Further, the electronic data processing division of the department of general services is directed to provide programming and coordination, to the end that all centers function efficiently and economically and render all possible service to the state departments and agencies serviced."
We found that the above provision violated Article III, Section 12, Florida Constitution, because it constituted an attempt in express language to amend substantive law by a provision in an appropriations act transferring duties, property, and personnel from one executive department to another. This transfer was not, we felt, "so relevant to, interwoven with, and interdependent upon the appropriation of funds for the operation of the Carlton Data Center so as to justify . its inclusion within the General Appropriations Act." Dickinson v. Stone, supra, at 251 So.2d 274.
The item in the 1972 General Appropriations Act providing twenty-five million dollars for construction of the new capítol, however, deals solely with an appropriation for the purpose stated without more. It is not logrolling legislation; it is nothing other than an often-used line-item appropriation of funds for a state building purpose. That is exactly what an appropriation act is traditionally supposed to do. In Lee v. Dowda, 1944, 155 Fla. 68, 19 So.2d 570, 571, we said:
"It is manifest that the Constitution considered this matter of appropriation laws so important that it required they should be freed from all log rolling, by putting into such bills riders dealing with any other subject whatsoever, so that the attention of the Legislature should be concentrated upon the wisdom of and the necessity for the several items of appropriations made by and enumerated in the bill, and so also that the public could rest assured that when an appropriation bill was up for consideration in the Legislature nothing would be considered but the appropriations, and that this important matter should not be prejudiced by the injection into the appropriation bill of any other matters, regardless of their inherent merits or demerits." (Emphasis supplied.)
Chapter 72-409(4) (25), Laws of Florida 1972, a state capítol appropriation, meets this test. It carries no riders; nor any other language of a substantive nature which would be improper in a general appropriations act or to be valid would have to be the subject of a separate enactment.
Appellants in adverting to earlier enacted Sections 272.122, 272.124, 272.126, make no case against the validity of the subse quent line-item state building appropriation. Those sections are no impediment to the appropriation power of a subsequent Legislature.
Furthermore, an appropriation line item standing alone cannot by implication be raised to the status of a written rider or substantive inclusion of other independent, ungermane matter in a general appropriations act. The line item here is a direct appropriation for a capitol building.
If the Legislature should be precluded from making a line item appropriation on the theory the item appropriation in itself is the equivalent of a provision on another 'subject contrary to Article III, Section 12, great uncertainty and confusion would result. The Legislature would be frustrated in great measure in constitutionally discharging its duty of making annual appropriations. For example, under Appellants' theory if the usual amount of prior appropriations for a state function were cut in half, it could be contended the cut was invalid because it had the "other" effect of eliminating services theretofore provided.
It has never been seriously contended that a new building, a new state service or function, or a new state program could not have its genesis in a line item appropriation. The prohibition of Article III, Section 12 has only been applied to substantive other matters wholly independent of or unconnected with an appropriated item which matters were improperly but expressly written into the general appropriations act. Implied or secondary results from the operation of a line item appropriation have never been raised to the equivalent status of an ungermane written rider improperly inserted into an appropriations act.
Finally, we must determine whether the title to Chapter 72-409 is defective under Article III, Section 6, Florida Constitution, because it does not put the public on notice of its authorization of a new capitol. The title reads as follows:
"An Act making appropriations; providing moneys for the annual period beginning July 1, 1972, and ending June 30, 1973, to pay salaries, other expenses, capital outlay—buildings and improvements, and for other specified purposes of the various agencies of state government. . . ." (Emphasis supplied.)
In King Kole, Inc. v. Bryant, Fla.1965, 178 So.2d 2, 4, we discussed the specificity needed in a title. In that case, we said:
"The Legislature is allowed a wide latitude in the enactment of laws, and the courts will strike down a title only when there is a plain case of violating or ignoring the constitutional requirement, [citations omitted] The title is sufficient if it fairly gives such notice as will reasonably lead to inquiry into the body thereof, [citations omitted] The title need not be an index to the contents. It is not necessary that it delineate in detail the substance of the statute, [citations omitted]"
The title to Chapter 72-409, Laws of Florida 1972, clearly gives adequate notice of the capitol appropriation. By saying that it provides money for "capital outlays— buildings and improvements" it indicates that it contains appropriations for the construction of new state buildings. It does not need to specifically name each new building in the title or elaborate the details incident to the plannning or construction involved. We judicially know that many state buildings have been constructed pursuant only to line-item appropriations in the general appropriations acts.
Because we find that the new capitol appropriation in Chapter 72-409, Laws of Florida 1972, does not violate Sections 6 and 12 of Article III, Florida Constitution, we affirm the trial court.
The State, through the Attorney General, has officially advised us there is no present intention on the part of Appellees to use any part of the appropriation sub judice to raze or destroy the present Capitol Complex and has conceded that legislation providing such funds for that purpose would be necessary.
Comment was made during oral argument calling attention for the first time to House Concurrent Resolution Number 4, Regular Legislative Session in A.D.1951, providing for the area between the Capitol and Supreme Court Buildings to be set apart, maintained, developed and preserved as a public park dedicated to the memory of the late Curtis L. Waller.
In this case, we are reviewing the judgment of a trial court and there is nothing in the record to show the location of the proposed new structure and, furthermore, that question was not determined by the trial court. Our review here is limited to a review of the record before us and it would be premature to discuss the effect, if any, of the Waller Park resolution.
This leaves as the only material question involved in this case the validity vel non of the $25,000,000 appropriation for a Florida State Capitol Complex. For the reasons stated above, we think the appropriation identified as Item 25 of the 1972 General Appropriations Act is a clear and complete and valid enactment and, subject to the dictum hereinabove mentioned, the judgment under review is,
Affirmed.
ROBERTS, C. J., and ERVIN, CARLTON, ADKINS and McCAIN, JJ., concur.
SPECTOR, District Court Judge, concurs specially with opinion.
DEKLE, J., dissents with opinion.