Opinion ID: 1962463
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Heading: Purposes of the Separation of Powers and the Presentment Clause

Text: The doctrine of separation of powers expresses a profound belief that the concentration of governmental power increases the potential for oppression, and that fragmentation of power helps ensure its temperate use. Our Constitution therefore gives certain powers to each branch of government to protect citizens from oppression by the other branches. Thomas Jefferson explained that the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies ... that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 120 (W. Peden ed. 1955). The Framers therefore sought to prevent tyranny by constructing a government that could limit its own aggrandizement of authority. The doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted by the Convention of 1787 not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was not to avoid friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to save the people from autocracy. [ Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 293, 47 S.Ct. 21, 85, 71 L.Ed. 160 (1926) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)] The separation of powers does not require complete insulation of the branches from each other. Such a complete hermetic sealing off of the three branches of Government from one another would preclude the establishment of a Nation capable of governing itself effectively. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 121, 96 S.Ct. 612, 683, 46 L.Ed. 2d 659 (1976). As this Court has stated, [T]he doctrine of the separation of powers was never intended to create, and certainly never did create, utterly exclusive spheres of competence. The compartmentalization of governmental powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches has never been watertight. [ In re: Salaries Prob. Off. Bergen County, 58 N.J. 422, 425 (1971)] Nonetheless, the Framers created a government with three distinct branches, each a separate source of power that could check the abuses of the other branches. It has been the constitutional role of the Court to prevent any of the branches from exercising illegitimate power over the others. Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803). Our State Constitution has a clause that explicitly provides for the separation of powers. Art. III, ¶ 1 reads: The powers of the government shall be divided among three distinct branches, the legislative, executive, and judicial. No person or persons belonging to or constituting one branch shall exercise any of the powers properly belonging to either of the others, except as expressly provided in this Constitution. This clause expressly provides for separation of state powers in the same way that the Federal Constitution separates the branches of the federal government. Speaking for a unanimous Court, Justice Handler explained recently in Knight v. Margate, supra , It is a constitutional axiom that each branch of government is distinct and is the repository of the powers which are unique to it; the members or representatives of one branch cannot arrogate powers of another branch. The constitutional spirit inherent in the separation of governmental powers contemplates that each branch of government will exercise fully its own powers without transgressing upon powers rightfully belonging to a cognate branch. Each branch of government is counseled and restrained by the constitution not to seek dominance or hegemony over the other branches. [86 N.J. at 388] The Framers sought to establish a government of separated and balanced powers primarily because they feared that in a representative democracy the Legislature would be capable of using its plenary lawmaking power to swallow up the other departments of the Government. Consumer Energy Council of America, Etc. v. Fed. Energy Reg. Comm'n, 673 F. 2d 425, 464 (D.C. Cir.1982) (hereinafter  Consumer Energy ). As the Supreme Court noted in Buckley v. Valeo, supra , the debates of the Constitutional Convention, and the Federalist Papers, are replete with expressions of fear that the Legislative Branch of the National Government will aggrandize itself at the expense of the other two branches. [424 U.S. at 129, 96 S.Ct. at 687 (footnote omitted)]. While 200 years of our history has somewhat diminished the fears expressed then, the concerns of the Framers were based on principles that remain vital and valid. No concentration of power offers greater potential for abuse than the ability to both make and enforce the law. Blackstone warned the British Parliament of this danger before the American Revolution. In all tyrannical governments, the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty. The magistrate may enact tyrannical laws, and execute them in a tyrannical manner, since he is possessed, in quality of dispenser of justice, with all the power which he, as legislator, thinks proper to give himself. [1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries at 146-47 (T. Cooley ed. 1899) (emphasis in original)] Preserving a less autocratic government through separated powers requires the courts to enforce the Constitution's restraints on two distinct forms of legislative power. First, the Courts must preserve the constitution's constraints on the Legislature's power to make the laws. Second, the courts must prevent legislative incursions into the Executive's power to enforce the laws. One important element of the scheme of separated powers is the Executive's authority to faithfully execute the laws passed by the Legislature. N.J.Const. (1947), Art. V, § 1, ¶ 1. Any legislative action which excessively interferes with the Executive's ability to carry out this constitutional mandate violates the separation of powers under Article III. Another significant constitutional element of the separation of powers is the executive veto of legislation. It not only restrains legislative interference with executive enforcement of the law, but also conditions and restricts the Legislature's power to make new laws. Hamilton recognized both purposes, explaining that the executive veto not only serves as a shield to the Executive, but it furnishes an additional security against the enaction of improper laws. It establishes a salutary check upon the legislative body, calculated to guard the community against the effects of faction, precipitancy, or of any impulse unfriendly to the public good, which may happen to influence a majority of that body. [ The Federalist No. 73 at 476-77 (R. Luce ed. 1976)] The State Constitution's Presentment Clause, Art. V, § 1, ¶ 14, like that in the Federal Constitution, U.S.Const., Article I, § 7, prevents the exercise of law-making power without the concurrence of both houses of the Legislature and approval by the Executive, unless the Legislature can muster a two-thirds majority vote of both houses to override the executive veto. The 1776 New Jersey Constitution did not contain an executive veto. However, the 1844 Constitution adopted an executive veto to curb illegitimate legislative power. See Proceedings: New Jersey Constitutional Convention of 1844 at 175-204 (N.J. Writers' Project ed. 1942). After former Governors testified at the 1947 Constitutional Convention about the need to increase the Governor's veto power, see Proceedings: New Jersey Constitutional Convention of 1947, Vol. V at 66, 461, the delegates expanded the executive veto into its present form. The New Jersey Constitution's Presentment Clause now reads: Every bill which shall have passed both houses shall be presented to the Governor. If he approves he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections, to the house in which it shall have originated.... If upon reconsideration, ... two-thirds of all the members of the house of origin shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections of the Governor, to the other house, by which it shall be reconsidered and if approved by two-thirds of all the members of that house, it shall become a law.... [ N.J.Const. (1947), Art. V, § 1, ¶ 14] Any legislative action that so removes the Governor from law making as to violate the Presentment Clause, Art. V, § 1, ¶ 14, threatens the separation of powers. Art. III, ¶ 1. To determine whether legislative action violates either clause, the Court must bear in mind the two purposes of both provisions: preventing unwarranted legislative interference with the executive branch and excessive legislative law-making power. In a scheme of government that frequently requires cooperation between the branches of government, see Knight v. Margate, 86 N.J. at 388, 431 A. 2d 833, we cannot decide what constitutes excessive legislative power merely by intoning the abstract principles of separation of powers. To judge the constitutionality of the legislative veto provision in L. 1981, c. 27, N.J.S.A. 52:14B-4.3, the Court must determine its practical effects upon law making and law enforcement. We now proceed to that task.