Opinion ID: 2016681
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the 1919-1920 constitutional convention

Text: Rather than basing its decision on the content of the Nebraska Constitution, the majority refers to comments and cryptic concerns at the 1919-1920 constitutional convention, at which the uniformity clause was placed in this state's Constitution some 72 years ago. Bear in mind that Nebraska's electorate in 1970 adopted the constitutional amendment which expressly confers on the Legislature the power to enact laws exempting tangible property from taxation and classify personal property as it sees fit, to the end that the Legislature may exempt any of such classes, or may exempt all personal property from taxation. Neb. Const. art. VIII, § 2. Thus, the majority operates from a premise that the 1919-1920 constitutional conventioneers enjoyed the gift of prophecy and, envisioning the 1970 constitutional amendment for tax exemption for property, elevated the uniformity clause to its zenith in a hierarchy of constitutional provisions pertaining to property taxation. Thus, foreseeing the future, those conventioneers chiseled into constitutional granite the monolithic uniformity clause, impervious to any later amendatory action by the people of Nebraska. So long as the majority is captivated by William Jennings Bryan, consider some of his other remarks at the 1919-1920 convention: Ours is a people's government.... The people will, if they have the power, destroy the breeding places of plutocracy. The initiative and referendum give them this power. They put the people in possession of their government and make it possible for them to secure through the ballot anything and everything they want. (Emphasis in original.) 1 Proc. Const. Convention 327 (1919-1920). In light of the foregoing, imagine Bryan's reverence for a constitutional amendment adopted by the people. By the way, records of the 1919-1920 constitutional convention show that Bryan was not even a delegate to the convention, and, after lecturing to the assembly and preparing to depart for Washington, D.C., to celebrate adoption of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, imposing nationwide prohibition, Bryan informed the conventioneers: [T]here will never be another legalized saloon in the United States. Obviously, Bryan did not share in the gift of prophecy that the majority attributes to the constitutional conventioneers, for the will of the people, expressed in the 21st Amendment adopted in 1933, repealed the 18th Amendment. The established lack of credibility for Bryan's augury is no less than the lack of credibility for the constitutional conventioneers' precognition of the 1970 amendment for tax classification and exemption of tangible property, when the uniformity clause was made a part of the Nebraska Constitution in 1920. The only salient fact is that the will of the people should never be underestimated or overlooked by a court construing a constitution.