Opinion ID: 2581001
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: reconsideration after adjournment

Text: The Governor shall have forty-five days, after the adjournment of the legislature sine die, to consider bills presented to the governor less than ten days before such adjournment, or presented after adjournment, and any such bill shall become law on the forty-fifth day unless the governor by proclamation shall have given ten days' notice to the legislature that the governor plans to return such bill with the governor's objections on that day. The legislature may convene at or before noon on the forty-fifth day in special session, without call, for the sole purpose of acting upon any such bill returned by the governor. In case the legislature shall fail to so convene, such bill shall not become law. Any such bill may be amended to meet the governor's objections and, if so amended and passed, only one reading being required in each house for such passage, it shall be presented again to the governor, but shall become law only if the governor shall sign it within ten days after presentation. In computing the number of days designated in this section, the following days shall be excluded: Saturdays, Sundays, holidays and any days in which the legislature is in recess prior to its adjournment as provided in section 10 of this article. (Emphases added.) Applying the plain language canon of constitutional construction, the governor (1) has forty-five days to consider bills presented less than ten days before adjournment or bills presented after adjournment, (2) must give notice by proclamation ten days prior to the forty-fifth day after adjournment sine die of plans to return the bills with objections, and (3) must return the bills no later than that day. As such, by the plain language of article III, section 16, ten days' notice can only be construed to mean that notice must be given no less than ten days before a particular date, excluding weekends and holidays. The language of article III, section 16 is clear and unambiguous, and there is no room to construe the provisions in question to reach the interpretation that Hanabusa proposes.