Opinion ID: 2570810
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Does the vetoed language in the ASMI appropriations violate the constitution's confinement clause?

Text: We next consider the governor's argument that the legislature violated the confinement clause by including the vetoed language in the three ASMI appropriations. Our constitution provides that [b]ills for appropriations shall be confined to appropriations. [62] We have never delineated the boundaries of this requirement. The confinement clause prevents the legislature from enacting substantive policy outside the public eye. The process for enacting substantive bills gives meaningful opportunity for public notice and comment. Article II, section 14 of the Alaska Constitution requires three readings of a substantive bill, on three separate days, `to ensure that the legislature knows what it is passing' and to ensure an opportunity for the expression of public opinion and due deliberation. [63] This opportunity may be stifled if substantive provisions are attached to appropriation bills in the form of conditions. Unlike other legislation, appropriations are not subject to the single  subject requirement of article II, section 13-a requirement meant to avoid logrolling. [64] Allowing substantive enactments in an appropriation bill may also be problematic because appropriation bills are frequently a product of a free conference committee and, as such, must be voted on in their entirety and cannot be amended on the floor. [65] Consequently, as the superior court noted, the confinement clause prevents a legislator seeking to advance unpopular legislation from burying it in a popular appropriation measure. Strict enforcement of constitutional limits helps ensure that the public will be fully informed of proposed legislation. The superior court here applied a confinement clause test first articulated in 1983 by the superior court, Judge Walter L. Carpeneti presiding, in Alaska State Legislature v. Hammond. [66] The superior court there addressed, among other issues, claims that eleven appropriations violated the confinement clause. The superior court wrote that to satisfy the confinement clause, the qualifying language must be the minimum necessary to explain the Legislature's intent regarding how the money appropriated is to be spent. It must not administer the program of expenditures. It must not enact law or amend existing law. It must not extend beyond the life of the appropriation. Finally, the language must be germane, that is appropriate, to an appropriations bill. [67] We find the authority the superior court cited in Hammond persuasive, [68] and we approve the five-part Hammond formulation as a non-exclusive test for deciding whether an appropriation violates the confinement clause. We further elaborate on this test before applying it. The council suggests that the minimum necessary language is best understood simply as a requirement that appropriation language explain how, when, or on what the money is to be spent. Therefore, this part of the test is better expressed as simply requiring the language to explain the legislature's purpose regarding the appropriation. We agree generally with the first of these propositions, but we believe that this factor is better stated in terms of what it permits rather than what it requires. This factor limits the legislature's ability to include in an appropriation bill legislation cloaked as a description. The council suggests that the Hammond formulation quoted above is deficient because an appropriation should be able to change existing law on the subject of appropriations. The council argues that the confinement clause is not violated when the legislature amends a prior appropriation in an appropriation act. We believe that this is an accurate statement of law. But the Hammond formulation would not seem to preclude this practice in any event, because the new appropriation bill would amend only a prior appropriation, not an existing law. The council proposes additional illumination of the prohibition on enacting or amending substantive law. The council characterizes case law from other states as generally dictating that an appropriation for a statutory program may not include provisions changing the requirements of that program, even temporarily for the purposes of that appropriation. [69] The council cites three Florida cases in support. Chiles v. Milligan considered appropriation language that would have taken money to be awarded under the statutory education funding formula and adjusted it according to the ratio of classroom salaries to total salaries. [70] The court struck this language as an enactment of new law. [71] In a subsequent but similarly named case, Chiles v. Milligan, the court struck down appropriation language that would have allowed education funds to be used for purposes other than those specified by statute. [72] But in Department of Education v. School Board of Collier County, the court upheld an appropriation provision that increased funds for all schools except those with a millage value per student of more than twenty percent of the statewide average; the court reasoned that the appropriated money was in addition to the standard education funding and therefore did not amend existing law. [73] We agree with the council's assertion that the differences between such cases reflect the tension between a desire to prevent legislatures from using appropriation bills to make programmatic changes (even for a year) and the realization that legislatures do not have to fund or fully fund any program (except, possibly, constitutionally mandated programs), and in fact may choose to fund programs that are subject to conditions or contingencies. With regard to the germaneness requirement, the council's brief usefully discusses cases from other jurisdictions concerning what their confinement clauses permit and prohibit. The council lists the following conditions and contingencies that state courts have upheld as sufficiently related or germane to the money appropriated: [74] (1) limits on amounts that could be spent at an individual facility; [75] (2) limits on the number of employees for which the money could be spent; [76] (3) a prohibition against using the money for new construction; [77] (4) a requirement related to federal funds; [78] (5) a provision making an appropriation for driver education contingent on the enactment of a tax on drivers' licenses; [79] and (6) a requirement that funds for contracted work be spent only if a state laboratory could not perform the work. [80] On the other hand, the council notes that courts have struck down these provisions because they were not sufficiently connected with the expenditures: (1) a requirement that the money not be spent for trade delegations unless there was nonpartisan executive council representation; [81] (2) a requirement that the inmate population at a specified facility be reduced; [82] (3) a provision conditioning a department of health appropriation on the department relinquishing federal money to a private family planning council; [83] (4) a requirement for giving notice of prisoners' escapes and transfers; [84] and (5) a prohibition against electioneering by district attorneys in a certain parish. [85] The council characterizes the differences between these cases as follows: In general it appears that courts will uphold conditions that could (albeit with some effort) be written as purposes, e.g., which facilities, which employee positions, which buildings or types of buildings, the money could be spent on. This would be true even if the conditions were written in the negative, e.g., money from this appropriation may not be used to fund employee contracts; money from this appropriation may not be used to fund new construction. See Welden v. Ray, 229 N.W.2d 706, 710 (Iowa 1975). It also appears that contingencies will be upheld if they relate to the receipt or nonreceipt of specific funds, e.g., federal funds, matching funds, the tax intended to fund the expenditure, or relate to the occurrence or nonoccurrence of something that would make the expenditure desirable .... However, contingencies that relate to things other than the need for or use of the money or the need for the activity, seem more vulnerable to being found insufficiently connected to the appropriation. We agree with the council's characterizations of the limits on the legislature's appropriation power. We do so not to predict the outcome of future disputes or to minimize the importance of the Hammond factors when analyzing a confinement clause dispute, but because the legislative council, speaking for the legislature, has usefully given examples of appropriation provisions which it regards as unconstitutional. In approaching confinement clause disputes, we assume that an act of the legislature is constitutional. [86] The burden of showing unconstitutionality is on the party challenging the enactment; doubtful cases should be resolved in favor of constitutionality. [87] With this background, we now apply the five Hammond factors to the vetoed language in the ASMI provisions.
The vetoed language required ASMI to move upper level employees to locations in Alaska in order for ASMI to carry forward monies from appropriations in prior years. These three ASMI appropriations did not themselves appropriate monies for upper level staffing. Rather, they addressed the marketing [of] Alaska seafood products. [88] The vetoed language therefore expressed the legislature's intent about how other ASMI appropriations were to be spent, not its intent about how these appropriations were to be used. [89]
The vetoed language did not specify how these three appropriations were to be used, and instead addressed staffing funded under separate appropriations. This language effectively administered ASMI's program because it limited the executive's exercise of discretion in staffing and locating executive-branch offices whose operations were funded by separate appropriations. Because this language did not specify how these three appropriations were to be spent, we do not need to decide here whether, as the council argues, the appropriation power gives the legislature authority to decide where executive-branch personnel will be located. Likewise, we need not decide whether, as the governor asserts, the appointment of executive officers is an executive function, [90] and whether the geographic location of particular levels of state officials is the type of close supervision of state government that is essentially executive in character. [91]
The council argues that the vetoed language is germane to marketing seafood. The governor argues that it is not, because employee location does not relate to ASMI's statutory duties. We conclude that the vetoed language is not sufficiently germane because these three appropriations do not fund staffing at any location affected by the struck language. These appropriations were for purchasing contractual services, expenditures unrelated to encouraging local hire. The superior court correctly observed that separate appropriations funded state employee positions. The vetoed language therefore is not germane to these three appropriations. Given the absence of any direct relationship, it is insufficient that the language arguably has some general relationship  because it generally concerns ASMI and the performance of ASMI's duties  to the ASMI appropriations in chapters 98 and 100.
The superior court found the vetoed language objectionable because it addressed an issue of substantive law, local hire, that the legislature has repeatedly addressed with substantive legislation. We agree that this language has the effect of creating a mini-local hire law. According to the legislature's drafting manual, an appropriation bill may not contain substantive provisions. [92] Permitting it to enact substantive policy in one appropriation bill by imposing conditions on another appropriation bill would reduce the public scrutiny and debate which accompany policy making, and could encourage logrolling and free-riders to achieve results not politically attainable in non-appropriation bills. The council argues that the legislature could have accomplished the same result with line-item appropriations and that the legislature followed the equivalent of that process. But we think that the process followed here was not equivalent. Line-item appropriations would have been subject to item vetoes, and would have required the legislature to give individualized consideration to each ASMI budget item. The legislature did not follow that course. The vetoed language here substantively affected the use of other appropriations, and cannot be considered merely a condition attached to the chapter 98 and 100 appropriations. In reaching beyond these appropriations, the struck language created new substantive law.
These appropriations did not state whether the out-of-state staffing limitation expired with the fiscal year. And the vetoed language does not direct how these appropriations were to be spent. It was instead intended to limit other appropriations. It is therefore unclear whether the life of the staffing limitation actually extended beyond the duration of the ASMI appropriations in chapters 98 and 100.
Regardless of whether the vetoed language was to extend beyond the life of these three ASMI appropriations, it violates the other four Hammond factors. We therefore conclude that including the vetoed language in the chapter 98 and 100 ASMI appropriations violated the confinement clause. The superior court correctly reached the same conclusion.