Opinion ID: 1191239
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: contention: the legislature has the sole right to determine compensation of state officials

Text: [4] In 1948, the electorate adopted amendment 20 to the state constitution. The first sentence of the amendment provides: All elected state officials shall each severally receive such compensation as the legislature may direct. (Italics ours.) From this, petitioners argue that the legislature has the sole right to determine compensation, and that the initiative process established in 1912 by amendment 7 to the constitution is not available for this purpose. In order to support this thesis we would have to conclude that the word legislature embodies only the house and senate, and excludes that portion of the legislative power defined in amendment 7 as [t]he first power reserved by the people  the initiative. Subsequent to the adoption of amendment 7 in 1912, but prior to the adoption of amendment 20 in 1948, the Supreme Court held that the word legislature, as used in the constitution must be deemed to include all branches or component parts of legislative power, which includes qualified voters if they so desire. State ex rel. Mullen v. Howell, 107 Wash. 167, 181 P. 920 (1919). Of course, if there is express constitutional limitation upon the right of the electorate to participate in the legislative process, the limitation must be enforced. For example, the second power reserved by the people  the referendum  does not apply to such laws as may be necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety, support of the state government and its existing public institutions ... Const. art. 2, § 1 (b) (amendment 7). This limitation has recently been reaffirmed in State ex rel. Helm v. Kramer, 82 Wn.2d 307, 510 P.2d 1110 (1973) (discussed infra ). Our court, in State ex rel. Mullen v. Howell, supra at 182-83, quoted at some length from State ex rel. Schrader v. Polley, 26 S.D. 5, 127 N.W. 848 (1910), as follows: We are also of the opinion that the word `Legislature,' as used in section 4, art. 1, of the federal Constitution, does not mean simply the members who compose the Legislature, acting in some ministerial capacity, but refers to and means the lawmaking body or power of the state, as established by the state Constitution, and which includes the whole constitutional lawmaking machinery of the state.... Under the Constitution of this state, the people, by means of the initiative and referendum, are a part and parcel of the lawmaking power of this state, and the Legislature is only empowered to act, in accordance with the will of the people as expressed by the vote, when the referendum is properly put in operation. The term `Legislature' has a restricted meaning which only applies to the membership thereof, and it also has a general meaning which applies to that body of persons within a state clothed with authority to make the laws (Bouvier's Law Dic.; Webster's Dic.; 18 Am. & Eng. Ency. 822; 25 Cyc. 182), and which, in this state, under section 1, art. 3, Const. S.D., includes the people. ... ... The Legislature of the state, in its fullest and broadest sense, signifies that body in which all the legislative power of a state reside [ sic ], and that body is the people themselves, who exercise the elective franchise, and upon their power of legislation there is no limitation or restriction, except such as may be found in the federal Constitution, or such as they themselves may provide by the organic law of the state.' (Italics ours.) Our own curiosity prompted the query: Just what were the issues before the electorate in 1948 when amendment 20 was adopted? Our limited research, although it may bulge the boundaries of the doctrine of judicial notice, as defined in State ex rel. Humiston v. Meyers, 61 Wn.2d 772, 380 P.2d 735 (1963), proved informative and interesting. The second sentence of amendment 20 provides: The compensation of any state officer shall not be increased or diminished during his term of office, except that the legislature, at its thirty-first regular session, may increase or diminish the compensation of all state officers whose terms exist on the Thursday after the second Monday in January, 1949. The 1948 statutory voters' informational pamphlet, mailed to each voter, which is on file in the office of the Secretary of State, has neither arguments for nor against the amendment. Reference, however, to contemporary news and editorial comment [6] discloses no reference to the first sentence of the amendment, but establishes conclusively that the purpose of the amendment was to give the legislature a one-chance opportunity to correct the grossly inadequate salaries of certain state elected officials. For example, article 3, sections 14, 17, 19 and 21, fixed the salaries of the following officials at the first figure, but stated those salaries shall never exceed the second: Governor, $4,000-$6,000; Secretary of State, $2,500-$3,000; State Treasurer, $2,000-$4,000; Attorney General, $2,000-$3,500. Article 2, section 23 fixed compensation for legislators at $5.00 for each day's attendance during the session. Those salaries had been frozen by our 1889 constitution adopted 59 years before the proposed constitutional amendment was submitted to the people. There is nothing to indicate that the voters contemplated limiting their rights under amendment 7 by the adoption of the first sentence of amendment 20. We conclude, therefore, that amendment 20 did not give the legislature the sole right to determine compensation of state officials.