Opinion ID: 1303274
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: multiple-object challenge

Text: The purpose of the constitutional provision now found in art 4, § 24 was stated by Justice COOLEY fifteen years after such language was included in the Constitution of 1850: The history and purpose of this constitutional provision are too well understood to require any elucidation at our hands. The practice of bringing together into one bill subjects diverse in their nature, and having no necessary connection, with a view to combine in their favor the advocates of all, and thus secure the passage of several measures, no one of which could succeed upon its own merits, was one both corruptive of the legislator and dangerous to the state. It was scarcely more so, however, than another practice, also intended to be remedied by this provision, by which, through dexterous management, clauses were inserted in bills of which the titles gave no intimation, and their passage secured through legislative bodies whose members were not generally aware of their intention and effect. There was no design by this clause to embarrass legislation by making laws unnecessarily restrictive in their scope and operation, and thus multiplying their number; but the framers of the constitution meant to put an end to legislation of the vicious character referred to, which was little less than a fraud upon the public, and to require that in every case the proposed measure should stand upon its own merits, and that the legislature should be fairly notified of its design when required to pass upon it. [ People ex rel Drake v Mahaney, 13 Mich 481, 494-495 (1865).] The provision is not meant to be applied restrictively. Kuhn v Treasury Dep't, 384 Mich 378, 387-388; 183 NW2d 796 (1971). See also Local No 644 v Oakwood Hosp Corp, 367 Mich 79, 91; 116 NW2d 314 (1962): Numerous cases have held that the object of a statute is the general purpose or aim of the enactment. The legislature may empower a body created by it to do everything requisite, necessary, or expedient to carry out the principal objective to be attained. Legislation, if it has a primary object, is not invalid because it embraces more than 1 means of attaining its primary object. In re Brewster Street Housing Site, 291 Mich 313 [289 NW 493 (1939)]. With all but the simplest of statutes, it would be possible to select one section, describe the object of that section, and be able to reason, as the Court of Appeals majority did in this case, that the remaining sections have different objects. The flaw in this approach is in defining the object of 1992 PA 270 as being limited to the content of the bill as originally introduced. The Court of Appeals said: The original purpose of HB 4501, as expressed in both the title and body of the bill, was to create a new public act to study certain issues related to death and dying. This bill had no regulatory authority. When HB 4501 was amended to add the substance of SB 32, the additional provisions had another and different objective  to amend the Penal Code to create the crime of criminal assistance to suicide. [205 Mich App 194, 201-202; 518 NW2d 487 (1994).] In so reasoning, the Court of Appeals majority confused the analysis to be used in multiple-object cases with that appropriate in assessing a challenge based on a change of purpose theory. The object of the legislation must be determined by examining the law as enacted, not as originally introduced. We would find the instant statute clearly to embrace only one object. [18] While the cases cited by the parties involving multiple-object challenges concern quite different statutes, an examination of those cases that have found multiple-object violations [19] and those that have not [20] demonstrates that the instant case falls squarely within the category of permissible joining of statutory provisions. The Court of Appeals majority sought to distinguish People v Trupiano, 97 Mich App 416; 296 NW2d 49 (1980), on which the prosecutors relied, on the ground that the statute in question in that case (the Public Health Code) [21] involved a legislative enactment constituting a code. [22] However, there is no code exception in art 4, § 24. Rather, the cases upholding codes against multiple-object challenges are at most an extension of the liberality with which such challenges are reviewed. The Court of Appeals majority suggested that the Legislature could have included the provisions regarding the commission and the criminal penalties in the same bill if it had used a more general title: Had the Legislature intended to codify or regulate the general subject of assisted suicide, it could have notified the public of this intention by declaring a single broad purpose and by joining the object contained in HB 4501 with the object contained in SB 32 together in one bill. This the Legislature did not do. This failure resulted in the body of the act containing two distinct objects. The fact that the title was amended to reflect the addition of § 7 does not cure the constitutional infirmity. The one-object provision may not be circumvented by creating a title that includes different legislative objects. Hildebrand v Revco Discount Drug Centers, 137 Mich App 1, 11; 357 NW2d 778 (1984). [205 Mich App 202-203.] This emphasis on the title is misplaced. It cannot be said that a statute has two objects if its title specifically describes its content, but only one if the title is general. Insofar as one of the purposes of the Title-Object Clause is to provide notice of the content of a bill to the Legislature and the public, a more specific title better achieves that purpose, particularly regarding a fairly short bill like the one in this case. Elsewhere in its opinion, the Court of Appeals majority itself recognized that one looks to the body of the act, not the title, to determine whether it has a single object: While the object must be expressed in the title, the body of the law must be examined to determine whether it embraces more than one object. Kent Co ex rel Bd of Supervisors of Kent Co v Reed, 243 Mich 120, 122; 219 NW 656 (1928). [205 Mich App 199.] The Hobbins plaintiffs and defendant Kevorkian also argue that there was a multiple-object violation because the provisions could have been enacted in separate bills. They rely on Advisory Opinion on Constitutionality of 1975 PA 227 (Question 1), 396 Mich 123, 129; 240 NW2d 193 (1976): The provisions in these two sections might have been enacted in separate laws without either of them in any way referring to or affecting the other. [Quoting Kent Co ex rel Bd of Supervisors v Reed, supra at 122.] This principle is unsound. There is virtually no statute that could not be subdivided and enacted as several bills. It is precisely that kind of multiplying of legislation that we seek to avoid with the liberal construction given to art 4, § 24. [23] Accordingly, we would hold that the assisted suicide statute embraces only one object and thus was validly enacted.