Opinion ID: 1789666
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Contemporaneous Construction

Text: Since the creation of the Division of Administration in 1948, its employees have continuously been treated as classified employees. Despite the Civil Service Amendment adopted in 1952, which listed as part of the unclassified service employees of the offices of the Governor, the State Civil Service Commission in 1953 ruled that the Division of Administration was not in the office of the governor within the meaning of the constitutional amendment. Apparently accepting the Civil Service Commission's interpretation, the legislature in Act 42 of 1956 deleted from Act 133 of 1948, by then R.S. 39:1, the words whose employees shall be employees of the office of the Governor. W. W. McDougall, Director of the Department of State Civil Service from March 1, 1953 to November, 1968, testified at the hearing conducted to investigate possible violations of civil service law by the Division of Administration that the Division of Administration had consistently not been considered a part of the Governor's office and that its employees were considered in the classified service. [6] The construction placed by the Civil Service Commission has been accepted by every Governor and Commissioner of Administration, including the present one, since that ruling. It is in this context that we view the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of 1973 and the perpetuation of the language, office of the governor, in the 1974 Constitution.