Opinion ID: 1961950
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The legislative veto's limited effects on the separation of powers.

Text: The legislative veto provisions in L. 1981, c. 120, serve a necessary legislative oversight purpose in ensuring that the projects approved by the Authority will receive continued legislative support. At the same time, the veto offers little of the potential for improper uses that led the Court to strike down the extremely broad veto provision in General Assembly v. Byrne, supra . Three significant factors distinguish the veto provisions in the Building Authority Act from those in the Legislative Oversight Act that the Court struck down in General Assembly. First, the Governor's full control over the selection of Building Authority projects makes it impossible for the Legislature to usurp executive authority in ways that were possible under the Legislative Oversight Act. Pursuant to N.J.S.A. 52:18A-78.4(i), the Governor has 15 days to veto any Authority decision. The Legislature has absolutely no control over Authority projects unless the Governor first approves them. A legislative veto in a particular statute may not offend the constitutional allocation of governmental powers if the statute gives the Executive extensive authority in the policy-making process. In Brown v. Heymann, 62 N.J. 1 (1972), this Court upheld the Executive Reorganization Act, which authorized the Governor to prepare an executive reorganization plan and present it to both houses of the Legislature. The Court found no constitutional infirmity in the Legislature's power to pass a concurrent resolution within 60 days disapproving the plan. [1] See also Atkins v. United States, supra . Second, because the Legislature's veto power is limited to the rejection of discrete projects and leases, it has limited potential to interfere with executive action. One significant constitutional defect in the Legislative Oversight Act was its potential for allowing the Legislature to control agency rulemaking, 90 N.J. at 385. Executive agencies are charged with designing coherent plans to implement existing statutes. Where the Legislature has the power to veto any portion of a coherent scheme of regulation, it can undermine performance of that duty by ... nullify[ing] virtually every existing and future scheme of regulation or any portion of it.... Moreover, the Legislature need not explain its reasons for any veto decision. Its action therefore leaves the agency with no guidance on how to enforce the law. [90 N.J. at 386-387] By contrast, the veto provision here cannot cause any such disruption. The Legislature cannot veto any arbitrary portion of a proposed Authority project. It must either veto the entire project or let the project proceed. Any disruption of Building Authority action in this context is actually part of the legislative scheme and can be considered necessary to further the statutory purpose of ensuring that the Legislature will support the building projects selected. Moreover, the Legislature cannot coerce the Authority into proposing projects solely on the Legislature's own terms, since the Governor has veto power over every agency decision. N.J.S.A. 52:18A-78.4(i). The Legislature can forestall Authority action by repeatedly vetoing proposed projects, but it cannot engage in the types of intrusion and disruption that occur when the Legislature has total and arbitrary control. Third, even repeated use of the veto would not be likely to alter the legislative intent in ways that require presentment to the Governor under the Presentment Clause. N.J.Const. (1947), Art. V, § 1, ¶ 14. In enacting the Building Authority Act, the Legislature clearly did not want the Authority to undertake any project unless it met with both legislative and gubernatorial approval. Exercise of the veto provisions is not inconsistent with the regulatory framework the Legislature has erected to assume tight controls over the selection of Authority building projects and leases. We recognize that future legislators may veto a particular project that the legislators who passed the Act might have thought desirable. But this type of judgment is fundamentally different from a subsequent legislative nullification of a policy that a former Legislature enacted into law. General Assembly, 90 N.J. at 389. This crucial difference is illustrated in Consumer Energy Council of America, etc. v. Fed. Energy Reg'y Comm'n, 673 F. 2d 425 (D.C. Cir.1982). The potential to interfere with exclusive executive responsibilities or to effectively alter the policy of existing laws without presentment to the Governor, which rendered the Legislative Veto Act in General Assembly unconstitutional, is negligible under the limited veto power in the Building Authority Act. The above arguments notwithstanding, the legislative veto provisions in the Building Authority Act have some limited potential to interfere with executive functions and allow policy judgments without the participation of the Governor. Although the Legislature clearly intended tight controls over the Authority's selection of building projects, repeated legislative vetoes conceivably would prevent the Authority from commencing any projects at all. This legislative action would effectively repeal the Act without the constitutionally required presentment to the Governor. However, the mere remote possibility of never-ending legislative vetoes is insufficient to invalidate a veto provision that serves an important governmental purpose. More troubling is the fact that either house of the Legislature can veto proposed projects. This allocation of power tends to contravene the principle of bicameralism that [i]n republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates [and therefore] ... [t]he remedy ... is to divide the legislature into different branches, The Federalist No. 51 at 338 (R. Luce ed. 1976) (Hamilton or Madison). A one-house veto frustrates [t]he overriding objective of bicameralism ... to constrain the exercise of ... legislative power by making sure that the Legislature can act only where representatives of two different constituencies are in agreement. Consumer Energy, 673 F. 2d at 464 (footnote omitted). The one-person veto provision in N.J.S.A. 52:18A-78.9, which allows either presiding officer to veto a proposed lease agreement, exacerbates this problem of concentrating legislative control. In Opinion of the Justices, 431 A. 2d 783 (N.H. 1981), the Supreme Court of New Hampshire invalidated provisions giving legislative veto power to standing committees and the presiding officers of both houses of the Legislature. The court held that although the legislative veto is not per se unconstitutional ... wholesale shifting of legislative power to such small groups in either house cannot fairly be said to represent the `legislative will.' 431 A. 2d at 788. Cf. Atkins v. United States, 556 F. 2d at 1064 (upholding the veto provisions under the Federal Salary Act, but stating that [i]t is not as if the `veto' is imposed by one committee of Congress or one member). A concentration of authority in one house of the Legislature or in one legislator threatens the separation of powers and the principle of bicameralism unless that power is narrowly circumscribed. As we have stated, not every legislative action requires the approval of both houses and presentment to the Governor. The more limited the grant of power, the more concentrated it can be without violating the Presentment Clause or the separation of powers. Here, the delegated authority is narrowly limited. No single house or single legislator is empowered to approve new legislation. No danger of precipitate legislative action is posed. To the contrary, the veto provisions of the Act provide additional checks against Building Authority projects which may in the future prove unwise or unduly costly. The presiding officers have power to disapprove the lease agreements only for building projects that the Legislature has already approved. These lease agreements involve no policy determinations whatsoever; they merely establish rental rates sufficient to allow the Building Authority to repay its bondholders. Thus, the Act's veto provisions, despite their failure to conform with the principle of bicameralism, do not offend the Constitution.