Opinion ID: 1684481
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: alleged emergency powers.

Text: The Governor also cites the opinions of our predecessor court in Miller v. Quertermous, 304 Ky. 733, 202 S.W.2d 389 (1947), and Rhea v. Newman, 153 Ky. 604, 156 S.W. 154 (1913), for the proposition that he may expend unappropriated funds to provide essential services during emergencies. We easily distinguish Rhea because the funds in that case had, in fact, been appropriated by the General Assembly. There simply was insufficient money in the treasury to pay the warrant when it was submitted. A statute, 1910 Ky. Acts, ch. 72, § 3, provided that, in such a circumstance, the Treasurer should endorse the warrant as bearing five percent interest from the date of its presentation. The issue was whether, considering the extent of other state indebtedness, that endorsement would violate Section 49 of the Constitution, which authorizes the General Assembly to contract debts to meet casual deficits but requires that such debts not exceed a maximum of $500,000. Rhea, 156 S.W. at 155. The case had nothing to do with Section 230. Quertermous did have to do with Section 230, but has been regarded as an anomaly, at best. There, the General Assembly made what it believed to be sufficient appropriations for the maintenance of state prisons, correctional institutions for children, and mental institutions. Unfortunately, with the elimination of the price control system in effect during World War II, the cost of living rose unexpectedly and the appropriated funds proved insufficient to pay the necessary, ordinary and recurring expenses of those institutions. The Commissioner of Welfare sued the State Treasurer and the Commissioner of Finance for funds necessary to continue the operation of the institutions. Noting that the appropriated funds would expire on May 15, 1947 (the opinion was rendered on May 16, 1947), and that there was a substantial surplus in the treasury, Quertermous, 202 S.W.2d at 390, the court ordered the Treasurer to pay the funds necessary to operate the institutions. Id. at 392. We are justified in assuming that the Legislature was fully cognizant of its obligation to make such appropriation for the care of these institutions and inmates. The intention so to care for them is evidenced by the appropriation made. The fact that an unanticipated rising cost of living later shows the estimate to be erroneous, in no way operates to destroy that proper intention, nor could it in any way be justifiable grounds for criticism. A great untouched surplus of public funds, collected for public purposes, is on hand. An unexpected and unanticipated emergency requiring more than emotional gestures confronts us. Id. at 391-92. Thus, the court inferred an intent on the part of the General Assembly to provide the additional funds for the operation of the institutions from the fact that it had already appropriated what it believed to be sufficient funds for their operation, and from the fact that a surplus of funds was on hand in the treasury sufficient to pay for their continued operation. The opinion can be partially justified by the constitutional mandates of Sections 252 and 254 and partially explained by expediency (though there is no explanation why the Commissioner of Welfare did not ask the Governor to call an extraordinary session of the General Assembly to obtain a proper legislative appropriation of the necessary funds, a process that would have required less time than it took to litigate the issue through the trial and appellate courts). Nine years later, the Attorney General sued the Commissioner of Finance for funds needed to operate his office in excess of those appropriated by the General Assembly, citing Quertermous. Ferguson v. Oates, 314 S.W.2d at 519-20. Recognizing the fundamental impropriety of a court order directing payment of unappropriated funds to provide to the executive department additional funds that the legislature had deemed unnecessary, the court in Ferguson expressly limited Quertermous to its facts. [T]he court's action was `brought about by an inexorable necessity coupled with an inescapable responsibility,' and the case should not be considered as precedent except under comparable conditions. Ferguson, 314 S.W.2d at 520. In fact, despite the Quertermous court's obvious good intentions when faced with seemingly insoluble facts, the decision was prima facie an unconstitutional encroachment by the executive and judicial departments on the powers of the legislative department. Good intentions do not justify unconstitutional acts. Dishman v. Coleman, 244 Ky. 239, 50 S.W.2d 504, 508 (1932) (State Treasurer held personally liable for expenditure of unappropriated funds even though the officer thought he was doing what was best for the commonwealth, and had the concurrence of the Attorney General at the time. [4] ). We reject the proposition that a Governor can unilaterally declare an emergency and spend unappropriated funds to resolve it. As Justice Jackson said in his famous concurring opinion in the Youngstown case: The Solicitor General lastly grounds support of the seizure upon nebulous, inherent powers never expressly granted but said to have accrued to the office from the customs and claims of preceding administrations. The plea is for a resulting power to deal with a crisis or an emergency according to the necessities of the case, the unarticulated assumption being that necessity knows no law. . . . The appeal, however, that we declare the existence of inherent powers ex necessitate to meet an emergency asks us to do what many think would be wise, although it is something the forefathers omitted. They knew what emergencies were, knew the pressures they engender for authoritative action, knew, too, how they afford a ready pretext for usurpation. We may also suspect that they suspected that emergency powers would tend to kindle emergencies. . . . [E]mergency powers are consistent with free government only when their control is lodged elsewhere than in the Executive who exercises them. . . . With all its defects, delays and inconveniences, men have discovered no technique for long preserving free government except that the Executive be under the law, and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations. Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 646, 649-50, 652, 655, 72 S.Ct. at 875-76, 877, 878, 880 (Jackson, J., concurring). The Governor possesses no emergency or inherent powers to appropriate money from the state treasury that the General Assembly, for whatever reason, has not appropriated. Cf. Brown v. Barkley, 628 S.W.2d 616, 623 (Ky.1982) (Practically speaking, except for those conferred upon him specifically by the Constitution, [the Governor's] powers, like those of the executive officers created by Const. Sec. 91, are only what the General Assembly chooses to give him.). Nor does the Court of Justice have the power to confer such authority. Miller v. Quertermous is overruled to the extent it holds or can be interpreted otherwise.