Opinion ID: 2211907
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: temporal limits on the legislative mandate

Text: While Professor Eule's insights cannot be faithfully reproduced in a short space, the following excerpts may suffice to convey the gist of his thesis. The Framers were not blind to the citizenry's need for some security from the fluctuating policy of successive legislatures. It was to fulfill this need, said Madison, that the contract and ex post facto clauses were written into the Constitution. Conflicting lessons can be drawn from the inclusion of these restraints. They may alternatively be viewed as limited sanctuaries from the otherwise unfettered authority of legislatures to undo the policy judgments of their predecessors or as compelling evidence of the disfavored status of retrospective lawmaking. It is the choice between these competing visions  rather than the debate over natural law  that ultimately divided Justices Iredell and Chase in Calder v Bull [3 US (3 Dall) 386; 1 L Ed 648 (1798)]. Both agreed that the ex post facto clause could not, consistent with the historical meaning of that phrase, be applied to the civil legislation before the Court. For Justice Iredell this ended the constitutional inquiry since he believed that the legislature's power necessarily included all that was not expressly denied to it. Furthermore, in Iredell's eyes, the power to alter preexisting legal understandings was essential, not merely tolerable. He argued that if legislators were denied the ability to subordinate private rights to public exigencies, the operations of Government would often be obstructed, and society itself would be endangered. Iredell was not blind to the possibilities for abuse, but he contended that such risks had been undertaken willingly by the people when they delegated authority to their agents. Justice Chase viewed the people's grant as more restrained. Rejecting Iredell's assumption that power not denied was conferred, Chase maintained instead that power not conferred was denied. A determination of what authority the people had entrusted to their agents (through the federal or state constitution) could not be made without an understanding of the principles of a republican form of government. Legislation inconsistent with those principles should be viewed as beyond the scope of the grant. The inapplicability of the ex post facto clause did not foreclose the possibility that the power exercised by the Connecticut legislature was one that the people of Connecticut had not conferred. It is common for scholars to characterize Justice Chase's vision as limiting legislative power by reliance on immutable natural rights. This misses the point. Chase's thesis was not that government could not be given the authority to act retrospectively, but that the conferral of power to act at odds with republican principles should not be presumed. For both Justices, therefore, the issue was one of agency: Does the scope of authority delegated by the people to their representatives comprehend the power to legislate retroactively where the exercise of such power is not expressly forbidden?    The voters do not delegate authority to rewrite history. Their earlier agents exercised legitimate authority when they enacted legislation. While such efforts may be repealed, this is not the same as retrospective eradication. A decision that bills defeated by prior legislatures can now be enacted and treated as if they had been enacted earlier arguably runs afoul of this same principle. The then-authorized representatives made a choice, and this decision demands recognition as the choice of the polity for that point in time. Each set of elected officials ought to be viewed as endowed by their sovereign with the mandate to make policy choices only within a bracketed temporal zone. Just as the delegation of authority does not encompass incursions into the domain of legislatures yet to come, it does not contemplate contravening the sanctity of time past. While I contend that the prohibition against entrenchment and retroactivity are both products of the temporal boundaries the electorate affixes to its mandate, I do not pretend that these two borders are drawn to serve identical ends. I do believe they manifest a common interest in affording each generation of voters the opportunity to determine for itself, through its representatives, the rules that will govern its daily life. The two constraints, however, satisfy different  and at times conflicting  human needs. The postmandate restriction protects flexibility. It preserves the polity's right to change its mind. The premandate limitation, on the other hand, offers stability. It enables the polity to alter its direction, without unduly undermining the security we all find so necessary. This means that the choices of our representatives can be relied on for the temporal realm in which these agents legitimately exercised authority. No more is guaranteed, but no less is tolerable. [Eule, supra, pp 441-446. Emphasis in original.] The Legislature in this case did not merely change the future consequences of past acts, i.e., by changing the future benefit levels for persons injured prior to 1982  a practice which the appellants concede would be a constitutional way to amend our workers' compensation scheme; rather, the Legislature turns back the clock to redefine rights and liabilities enjoyed and owing in the past, notwithstanding the fact that those rights and liabilities had already been determined by an earlier and different body of agents of an earlier majority, determinations which the Legislature in 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986 declined to change. The legislation in this case violates the temporal limits of the 1987 Legislature. Because the United States Supreme Court has given no indication that it approves of Professor Eule's approach, however, I must decline to dissent on these grounds from the majority's finding that the 1987 amendments are constitutional. [2]