Opinion ID: 1431257
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: inability and disability

Text: Readers will recall, from an earlier paragraph in this opinion, the dictum of the Revision Commission's special counsel that [D]isability ... is not an inability. The 1849 constitution provided that the powers and duties of the office shall devolve upon the Lieutenant Governor ... until the disability shall cease; and disability meant impeachment, absence from the State, and  inability to discharge the powers and duties of the office (italics added). There was no change in 1879. In 1946 the clause was amended to read, In case of the impeachment of the Governor ..., his absence from [the] State, or his other temporary disability to discharge the powers and duties of office, then the powers and duties of the office of Governor devolve ..., but only until the disability shall cease. In this lawsuit there is not even a scrap of evidence that suggests any intent by anyone in 1946 to distinguish disability from inability.  For nearly a century the words had been treated as synonymous. After 1946 they still were synonymous. The special counsel erred, I think, when he ad-libbed his brief comment in 1966. Further, a Revision Commission memo on Presentation of proposed Article V, addressed by the staff attorney on April 7, 1966, to the Chairman of the Commission, the Chairman of its Article V Committee, and the Chairman of its Drafting Committee, on page 3 states: Standard of `temporary disability' has a sufficiently definite and understood meaning to serve as a reasonable guideline for the court. Additional detail might bind the court, in a situation which we cannot now foresee, in a way that defeats the otherwise clear purpose underlying the scheme of succession and disability provisions. What was that clear purpose? It was to have the scheme of succession take effect whenever the Governor becomes temporarily disabled, for any reason. Quite comparable is this excerpt from the hearings: SONG: ... [W]hat if a Governor is so physically disabled he's confined to bed? His mental process is working quite well. I would assume, then, from what you say, that the court can declare the office vacant. [¶] [STAFF ATTORNEY]: They would have that authority, yes, subject to all the responsibilities placed upon a judiciary construing the Constitution. [¶] SONG: Shouldn't certain limitations be spelled out in the Constitution? [¶] [STAFF ATTORNEY]: We felt that the spelling out of certain limitations and describing specific situations left the body which has to make this ultimate determination, a very difficult determination, really insufficient tools to do it with. Nonetheless the majority opinion here does spell out an indisputably needless limitation; i.e., that mere absence is a disability, always. In sum, analysis and history justify a conclusion that absence from the State does mean now what it meant when it was first written. In 1979, as in 1849, absence should effect the transfer of gubernatorial power only when in fact it is disabling, temporarily.