Opinion ID: 2615788
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Purpose of a Statement of Facts and Reasons

Text: Understanding of the charter provision which we are called upon to review will be enhanced and our conclusions will rest upon firmer ground if we pause to discover the ultimate purpose sought to be achieved by the presence in the enactment of a statement disclosing the facts and reasons for the emergency declaration.  The inclusion in the act itself of a statement of the facts or the facts and reasons which motivated a legislative body into the passage of an emergency law does not change their innate character as legislative facts which the legislative body alone has the right to evaluate. There is no magic of legal conversion wrought or transformation effected by placing in the body of the bill or ordinance all or part of what may elsewhere be found in the legislative journals or other records, if any, of the hearings, reports or debates which were preliminary to a vote on the challenged measure. The recital of all or a part of the same facts and reasons in the ordinance itself does not in and of itself take the ordinance beyond the reach of the doctrine found in the Kadderly case. As was said by Mr. Justice Brewer in the quotation from that learned judge, employed with approval by Mr. Justice BEAN in the Kadderly case (44 Or 149): `When the legislature enacts a law, the only question which we can decide is whether the limitations of the constitution have been infringed upon.' (Italics ours.) Morris v. Goss, supra, 83 A2d 561, is additional support for this conclusion. The charter has, in our opinion, a very salutary purpose. The very presence of this somewhat unique provision compels respect from the city council and the courts. As we conceive the charter objective, it is in a sense two-fold: one is primal, the other corollary or incidental but nevertheless of no mean value or importance. We will first address ourselves to