Opinion ID: 2411071
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: enacting clause

Text: We turn next to the facet of this case on which the circuit court predicated its decision the absence of an Enacting Clause in Amendment 73. Amendment 7 to the Arkansas Constitution sets the following requirement: Enacting ClauseThe style of all the bills initiated and submitted under the provisions of this section shall be, Be It Enacted by the People of the State of Arkansas (municipality, or county as the case may be). In submitting measures to the people, the Secretary of State and all other officials shall be guided by the general election laws or municipal laws, as the case may be, until additional legislation is provided therefor. The circuit court found that the omission of the Enacting Clause was fatal to Amendment 73 and voided it on that basis. The appellants vehemently attack this ruling on several grounds: (1) appellees Hill and Herget waged, in essence, a contest over the sufficiency of the initiated petition with their Enacting Clause argument, and the circuit court had no jurisdiction over sufficiency matters; (2) Amendment 7 speaks of the style of all bills needing Enacting Clauses, and bills is a legislative term which does not include constitutional amendments; (3) the requirements of Amendment 7 are directory post-election and not mandatory; and (4) there was substantial compliance with the requirements of Amendment 7. We believe that the declaratory judgment action which raised the Enacting Clause issue and the validity of Amendment 73, post-election, was appropriately before the circuit court and that that court had jurisdiction to hear the matter. We, therefore, turn to the language of Amendment 7 itself. Under the title Initiative, Amendment 7 reads: The first power reserved by the people is the initiative. Eight percent of the legal voters may propose any law and ten percent may propose a Constitutional Amendment by initiative petition, and every such petition shall include the full text of the measure so proposed. (Emphasis ours.) The people of this State may propose either laws or constitutional amendments by initiative petition. The lawmaking power given to the people to propose and adopt laws by initiative petition was intended to supplement existing legislative authority in the General Assembly. See Ferrell v. Keel, 105 Ark. 380, 151 S.W. 269 (1912). That power, though, is not what is involved in the case before us. Here, we are concerned with an initiative petition to amend the Arkansas Constitution, which is a separate matter altogether. In common legal parlance, a bill is a draft of an act of the legislature before it becomes law. Black's Law Dictionary 167 (6th ed. 1991). Under Amendment 7, the people of this State have the power to enact bills into laws by direct vote. The term bills as used in the Enacting Clause section of Amendment 7 does not refer to statewide constitutional amendments but only to initiated proposals where the people are seeking to enact their own laws. Our case law recognizes that Amendment 7 requires an Enacting Clause for initiated bills by the people. Hailey v. Carter, 221 Ark. 20, 251 S.W.2d 826 (1952). That is because the people, as opposed to the General Assembly, are enacting the laws under their initiative power. But, again, the same does not hold true for constitutional amendments. We are aware of no case in Arkansas holding that an Enacting Clause is required for a proposed statewide constitutional amendment. The circuit court failed to make this distinction, but the Enacting Clause provision makes it clear by referring to bills. In the case before us, Amendment 73 was published as required by law and adopted by a wide majority of those voting on the issue. The ballot title stated that it was Proposed by Petition of the People. It was abundantly clear that this was a proposed amendment to the Arkansas Constitution to put term limits into effect. In sum, Amendment 7 makes no requirement for an enacting clause for statewide initiated petitions to amend the Arkansas Constitution, and we so hold. We reverse the circuit court on this point.