Opinion ID: 2612481
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: viii(b constitutional compliance also mandatory for the legislature

Text: There is one specific purpose in the state constitutional provisions addressing procedural requirements for legislative enactment. Service in the legislature is eminently persuasive of the wisdom of the constitutional provisions and requirements for compliance. [26] There are few people, if any, who know what is going on when complex issues are presented during extended recodification. Consequently, the theory of the procedural requirement of the Wyoming Constitution is to provide as much assistance and information to the individual member of the legislature as possible. The greatest danger develops from ingenious expertise when applied to recodification and revision. Without a legislative history foundation, such as is provided in the United States Congress or in many state legislatures by recorded debates and records of committee proceedings, the danger of accidental misadventure or surreptitious redirection is unfortunately enhanced without required disclosure. Sometimes only a few innocuous words are required. [27] Not particularly different is the small amendatory addition to one of Wyoming's basic sentencing statutes, but one which effectively turned the eighty-year Wyoming law upside down. It is fair to assess that, excluding a few lobbyists who knew what they were doing, almost no member of the 1987 session had any perception of either the existence or the importance of the insertion of the prosecutorial veto into the sentencing statute. I would find the significant change in the sentencing statute, H.B. 92, when enacted into Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 157 (1987), to fail because: (1) the change was not described in the bill title as required by Wyo. Const. art. 3, § 24; (2) addition of the subject in H.B. 92 changed the original purpose in defiance of Wyo. Const. art. 3, § 20; (3) the change did not comply with the germaneness criteria of rules adopted by both the Wyoming House of Representatives and the Senate; and (4) the change substantially invaded the separation of powers of Wyo. Const. art. 2, § 1 by denigration of the judicial sentencing power. Admittedly, this court has been less than vigilant in observation of legislative carelessness and disinclined to follow constitutional enactment requirements. Eternal vigilance, which is the essential constituent of the oath of office to support, obey and defend the constitution, cannot be magically eliminated by dissertations of shared burdens and spread responsibility. No other official in our democratic society can be the recipient of a shared delegation of the judiciary's responsibility for the maintenance of the state's Constitution and the United States Constitution. If the judiciary cannot, or chooses not to, then the system will inevitably fail.