Court Opinion

ID: 9793101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:42:38.823495+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:53:15.814109
License: Public Domain

¶ 1 KAUGER, J.
with whom SUMMERS, C.J. and WATT, J. join, concurring specially:
¶2 I agree with the majority that the proposed bond issues are constitutional within the meaning of the Okla. Const, art. 5, § 331 and art. 10, §§ 23,2 243 and 25.4 I also acknowledge that the language contained in *211the legislative enactments relating to the bond proposals is characteristic of that found in moral-obligation or appropriation-risk bonds. However, these bond proposals are not protected from attack merely through artful drafting. It is unnecessary to determine the character of the obligation created because these are traditional, self-liquidating proposals historically upheld by this Court’s jurisprudence. Stare decisis demands their approval.
¶ 3 The majority opinion recognizes that the bonds are intended to fund “building projects for the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics” and other “projects ranging from construction of a new building for the J.D. McCarty Center for Children with Developmental Disabilities to the purchase of computer hardware and software for the Oklahoma Department of Central Services.”5 These are precisely the types of projects this Court has traditionally found constitutional under the Okla. Const, art. 10, §§ 23, 24 and 25.
¶ 4 In Application of Oklahoma Capitol Improvement Auth., 1966 OK 6, 410 P.2d 46, and Application of Oklahoma Capitol Improvement Auth., 1960 OK 207, 355 P.2d 1028, 1031, we characterized bonds for state office buildings as self-liquidating because the Legislature appropriated to the tenant state agencies monies sufficient to pay the rent which would amortize the bonds. Although no revenues derived from sources outside state appropriations were involved, the 1960 Court found that the bonds for state office buildings were self-liquidating. In both cases, “self-liquidating” entailed putting enough state dollars in one pocket to support the rental payments which had to be made from the other pocket. The construction projects here, like those at issue in Application of Oklahoma Capitol Improvement Auth., 1966 OK 6, 410 P.2d 46, and Application of Oklahoma Capitol Improvement Auth., 1960 OK 207, 355 P.2d 1028, 1031, involve arrangements where state buildings are rented by state agencies pursuant to multi-year leases — scenarios approved in both the causes and identical to that of the capital and construction projects provided for in 73 O.S. Supp.1998 § 301.6
¶ 5 To the extent that the bond proposal provides for the purchase or upgrade of computer or other equipment, its constitutionality is also supported by our prior decisions. In U.C. Leasing, Inc. v. State ex rel. State Bd. of Public Affairs, 1987 OK 43, 737 P.2d 1191, 1195, we upheld a lease covering communications switching equipment. In Indiana Nat’l Bank v. State Dept. of Human Services, 1993 OK 101, 857 P.2d 53, 57, a lease for computer equipment was held constitutional against a debt-limitation attack.
¶ 6 The existence of language in the statute and in the bond proposals which might be construed as merely creating a moral obligation of their payment is irrelevant to the holding that the bonds do not create a prohibited debt within the meaning of the Okla. Const, art. 10, §§ 23, 24 and 25. Approval of the bonds is required based on Oklahoma’s constitutional and statutory law and our controlling precedents — all of which provide bona fide, separate, adequate and independent grounds for this decision.7

.The Okla. Const. art. 5, § 33 provides:
"A. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives. The Senate may propose amendments to revenue bills.
B. No revenue bill shall be passed during the five last days of the session.
C. Any revenue bill originating in the House of Representatives shall not become effective until it has been referred to the people of the state at the next general election held throughout the state and shall become effective and be in force when it has been approved by a majority of the votes cast on the measure at such election and not otherwise, except as otherwise provided in subsection D of this section.
D. Any revenue bill originating in the House of Representatives may become law without being submitted to a vote of the people of the state if such bill receives the approval of three-fourths (¾) of the membership of the House of Representatives and three-fourths (¾) of the membership of the Senate and is submitted to the Governor for appropriate action. Any such revenue bill shall not be subject to the emergency measure provision authorized in Section 58 of this Article and shall not become effective and be in force until ninety days after it has been approved by the Legislature, and acted on by the Governor.”

. The Okla. Const. art. 10, § 23 provides in pertinent part:
"The state shall never create or authorize the creation of any debt or obligation, or fund or pay any deficit, against the state, or any department, institution or agency thereof, regardless of the form, or the source of money from which it is to be paid, except as may be provided in this section and in Sections 24 and 25 of Article X of the Constitution of the State of Oklahoma....”

. The Okla. Const. art. 10, § 24 provides in pertinent part:
"In addition to the above limited power to contract debts, the State may contract debts to repel invasion, suppress insurrection or to defend the State in war ...”

. The Okla. Const. art. 10, § 25 provides in pertinent part:
“Except the debts specified in sections twenty-three and twenty-four of this article, no debts shall be hereafter contracted by or on behalf of this State, unless such debt shall be authorized *211by law for some work or object, to be distinctly specified therein; and such law shall impose and provide for the collection of a direct annual tax to pay, and sufficient to pay, the interest on such debt as it falls due, and also to pay and discharge tire principal of such debt within twenty-five years from the time of the contracting thereof. No such law shall take effect until it shall, at a general election, have been submitted to the people and have received a majority of all the votes cast for and against it at such election....”

.See, ¶ 7, majority opinion. Subsection A(13) of 73 O.S. Supp.1998 § 301 provides for a maximum of $3 million for the implementation of the Boll Weevil Eradication Act with debt retirement payments to be made by the Department of Agriculture. However, this program provides an avenue for economic support through self-assessments on cotton growers. See, 2 O.S. Supp. 1997 §§ 3-50.9, 3-50.9a, 3-50.10 and 3-50.11.

. Title 73 O.S. Supp.1998, § 301, see majority opinion, note 8, supra.

. Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1042, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 3476, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201, 1214 (1983).