Court Opinion

ID: 9547010
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:40:05.364374+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:12.335259
License: Public Domain

AREND, Justice
(dissenting in part).
I cannot agree with the conclusion reached in this case by the majority that section 20 of article XV of the Alaska constitution is subject to change by law, enacted either by the legislature or by the people through the initiative.
In support of their decision, my colleagues reason that section 20 is not a permanent part of the constitution changeable only by constitutional amendment, because the section is included under an article entitled “Schedule of Transitional Measures” and has a preamble which reads : “To provide an orderly transition from a territorial to a state form of government, it is declared and ordained.”
That title and preamble lose their force as criteria for determining whether section 20 is to be treated as a temporary measure when we consider them in the light of the following facts: (1) Section 20.appears in the body of the constitution itself and not as an appendage thereto; (2) it is contained in an “Article” of the constitution; and (3) it is not limited by such “transitional” phrases found in other sections of article XV as “until they expire by their own limitation, are amended, or repealed,” “until they [officers of the Territory] are superseded by officers of the State,” “pending enactment of legislation” and “unless otherwise provided by law.”
I do not mean to infer by what I have just said that because.a section in article XV does not contain a transitional phrase within the section itself it is not a transitional measure. Quite to the contrary, for th'eir are a number of sections in article XV which need no such phrase since they are transitional by their very nature,1 e. g., section 9 which provides:
“The first governor and secretary of state shall hold office for a term beginning with the day on which they assume office and ending at noon on the first Monday in December of the even-numbered year following the next presidential election. This term shall count as a full term for purposes of determining eligibility for reelection only if it is four years or more in duration.”
The same cannot be said of section 20, however, for it states simply and clearly: “The capital of the State of Alaska shall be at Juneau.” It does not say that the capital shall be at Juneau for one day or one year or ten years, or until the legislature shall change it by law or the people by the initiative. I am of the opinion that such a plain pronouncement as section 20 can be *324regarded only as an integral part of our constitution and can be changed only in the manner provided in the constitution for the amendment of any other integral part of that document.2
To further sustain their view that section 20 is a transitional measure which can be changed by initiative of the people, the majority members of this court call attention to certain things that transpired at the constitutional convention when the section in question was being considered. They attach considerable significance to the opinion of the chairman of the Committee on Ordinances and Transitional Measures,3 expressed on the floor of the convention, that section 20 was only a transitional measure subject to change by the legislature or the initiative.
The majority opinion concedes that the sentiments expressed by the committee chairman may not be proof in themselves that the majority of the convention intended section 20 to be subject to change by law. The opinion also concedes that from the debate on section 20 at the convention “one might reasonably conclude that some voters understood that section as making the capital an integral part of the organic law, subj ect to change only by constitutional amendment, and that others understood it as being less permanent in nature and subject to change by law.” If all this be so, how then can the majority of this court in the same breath say that the distinct and limited purpose of section 20 as stated in the preamble to article XV, and the meaning and effect attached to it by the committee which studied and introduced it in the convention “gives that section a character and quality and status entirely different from those provisions of other ar-tides of the constitution which constitute this state’s fundamental, organic law” ?
I am not persuaded in the least by the opinion and statements of the committee chairman, relied upon by the majority, because that same chairman also stated on the floor of the convention that he had no objection to a proposed amendment of section 20 which would have added thereto the words “unless decided otherwise by law.” He even went on to say:
“So I think I speak for at least the majority of the Committee that we certainly would have no objections to those words being added.” 4
Yet the minutes reveal that on each of the two occasions when the proposed amendment came up for a vote, the chairman and a substantial majority of the delegates voted it down. And thus there were kept out of section 20 the very words that would have made it a transitional measure.5
Under the decision reached by the majority this day, the duration of the location of the state capital in any particular place becomes most uncertain. It may now be decided by the initiative that the capital shall be removed from Juneau to a place somewhere in western Alaska; but before the removal can actually be accomplished under the proposed bill, another measure may be initiated by the people at any time,6 designating a still different location.
I think that this court should have held that section 20 of article XV is an integral part of the fundamental law of this state which can be changed only by constitutional amendment and then have gone on to rule that the lower court had jurisdiction to enjoin the Secretary of State from placing the proposition on the ballot for submission to the voters of Alaska.

. In the same vein, the last sentence of section 1 of article VI, which is far removed in the constitution from the “Schedule of Transitional Measures,” is nevertheless a transitional provision for it reads:
“Until reapportionment, election districts and the number of representatives to be elected from each district shall be as set forth in Section 1 of Article XIV.”

. The methods by which the Alaska constitution may be amended are summarized in note 2 of the majority opinion.

. As pointed out in the majority opinion, the Committee on Ordinances and Transitional Measures originally introduced section 20 of article XV in the convention as Committee Proposal No. 17/a.

. Alaska Constitutional Convention Minutes, Jan. 26, 1956, at 31.

. Id., at 40; Jan. 24, 1956, at 101.

. See note 20 of the majority opinion.