Court Opinion

ID: 9624378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:01:18.339649+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:52:12.135207
License: Public Domain

LUSK, J.
(specially concurring).
I concur in the result reached by the court. Unwittingly, perhaps, the court has ignored a distinction which in another case might be of vital importance. As to this I shall state my views.
Although courts and text writers sometimes use the words “effective” and “operative” interchangeably with reference to statutes, yet in certain connotations these words must be given different meanings, and the “effective date of an act may or may not be its operative date. This may be illustrated quite simply by assuming that the act now under consideration had provided that it should become effective January 1, 1953, instead of January 1, 1952. If such an act had been referred to the people and approved by a majority of the votes cast thereon at the 1952 general election it would have become a law on the day of the election as provided by Art. IV, § 1, of the constitution, but could not have gone into operation at that time. That is to say, the motor carriers would not have become subject to the new tax until January 1, 1953. This is because the act would have so provided, and the people would have voted in favor of the bill which the legislature passed and not some other bill. Similarly, had the act in question provided that “from and after January 1, 1952” certain taxes should be assessed against and collected from motor carriers, I should have thought that, notwithstanding the referendum, *658January 1, 1952, would have been determined as the time when the tax would commence to be a liability of the carriers, although the measure would not have become law until November 4, 1952.
I do not believe that Art. IV, § 1, of the constitution should be so construed as to give to a minority of the voters the power by merely invoking the referendum to prevent the majority from approving a measure passed by the legislature, even though such approval should not come until after the time when the particular measure by its terms was to become operative. On the contrary, I think that the people may at the polls adopt or reject the very law passed by the legislature. Hence, in a case like this, the initial question is one of statutory construction, namely, whether § 2 of ch. 428, Oregon Laws 1951, means that the act was merely to have gone into effect as a law on January 1, 1952, or whether it was to become operative (in the sense which I have indicated) on that date. If the latter were the case, then, while the referendum would have prevented the measure from becoming a law until it was approved by the voters on November 4, 1952, its provisions, nevertheless, upon adoption by the people, would operate retroactively upon the motor carriers subject to the tax, beginning with January 1, 1952. I am not prepared, however, to give the act this construction. The legislature, of course, knew when they passed it that it might be referred to the people. Without some clearer expression than the act contains of an intention to impose the tax retroactively in case the people should approve it at the polls, I am satisfied to hold that the law did not go into operation and the tax liability did not commence to accrue until November 4, 1952.