Court Opinion

ID: 9575947
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:18:50.934972+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:49:44.337595
License: Public Domain

HARRIS, Justice,
(dissenting).
According to a venerable principle of disputation, the power to frame the question includes also the power to control the answer. Although the majority may have employed the proper analysis it has not reached the correct controlling question and has thus reached the incorrect conclusion. The question should be whether the legislature can suspend a self-imposed statutory obligation without first amending or repealing the statute. The answer should be no. I dissent because I think the trial court should be reversed.
As the majority notes, the political-question doctrine stems primarily from the principle of separation of powers. I enthusiastically agree that those of us who serve in any branch of government should be scrupulous in according respectful deference to the other branches concerning those matters entrusted to them. I also agree with the majority that the test for determining the existence of a political question is that set out in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 217, 82 S.Ct. 691, 710, 7 L.Ed.2d 663, 686 (1962). I further concur that the present case involves the first factor of that test: whether there is a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department. Indeed the majority is on solid ground in observing that responsibility and authority for establishing its own rules of proceedings rests with the General Assembly and not the courts.
This is not what is involved here. We are not dealing with rules of proceedings. Rather we are faced with an interpretation of a statute carefully fashioned years ago by the legislature when it provided for open access to public records. The legislature did not fashion this statute without difficulty. On the one hand it had to consider the interest of the taxpayers’ right to information on where their dollars were being spent. On the other hand the legislature had also to consider the interests of citizens seeking comfortable access to their elected legislators. Note, The Iowa Open Meetings Act: A Lesson in Legislative Ineffectiveness, 62 Iowa L.Rev. 1108,1113 (1977) (discussing the policies behind the open information acts). I freely acknowledge it was for the legislature to sort through these competing considerations in the legislative process and strike a balance that would be judged in the forum of public opinion. I would be the last to intrude into that process.
What the legislature should not be allowed to do is the very thing authorized by the majority: to resolve the question by enacting the open-records law, now Iowa Code chapter 22 (1995), in favor of access to the information, expressly making the access binding on itself, and then, on an ad hoc determination — actually judicial in nature — to withhold the statute’s application. The majority is misguided in according this authority to the legislature on a ground of separation of pow*504ers because to do so abdicates authority that properly belongs exclusively to the courts. Under well established authority, later discussed, it is the province of the legislature to enact the laws, but once enacted it is the exclusive province of the courts to interpret the law.
Once a statute is lawfully enacted, all members of society, even legislators, must comply with its provisions. The General Assembly should be required to abide by Iowa Code chapter 22. A careful analysis of article III section 9 of the Iowa Constitution mandates this conclusion.
I. Three chapters of the Iowa Code control public access to governmental information: the Examination of Public Records Act (open records), Iowa Code chapter 22; the Iowa Administrative Procedure Act (IAPA), Iowa Code chapter 17A; and the Official Meetings Open to Public Act (open meetings), Iowa Code chapter 21. Each of these chapters focuses on a different aspect of the public need for information relating to governmental affairs.
The open records law was enacted in 1967, the same year the open meetings law was adopted. 1967 Iowa Acts ch. 106. It accords citizens the right to examine and copy all “public records.” Iowa Code § 22.2(1). The legislature chose to define the term “public records” broadly. According to Code section 22.1(3) the term “public records” includes any “information, stored or preserved in any medium, of or belonging to this state or [other governmental body].” In section 22.1(1) the legislature carefully defined the term “governmental body” to include state government. This is in sharp contrast with its choice in the open meetings law, where in Iowa Code section 21.2(1) a “governmental body” was not defined to include “this state,” but was confined to boards, councils, commissions or other governmental bodies created by statute or executive order. Thus the legislature carefully and, it must be assumed, deliberately, crafted the open records law to embrace its own records.
There is also other evidence of legislative intent to make chapter 22 apply to itself. A statutory exception was created to exempt from disclosure records gathered in investigations of General Assembly members. See Iowa Code § 22.7(30). The legislature thereby acknowledged that an exemption must exist under section 22.7 in order for its own records to escape accessibility under chapter 22. Full access to public records, including legislative records, is promised unless some lawful escape route can be proven.
Two such possibilities are suggested. It is premature to consider the first route because of the posture of this case — an appeal from the grant of summary judgment. The second route is impassible.
II. The first route is suggested by the confidential records exception in Iowa Code section 22.7(18). Under that provision records to be kept confidential include:
Communications not required by law, rule, or procedure that are made to a government body or to any of its employees by identified persons outside of government, to the extent that the government body receiving those communications from such persons outside of government could reasonably believe that those persons would be discouraged from making them to that government body if they were available for general public examination. Notwithstanding this provision:
а. The communication is a public record to the extent that the person outside a government making that communication consents to its treatment as a public record.
б. Information contained in a communication is a public record to the extent that it can be disclosed without directly or indirectly indicating the identity of the person outside a government making it or enabling others to ascertain the identity of that person.
c. [Dealing with law enforcement techniques.]
One can certainly argue, as does the majority, that disclosure of records pertaining to incoming calls from constituents to legislators may “chill” such communications. It is possible that at least some of these types of calls are entitled to protection under the Act. It is less clear whether disclosure of outgoing calls would be protected. The statutory ex-*505emptíon in section 22.7(18) focuses on “[c]om-munications ... made to a government body” and “the government body receiving those communications.”
The parties did not litigate this issue because of the trial court’s grant of summary judgment. For reasons explained in division III, I think the case should be remanded to district court where the effect of section 22.7(18) can be litigated. It is enough here for me to observe that it provides no basis for a grant of summary judgment.
III. The heart of the dispute is the holding that the General Assembly’s prerogative to set its own rules of proceedings authorizes it to suspend operation of a statute it has made binding upon itself. For two reasons I think it cannot. First, not by any stretch of imagination, can I believe this policy, concerning as it does the individual legislator’s interface with the public, is a rule of proceeding. Secondly, I am convinced we should persist in our view that the legislature cannot excuse itself from the binding effect of its own enactments without first amending or repealing them.
A. My strongest disagreement with the majority lies with its authorization of the “political question” escape route: a legislative claim of a direct constitutional power used in order to avoid the legal consequences of its own enactments. The “claim” was triggered by a transparent legal ruling. The defendant secretary of the senate, John F. Dwyer, refused to produce call detail records because, he said, “production of such records would violate privacy rights and constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and would have a detrimental chilling effect on citizens’ rights and willingness to petition their elected officials.” I am sure Mr. Dwyer is a person of considerable ability but nevertheless is a person who obviously has never taken an oath of judicial office. It cannot be seriously argued that his ruling did not involve interpretation of laws, a function we have vigilantly claimed exclusively for the courts.
We have often expressed our acknowledgment that under the separation of powers doctrine, it is the prerogative of the legislature to declare what the law shall be, but the prerogative of the courts alone to declare what the law is.
State ex rel. Lankford v. Mundie, 508 N.W.2d 462, 463 (Iowa 1993). See also West Des Moines State Bank v. Mills, 482 N.W.2d 432, 436 (Iowa 1992); State v. James, 393 N.W.2d 465, 467 (Iowa 1986); Ruthven Consol. Sch. Dist. v. Emmetsburg Community Sch. Dist., 382 N.W.2d 136, 140 (Iowa 1986); Franke v. Junko, 366 N.W.2d 536, 539 (Iowa 1985); Slockett v. Iowa Valley Community Sch. Dist., 359 N.W.2d 446, 448 (Iowa 1984); Richardson v. City of Jefferson, 257 Iowa 709, 717, 134 N.W.2d 528, 533 (1965).
Cases can be found that acknowledge a legislature’s right to ignore or contradict existing statutes. This view seems to have originated with commentators, such as Blackstone, who were familiar with a system of parliamentary responsibility, in which the parliament did indeed reign supreme, even to the extent of holding final jurisdiction to consider appeals from the courts. This orientation has led many courts to misconstrue a valid principle: one legislative session cannot bind its successors. But this limitation properly exists only in the sense that it cannot bind future legislatures to renew legislation or to be bound not to repeal it. See Frost v. State, 172 N.W.2d 575, 583 (Iowa 1969).
In AFSCME/Iowa Council 61 v. State, 484 N.W.2d 390, 394-95 (Iowa 1992), we rejected a claim that another constitutional prerogative (budgeting process) provided the General Assembly with justification for violating a contract it entered by way of statute. Although no contract is implicated in the present dispute, AFSCME is authority that sessions of our legislature are not free to ignore the effects of enactments of their predecessors.
B. Article III section 9 of the Iowa Constitution accords each house of the General Assembly authority to “determine its rules of proceedings.” The trial court interpreted this authority to include the subject matter of this suit, an interpretation I believe to be at odds with the Constitution’s plain language. This provision was obviously intended to accord each legislative house the power to es*506tablish a system for the orderly processing of bills. How individual legislators meet or communicate with the public is a matter of considerable importance, but has absolutely nothing to do with the General Assembly’s rules of proceedings. See Watson v. California Fair Political Practices Comm’n, 217 Cal.App.3d 1059, 266 Cal.Rptr. 408, 413 (2 Dist.1990) (term “rules of proceedings” confined to manner in which a legislature drafts its rules, appropriates its funds, or chooses officers or employees, and does not concern legislators’ relationships with constituents); Sweeney v. Tucker, 473 Pa. 493, 375 A.2d 698, 708-09 (1977) (“rules of proceedings” defined as internal operating procedures of the legislature).
Cases cited by the majority for support have been misconstrued. Both Moffitt v. Willis, 459 So.2d 1018, 1022 (Fla.1989), and Abood v. League of Women Voters, 743 P.2d 333, 338 (Alaska 1982), challenge access to legislative committee meetings under state open meetings laws. Consumers Union v. Periodical Correspondents’ Association, 515 F.2d 1341, 1342-43 (D.C.Cir.1975), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1051, 96 S.Ct. 780, 46 L.Ed.2d 640 (1976), involved accreditation of a member of the media to the periodical press galleries of Congress. Such issues are resolved under Iowa law because the state legislature exempted itself from the open meetings act. The same cannot be said for the open records law.
More pertinent here are two eases involving phone records. North Jersey Newspaper Co. v. Freeholders, 245 N.J.Super. 113, 584 A.2d 275, 279 (App.Div.1990), modified on other grounds and remanded, 127 N.J. 9, 601 A.2d 693 (1992), denied access to phone records based on privacy interests protected by the Fourth Amendment, while Taylor v. Worrell Enterprises, 242 Va. 219, 409 S.E.2d 136, 139-40 (1991), denied access under a statutory exception. Notably, neither court held the matter was a nonjustieiable political question.
Appellate judges writing, as I am, in dissent are often tempted to exaggerate the importance of the holding with which they disagree. I recognize that the immediate fallout from the majority opinion, though profoundly disappointing to me, will not shake the cosmos. The public, if sufficiently motivated, has political ways of acquiring information on the details of public expenditures. What I do find alarming is our surrender of vital ground in the separation of powers. We acquired this ground at considerable cost. In some future controversy the majority holding will surely haunt us.
Like my respected colleagues I have a profound reluctance to question the actions of either other branch of state government. It is however no compliment to them, especially when they are confronted by members of the public, to accord other branches more deference than is proper. Neither is it an insult to them to preserve to our branch those responsibilities exclusively entrusted to us. I think the judgment of the trial court should be reversed and the case remanded for the further proceedings I have described.
LARSON and ANDREASEN, JJ., join this dissent.