Court Opinion

ID: 9847478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:00:20.189236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:15.640874
License: Public Domain

WELCH, Justice
(dissenting).
As I view it the Board goes too far in reference to the monies pledged to pay these bonds. This transaction is thereby taken out of the class of self-liquidating debts and is brought into violation of Sec. 23, Art. 10 of the Constitution. See the 1953 Legislative Act referred to in the majority opinion.
The overall pledges made as to the revenues to be applied to pay this bond debt, and as to stated obligations of the Board, go further than in any other case where this Court has approved revenue bonds, and they constitute this a debt and obligation against this Agency of the State and against this Institution of the State, if not against the State itself, as I see it, and that is prohibited by the Constitution.
The constitutional provision above cited, as adopted by vote of the people in 1941, provides, in material substance, as follows:
“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 its form or the source of money from which it is to be paid, * * *
I reach my conclusion herein from the language of the Constitution itself, and in part from our decision in the Television Bond case, 272 P.2d 1027.
There is no question but that the pledge of certain portions of the revenues is quite proper, and it may be that the properly pledged portion of the revenues will be sufficient to pay the bonds so that no other funds or revenues need be applied thereto, but that would not change the fact nor the legal conclusion that the present transaction as set up in the Bonds, the Resolution and in the Trust Agreement, creates a debt and an obligation in violation of the Constitution, as I see it.
Therefore I respectfully dissent and I am authorized to say that Mr. Justice Blackbird joins in these views.