Court Opinion

ID: 9763466
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:46:07.397499+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:43.805449
License: Public Domain

HOLSTEIN, Judge,
concurring.
I fully concur in the majority opinion but write separately to suggest that if there is a constitutional challenge to the form in which . the legislature enacts a bill, as opposed to a substantive challenge to the content of a bill, this Court should establish strict time standards for bringing an action to judicially review procedural defects. Unfortunately, the widespread violation of article III, § 23 in recent years necessitates articulating time limits to avoid expensive and, I believe, unnecessary litigation that is sure to follow the holding in this case.
As correctly noted by the majority, the defect in H.C.S.H.B.S 551 and 552 is a defect in the form of its enactment. No ease in Missouri has defined the time limits for raising such challenges to the enactment of a bill into law. A defect in the form of a bill does not impact on an individual’s substantive rights.
Where no individual substantive rights are at stake, a claim that the bill is defective in form should be raised at the first opportunity. I would hold that an attack on a statute for such defects must be filed no later than the adjournment of the next full regular legislative session following a bill’s effective date as law unless it can be shown that there was no party aggrieved who could have raised the claim within that time. In the latter circumstance, the complaining party must establish that he or she was the first person aggrieved or in the class of first persons aggrieved, and that the claim was raised not later than the adjournment of the next full regular legislative session following any person being aggrieved. In no event could such claims be raised later than ten years after the bill complained of becomes effective. § 516.110(3), RSMo 1986.
The time limits I would adopt strike a balance between the citizen’s right to insist that the legislature comply with constitutional procedural safeguards that prevent logrolling and the strong presumption of regularity of legislative proceedings that promotes stability and finality of legislative enactments. Here the claim was timely filed.