Court Opinion

ID: 9832690
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:06:37.29799+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:25.115161
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellants pretermit all other questions raised in the brief by stating: “The sole question to be determined is: Did the court err in holding that the act of the Thirty-Second Legislature of Texas did not repeal the entire act of January 26, 1905?”
[18] In article 3, § 35, of the Constitution of Texas, it is provided that “no bill (except general appropriation bills, which may embrace the various subjects and accounts for and on which moneys are appropriated) shall contain more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title.” That section does not give any authority to pass new laws or repeal old ones through the medium of a general appropriation bill, and even if the Legislature had intended to repeal the act of 1905, by an item in the appropriation bill, it would be invalid and unconstitutional, for such bills are excepted from the general rule only for the reason that they might appropriate money for the various purposes of government, without naming each item in the title, which would render them cumbersome and very onerous. It was never contemplated that a valid existing law should be repealed by an appropriation of money, even though, as is not the case in this instance, it be totally inconsistent with the terms of the existing law. No case has been cited, or *884has come to our notice, where an existing law has been repealed by the appropriation of money in connection with the subject-matter of the existing law. A statute might be brought into a state of “innocuous desuetude,” so that it might languish, and, languishing, perchance might die of inanition by a failure to appropriate funds necessary to put it into operation, but the Legislature attempted a novel performance if it endeavored to destroy a law by the appropriation of money to carry it into effect.
Admitting that a repealing act might be sandwiched among the various and sundry items of a general appropriation act, still such an act would not be a subject or account for and on which moneys are appropriated, and should be expressed in the title. It was never contemplated that an act should be repealed by an item in an appropriation bill, and there is nothing in the item appropriating the $5,000 to improve the Alamo property that evinces any desire upon the part of the Legislature to take the custody of the property from those to whom it had been intrusted by law. We must presume that, if the Legislature desired to relieve the association of Texas women of the custody and care of the Alamo property, it would have met the question in an open, manly way, and would not, at a called session, convened for certain purposes, have slipped an item into a general appropriation bill, in order to repeal one of the statutes of the state.
[19] Even if the item, which is dignified by appellants by being called a “repealing act,” had been intended as an amendment of the act of 1905, it would not be in harmony with article 3, § 36, of the Constitution, which provides that no law shall be amended by reference to its title, “but in such ease the act reviewed or the section or sections amended shall be re-enacted and published at length.” No reference whatever is made in the appropriation item to the act of 1905, by title or otherwise. The sole object of the appropriation of 1911 was to assist the trustees and custodians of the Alamo in caring for and improving the property.
[20] As to the charge that the Daughters of the Republic of Texas have not made any efforts to improve the property, and have not acted in good faith with the state, this court has nothing to do; but that matter, if deserving of presentation to any branch of the state government, must be addressed to the Legislature, which gave appellee its authority and alone can take it away.
This court has not held, as so zealously, if not intemperately, asserted by appellants in their motion, that the money appropriated should be distributed by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, but have held that no officer of the state government has the authority to dispossess that organization of the custody of property confided to it by the Legislature. This court has nothing to do with the question of the expenditure of the money appropriated, and does not propose to be led off into the consideration of such questions, which have no bearing whatever upon the law and merits of this case.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.