Court Opinion

ID: 9765386
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:01:38.848476+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:09.508080
License: Public Domain

HUTCHINSON, Justice,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion, but write separately to express my view that were the issue of compliance with the public notice procedures of Section 4 of Article III of the Pennsylvania Constitution squarely before us, its requirement that “Every bill shall be considered on three different days in each House” would apply to legislative amendments *188made by a conference committee when the amendments involve a subject totally foreign to the bill which has been sent to conference and would pose a difficult issue of justiciability.
The permissible scope of amendments to a bill has always been extremely broad and the freedom to compromise in conference is a sine qua non of the legislative process. Essentially, however, the legislature has adhered to the requirement that all amendments be germane. For the legislature to abandon such a requirement could in some circumstances raise issues which have elsewhere been accepted as exceptions to the “enrolled bill” doctrine.1 See R.E. Woodside Pennsylvania Constitutional Law (1985) at 356.
That doctrine is of inestimable importance to the separation of powers which underlies our tripartite government and its protection of our liberties. It would be unfortunate if courts, which have an obligation to see that the principles of the Constitution apply to the disposition of concrete cases presented to them,2 were compelled to qualify the doctrine to meet that obligation. While the three day rule of Article III, Section 4, gives the public a minimal opportunity to make its views known before the enactment of legislation, the legislature has great freedom to amend the bills before it. Considering its unfettered conference committees and the broad legislative rules of germaneness, the legislature can easily avoid any judicial interference with the “enrolled bill” doctrine and I would respectfully urge it to do so.
PAPADAKOS, J., joins in this concurring opinion.

. The history of the "enrolled bill” doctrine in Pennsylvania is set forth in Velasquez v. Depuy, 46 Pa. D & C.2d 587, 90 Dauphin 217 (1969), citing, inter alia, Mikell v. Philadelphia School District, 359 Pa. 113, 58 A.2d 339 (1948), Kilgore v. Magee, 85 Pa. 401 (1877), Speer v. Plank-Road Co., 22 Pa. 376 (1853).

. See Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 2 L.Ed. 60.