Court Opinion

ID: 9686749
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:04:41.668882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:19.871395
License: Public Domain

Fairchild, J.
{concurring). I agree with the conclusion that ch. 317, Laws of 1957, is unconstitutional for the reasons set forth in the opinion by Mr. Justice Broadfoot on behalf of the court.
In my opinion there is one additional ground upon which that act is repugnant to the constitution of Wisconsin. It is that the act would deprive the electors of Green county of the right to vote separately for two offices.
Under sec. 2, art. VII, the circuit court and the county court are separate courts. There must be circuit courts, and in addition, there must be either probate courts or some inferior court created by the legislature, with probate powers, pursuant to sec. 14, art. VII. The county court is such inferior court. Sec. 8, art. VII, confers upon the circuit court “appellate jurisdiction from all inferior courts and tribunals, and a supervisory control over the same.”
The necessary implication is that the office of circuit judge and the office of county judge must, by virtue of these constitutional provisions, be separate offices. If one individual were to be elected both county judge and circuit judge or, for that matter, both circuit judge and a justice of the supreme court, one might well ask the question whether the two offices are so incompatible that one individual could not hold both offices even though elected by the people. In the matter before us, however, we have an even more-challenging question in that ch. 317, Laws of 1957, would require that after January 1, 1962, both offices shall be held by the same individual and would prevent the voters voting separately for the two offices.
There is no provision of the constitution which in so many words prohibits the legislature from providing that two separate constitutional offices must be occupied by the same in*399dividual. Nevertheless, this provision seems to me to do very substantial violence to the framework of government created by the present constitution. One might ask whether, if the legislature saw fit, it would have the power to provide that the offices of lieutenant governor and secretary of state or some other combination of offices must be held by the same individual. It would seem that the constitution, by making specific provision for separate offices, implies that the legislature cannot combine them into one office.
I am mindful of the fact that a great effort has been made to reorganize the courts of Wisconsin and that the proposal agreed to by the 1955 legislature, but to which the 1957 legislature declined to agree, would have provided for the circuit courts as the only kind of trial court except justices of the peace. Joint Resolution No. 51, 1955. That change was to be accomplished by constitutional amendment, erasing all distinctions between trial courts. In the instant act the courts would have remained separate, but the two positions as judge would have been combined virtually into one. Desirable as the single type of trial court may be, it cannot be accomplished either completely, or, in my opinion, to the extent of the makeshift which is before us, as long as the constitution is in its present form.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Hallows joins in this concurring opinion.