Court Opinion

ID: 9641205
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:25:05.242256+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:35.803360
License: Public Domain

GONZALEZ, Justice,
concurring.
In Edgewood I, we held that the state’s school financing system was neither financially efficient nor efficient in the sense of providing for a “general diffusion of knowledge” statewide, and therefore it violated article VII, section 1 of the Texas Constitution. 777 S.W.2d at 395, 397 (Tex. 1989). We further declared that we would not instruct the legislature as to the specifics of the legislation it should enact; nor did we order it to raise taxes. We stated that the legislature has the primary responsibility to decide how best to achieve an efficient system.
The issue before us in Edgewood II was whether this violation remained following the enactment of Senate Bill 1 by the 71st Legislature. 804 S.W.2d 493 (1991). We held that the fundamental flaw of Senate Bill 1 “lies not in any particular provisions but in its overall failure to restructure the system.” Id. at 496. We concluded that since the public school finance system had not been altered to comply with article VII, section 1 of the Texas Constitution, the district court abused its discretion in refusing to enforce the mandate issued in Edgewood I.
We should not speculate or interfere with the ongoing legislative debate as to how to meet the mandates of Edgewood I or Edgewood II; nor should we get into the business of giving the legislature pre-clearance on proposed legislation. See Muskrat v. United States, 219 U.S. 346, 362, 31 S.Ct. 250, 255, 55 L.Ed. 246 (1911). To say now what might be constitutional would get into the area of advisory opinions. We have repeatedly held that under our constitution, judicial power does not embrace the *501giving of advisory opinions. Firemen’s Ins. Co. v. Burch, 442 S.W.2d 331, 333 (Tex.1969); Correa v. First Court of Appeals, 795 S.W.2d 704, 705 (Tex.1990).
As our court stated in Morrow v. Corbin, 122 Tex. 553, 62 S.W.2d 641, 643 (1933):
Ordinarily, we believe the rendition of advisory opinions is to be regarded as the exercise of executive rather than judicial power. This seems to have been the conception of those who framed the Constitution, since by that instrument the Attorney General, a member of the Executive Department, is the only state officer expressly authorized to render such opinions. State Constitution, article 4, §§ 1, 22. At any rate, the rendition of advisory opinions has generally been held not to be the exercise of judicial power, (citations omitted).
For all these reasons, I would overrule the motion for rehearing without an opinion.