Court Opinion

ID: 9739801
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:21:06.241466+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:13.996512
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
Myers, J.
— I disagree with the majority opinion for the reason that it has completely misinterpreted the plain meaning of the Indiana Constitution and fallen into a murky morass of semantics which has utterly twisted the true interpretation of certain sections thereof. It is agreed that Section 14 of Article 5 is the principal and most important part of the Indiana Constitution to be interpreted herein. We need not repeat it as it has been set forth in full in the majority opinion. It proceeds to spell out exactly what happens when the Governor receives a bill passed by the General Assembly. During the session he may do one of three things: he may sign it, in which case it becomes a *61law according to its terms; he may not sign it, in which case, after the passage of three days, Sundays excepted, it becomes the law without his signature; or he may return it, with objections, within three days after receiving it, to the House in which it originated for new action to be taken thereon. There is a special provision wherein, if the General Assembly adjourns before he can exercise his right to return it with objections during the three-day period and thereby prevents such return, it gives him five days after adjournment to file the bill with the Secretary of State, together with his objections thereto, who must present it to the next session “as if it had been returned by the Governor.” If no action is taken by the Governor during the passage of these five days, the bill automatically becomes law.
Here the bill was presented to the Governor on the 59th day of the General Assembly’s regular session. It went into general adjournment two days later. The Governor did not have the full three days within which to return it to the House from whence it came with his objections. He thereupon presented it with his objections on the fourth day (after the adjournment) to the Secretary of State. It is claimed that, since on the third day after he received the bill he had called a special session, he could have returned the bill with his objections to the Senate on the third day since the Senate was in session at that time. The trial court upheld this viewpoint and entered judgment overruling a demurrer to the complaint which has the effect of declaring the Special Prosecutors’ Bill to be law. The majority of this court has listened to and upheld the very enticing but erroneous arguments presented in masterful fashion by appellees.
*62The fact is overlooked that the Constitution of Indiana clearly separates a regular session of the General Assembly from a special session. The two cannot be merged although they both may be termed, as here, the 93rd General Assembly. Section 9 of Article 4 of the Indiana Constitution states that the “sessions” of the General Assembly shall be held biennially, or if, in the opinion of the Governor, the public welfare shall require it, he may, by proclamation, call a “special session.” Section 29, Article 4, declares that no “session” of the General Assembly (except the first one, under the 1851 Constitution) shall extend beyond the term of sixty-one days, and no “special session” beyond the term of forty days. This means that our regular biennial session of the General Assembly is strictly limited in point of time. When that time is up, it is finished and can never be reconvened as a “session.” Section 14 of Article 5 refers to “general adjournment” and “final adjournment” of the General Assembly. Such terms usually mean adjournment sine die. Black’s Law Dictionary, Fourth Edition, page 63. After such adjournment, that session has passed away forever. Of course, the Governor may call a special session within minutes of the general adjournment of the regular session, but it is a new, unusual and extraordinary session. See Black’s Law Dictionary, Fourth Edition, page 1569, for interpretation of “session.”
As Section 14, Article 5, says, if a bill shall not be returned by the Governor within three days, Sundays excepted, it shall become a law “unless the general adjournment shall prevent its return,” et cetera.
Appellees point out in their brief that this phrase is very similar to one used in the United States Constitution, which is as follows:
*63“If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the congress, by their adjournment, prevent its return, in which case, it shall not be a law.” (Our emphasis.) Section 7 [2], Article 1, United States Constitution.
Appellees, as well as this court, cite the case of Okanogan, etc., Indian Tribes v. United States (1929), 279 U. S. 655, 681, 49 S. Ct. 463, 467, 73 L. Ed. 894, 898, in which the court stated:
“ . . . since the President may return a bill at any time within the allotted period, he is prevented from returning it, within the meaning of the constitutional provision, if by reason of the adjournment it is impossible for him to return it to the House in which it originated on the last day of that period.”
Appellees urgently urge that this court make a similar interpretation concerning the underscored phrase as to make the word “prevent” mean that it is “impossible.”
The General Assembly entitles its actions as “Laws of the State of Indiana Passed at the Special Session of the 93rd General Assembly Begun on the Twelfth Day of March A.D. 1963.” In Chapter 25, Section 3, Page 51, Acts 1963 (Spec. Sess.), the act also refers to the expiration of any “regular session.” Chapter 27 of such Acts provides for expenses of such members, referring to them as members of the “Special Session of the Ninety-third General Assembly.”
The plain interpretation of the word “prevent” follows exactly what appellees urge, that it is impossible to return a' bill to the regular session of the General Assembly if a final adjournment has taken place. It can *64only be done by means of the Secretary of State at a new and future session. The Governor’s procedure in this case was correct. It made no difference that some of the five days granted to him after adjournment overlapped some of the days of the new special session. We think the case of Haw’n Airlines v. Pub. Ut. Com., T. H. (1959), 43 Haw. 216, 219, 220, 221, is authority for this. In that case, under a somewhat similar state of facts as the one at bar, the court said as follows:
“ ‘It follows from what has been said that only an adjournment sine die can prevent the return of a bill, and this is the only kind of adjournment referred to in section 34 of the Organic Act.’...
“But a special session is not a continuation of the regular session. It is a new session, like a Congressional session convened by the President on extraordinary occasion, of which it is stated in Jefferson’s Manual, section LI, as follows: ‘The Constitution authorizes the President “on extraordinary occasions, to convene both Houses, or either of them.” Constitution, 1, 3. If convened by the President’s proclamation, this must begin- a new session, and of course determine the preceding one to have been a session.’ ”
The clear meaning of the word “prevent” in this section of the Constitution is to “prohibit” or “forbid by law.” After the general adjournment it was “impossible,” to use appellees’ expression, for him to have returned the bill to the Senate because the Senate of the regular session of the 93rd General Assembly had ceased to exist, even though there was a Senate in existence under the new special session. The record does show that the Secretary of State did return the bill to the special session as required by law.
The judgment of the trial court herein should be re*65versed and the cause remanded, with directions to sustain the demurrer of appellant to the complaint.
Jackson, J., concurs in dissent.
Note. — Reported in 196 N. E. 2d 66.