Court Opinion

ID: 9689905
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:49:25.418749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:41.744128
License: Public Domain

MERRILL, Justice
(dissenting) :
I have concurred in the dissent of COLEMAN, J., which was prepared prior to mine.
In our recent decision of City of Mobile v. Salter, 287 Ala. 660, 255 So.2d 5, in dealing with a severability or separability clause, we cited Wilkinson v. Stiles, 200 Ala. 279, 76 So. 45, and Spraigue v. Thompson, 118 U.S. 90, 6 S.Ct. 988, 30 L.Ed. 115, for the principle that “If a clause in a statute which violates the Constitution cannot be rejected without causing the act to enact what the Legislature never intended, the whole statute must fall.”
*432We also said in Salter, supra:
“ * * * If the act thus deleted of the invalid part is competent to stand without the invalid part, and leaves an enactment complete within itself, sensible, and capable of being executed, it will stand, unless the two parts — the valid and invalid — are so inseparable as to raise the presumption that the Legislature would not have enacted the one without the ■ other. * * * ” [Emphasis supplied]
The history of Act No. 1170 is very enlightening as to the intent of the Legislature. This court has judicial knowledge of the legislative records of the state, including the legislative Journals and the records of bills as introduced and Acts as passed. In re Opinion of the Justices, 267 Ala. 114, 100 So.2d 681; State ex rel. Crenshaw v. Joseph, 175 Ala. 579, 57 So. 942.
Act No. 1170 was introduced as SB 674 on July 7, 1969, and was a general bill. A substitute bill was approved in committee, the chief changes being a reduction of the salaries in the various population classifications. The bill was amended on the floor and passed by the Senate on August 15. It went to the House of Representatives, was referred to a committee and was duly reported with an amendment changing the salary of sheriffs in the top population classification to $21,000.00. The bill came up for passage on August 21, at which time it was amended several times, eight of the amendments being exceptions of eight different single counties, and the bill was passed with only two dissenting votes. On August 26, the last day of the session, th'e Senate non-concurred' and asked for a conference committee. The House acceded and appointed a conference committee. The conference committee re-wrote Section 1 and removed all the single county exceptions except two and the Senate concurred in the conference report. But the House voted to non-concur and asked for another conference committee. The Senate acceded' and appointed a new committee. This new conference committee came back with a bill which contained more single county exceptions and the Senate concurred in the report. But the House non-concurred and asked for still another conference committee. This third committee came back with more single county exceptions than had ever been in the bill previously. Both the House and the Senate concurred in this report near midnight and the bill was-delivered to the Governor at midnight on, the last day of the session.
The history alone shows that the Legislature would never have passed the bill without the single county exceptions and their addition, withdrawal and addition the second time in conference committees show that they were so intwined with the other-parts of Section 1 that “the two parts — the valid and the invalid — are so inseparable as to raise the presumption that the Legislature would not have enacted the one without the other.”
This history does more than raise a, “presumption.” In my opinion, it furnishes positive, uncontroverted proof that the Legislature would never have passed Act No. 1170 without the inclusion of the several single county exceptions. It took three different conference committees and the addition of more single county exceptions on the last night of the session to-even get the House to approve the bill.
To give effect to the severability clause in Act No. 1170 to the question before us would put sheriffs in many counties on salaries different from what the Legislature plainly intended, and in territories that the Legislature had plainly excepted.
I doubt that there has ever been an Act before this court where the intent of the-Legislature was so clear that the Legislature would not have passed the bill without the inclusion of several unconstitutional provisions, and which both sides to this-suit agi-ee, as does the majority of this, court, are unconstitutional.
*433Legislative intent has always been a polestar in determining the constitutionality of a statute. Here, the majority has had to completely disregard the proven intent of the Legislature and has elevated the ordinary severability clause found in nearly all Acts to a high position of eminence. I think it is a first for the court to hold (not opine) that a severability statute is of more importance than legislative intent. And it is noted that the severability clause was not a late addition to the bill but was § 4 of SB 674 when it was introduced and contained no unconstitutional provisions.
The majority refers to Opinion of the Justices, 284 Ala. 626, 227 So.2d 396, when this court was asked, among other things, if a bill which contained several single county exceptions violated Section 111 of the Constitution. There, all the Justices agreed that the single county exceptions were unconstitutional but the majority said that the bill was not unconstitutional because it was saved by the separability clause. I signed an opinion which contained the following three paragraphs and I still adhere to that opinion:
“To give effect to the separability clause by striking Section 4 would make the proposed law effective in many counties in which the Legislature specifically had exempted and thus a separability clause would be given more effect than the expressed intention of the Legislature in dealing with numerous counties of the state.
“We have not been cited to, or have we found, any case in Alabama which holds that a separability clause in a bill can change it from a local bill to a general bill. We do not think such a clause can nullify the effect of Section 111 of the Constitution.
“It would be an anomaly if a general bill could be converted into a local bill by amendments, and after passage as amended, be reconverted into a general bill by invocation of a separability clause.. Such a chameleon process in itself is a. complete denial of the legislative intent and legislative processes.”
The moment that the single county exceptions or either of them were included at: various places in Section 1 of Act No. 1170, it became a local bill because each, of the exceptions applied to only one county. Thus, the bill was contrary to Section 104 of the Constitution which requires publication of local bills and contrary to Section 111 already quoted in this opinion.. And for the distinction between a general law and a local law, it is only necessary to read Section 110 which defines each.
I do not understand the reasoning, the-logic or the conclusion when an appellate-court holds that a severability clause in a statute can have more weight than a section of the State Constitution (§ 111) which positively forbids the amending of a general' bill on its passage so as to become a local' law. Section 111 is a constitutional limitation on the otherwise plenary power of the-Legislature, and no .words of the Legislature in a severability clause of a statute-ought to be allowed to set aside or vacate' the solemn prohibition of the Constitution of the State of Alabama.
I respectfully dissent.
HEFLIN, C. J., and COLEMAN, J., concur.