Court Opinion

ID: 9865190
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:26:54.923029+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:37:51.490960
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Bock
specially concurring.
We are here concerned only with license fees upon all malt, vinous or spirituous liquor, both intoxicating and nonintoxicating, as affected by the so-called Old Age Pension Amendment.' S. L. ’37, p. 881, c. 200:
No limitation of the police power of the state, or any political subdivisions thereof, is involved. The people sue the city for said license fees under section 2 (b) of the amendment, which reads as follows:
“Section 2. There is hereby set aside, allocated and allotted to the Old Age Pension Fund sums and money as follows:
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“(b) Beginning January 1, 1937, eighty-five per cent of all net revenue accrued or accruing, received or receivable from taxes of whatever kind upon all malt, vinous, or spirituous liquor, both intoxicating and nonintoxicating, and license fees connected therewith.” (Italics mine.)
The question is whether this section includes city as *576well as state license fees. The amendment specifies- “ all ” net revenue from license fees. There is, therefore, no ambiguity as to what the people had in mind. The city would limit and restrict this amendment to license fees collected by the state. They would read in the word “state.” This would seem to be an amendment to an amendment by judicial process and an encroachment upon the power of the people to amend their Constitution. No citation is necessary that this should not be done.
Let us assume, however, that the section involved needs interpretation through judicial processes. “Interpretation, as applied to a written constitution, means the determination of the true sense of the words used in the text.” 12, C. J., p. 697, §35.
I shall refer to some of these rules of construction as applied to state constitutions and amendments thereto.
In Post Printing & Publishing Co. v. Shafroth, 53 Colo. 129, 124 Pac. 176, we had before us for judicial interpretation a. constitutional amendment, in which the plaintiff in error sought to have it declared null and void. In distinguishing between statutory and constitutional construction, we had this to say (page 134) : “If the provisions complained of were statutory, than [then] many of the contentions urged would be applicable, some of which would be well taken, but when we consider that the amendment itself is a part of the constitution and entitled to the same consideration as such as any other portion of that instrument, it can then be readily ascertained that it is not subject to the sundry attacks made upon it, and that most, if not all, of the cases cited to support them are inapplicable to the language used, or are not in point when applied to a constitutional amendment. ’ ’
In 12 C. J., 707, section 54, we find the following language : ‘ ‘ Courts may not supply what they deem unwise omissions, nor add words which substantially add to or take from the constitution as framed.”
*577Further, quoting* from 12 C. J., 709, section 60: “A clause in a constitutional amendment will prevail over a provision of the original instrument inconsistent with the amendment, for an amendment to the constitution becomes a part of the fundamental law, and its operation and effect cannot be limited or controlled by previous constitutions or laws that may be in conflict with it.
12 C. J., 710, section 62: “If the meaning of the constitution itself is plain, it is neither necessary nor permissible to resort to extrinsic matters for its construction. ’ ’
We are not concerned with the wisdom, or lack of it, of this amendment. In this connection I quote from the opinion in Post Printing & Publishing Co. v. Shafroth, supra, language appearing on page 145, as follows: “But as this is a matter which the entire people had the right to decide for themselves, in the manner desired by themselves, and having so decided it, the policy or wisdom of the method is something with which this court has no concern, regardless of the previous history pertaining to it; otherwise, to give such matters any weight would be to have the judicial department of the state substitute or take into consideration its judgment as contra-distinguished pot only to that of the legislature, but to that of the whole people declared by and in a constitutional amendment. This ought not to be, and is something* which all the authorities hold can not be done.”
In People ex rel. Carlson v. Denver, 60 Colo. 370, 377, 153 Pac. 690, we had before us the construction of a constitutional amendment. Speaking* through Chief Justice Gfabbert, we had this to say: ‘ ‘ The intent of a constitutional provision must be determined from its words, and its words are to be understood in the sense they are generally used, Ogden vs. Sauders, 12 Wheaton 214 (332), 6 L. Ed. 606, so that every word employed is to be given its plain and obvious meaning; and it must be assumed that the people in framing and adopting* a constitutional provision read it with the help of common *578sense, and it will not be presumed that they intended it should contain a hidden meaning*. 1st Story on the Constitution, sec. 451. In other words, in construing* a constitutional provision, for the purpose of ascertaining* the intent of the people in adopting it, when its language is explicit, the courts are bound to seek for the intention in the words of the provision itself, and they are not to suppose or hold that the people intended anything different from what the meaning* of the language employed imports.”
To what extent, if any, should the objects and purposes of the Old Age Pension Amendment influence the construction of the particular section here involved? This section determines in part the revenues necessary to pay the pension. The amendment establishes a minimum pension of $45 per month. We may take judicial notice of the fact that sufficient funds have very seldom been raised to meet this minimum. Moreover, the same issue as to the adoption or rejection of this amendment was again before the people at the last general election, and its adoption was again confirmed by a large majority.
In this connection I desire to quote the language of Chief Justice Marshall in the early case of Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheaton (U. S.) 1, 188, 6 L. Ed. 23: “If, from the imperfection of human language, there should be serious doubts respecting the extent of any given power, it is a well settled rule that the objects for which it was given especially when those objects are expressed in the instrument itself, should have great influence in the construction. ’ ’
I am of the opinion that the constitutional objections raised are without merit and that the judgment of the lower court should be affirmed.