Court Opinion

ID: 9865074
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:22:41.598118+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:37:05.489558
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Burke
dissenting in part.
My dissent to the court’s answer to No. 11 rests upon results so far-reaching as to make this statement impera*600tive. As a firm believer in old age pensions, convinced of the right of the people of Colorado to make any change in their Constitution not prohibited by that of the United States, and anxious to see their will, lawfully expressed, effectuated, I enter that dissent and state its reasons only under what appears to me the compulsion of my official oath.
Changes can only be made in our Constitution as therein provided. If we wish to make them in some other way we must first amend the Constitution accordingly. At present two amendments cannot be submitted as one, nor can an amendment be submitted save under a ballot title which fairly sets forth its scope, and purpose. It is said that this amendment was so submitted and that its provisions were fully understood, discussed and considered by those voting thereon. So far as those provisions expressly appear this is conceded. However, this amendment contains matter not so appearing, unrevealed by, and only remotely related to, its title, some of it unnoticed by counsel in argument, fundamental in its character, and yet, I doubt not, unconsidered by its authors, or the authors of its title, or those who voted for or against it.
This amendment not only writes several statutory provisions into the Constitution by reference to their numbers, but authorizes the legislature to hereafter take them out and substitute others therefor, without reference to the people. Thus it confers upon the legislature the power to amend the Constitution. For instance, heretofore, since, the repeal of prohibition, the legislature has been vested with power, which it has exercised, to license the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor. It has also been vested with power to prohibit that traffic and make the state, “bone dry.” A like power has existed in the people by the initiation of statutes. Both the people and the legislature are now stripped thereof, that traffic frozen into the Constitution, covered with the. protecting robe of pensions for the aged, and the lawmakers forbid*601den to touch it. This prohibition is subject to one exception; the legislature may so interfere only provided it levies other taxes which raise equal revenue. Thereupon those levies and their allocation become a part of the fundamental law and thus the legislature amends the Constitution; and this process may be repeated indefinitely, without reference to the people.
This title mentions pensions and the raising of revenue, but does not hint at authority to the legislature to amend the Constitution, or that that instrument now commands the licensing of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. Did those citizens who favor the prohibition of that traffic discuss and consider this result in the late campaign, or understand it when they voted for Amendment No. 4.1 I am not so informed and cannot so believe.
A like illustration, and perhaps a more forceful one, might be drawn from the sales tax.
It thus appears that two constitutional mandates have been violated in the submission of Amendment No. 4, i. e., two amendments have been submitted as one, and a most vital change thereby effected is not mentioned in the title. Even had the voters in the instant case in fact duly considered these things, our approval establishes a binding precedent which I cannot but believe fraught with grave consequences in the future. Mr. Justice Holland concurs herein.