Court Opinion

ID: 9797895
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:31:36.762418+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:59:47.682058
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
concurring.
I have some difficulty with the court’s interpretation of AS 04.21.010(c)(2). In its original form the statute required local governments to tax “other sales” when they taxed alcohol sales. I would have construed this provision to mean that local governments needed to tax the sales of a substantial number of other commodities in order to satisfy the “other sales” requirement. The evident purpose of the requirement was to prevent excessive and discriminatory taxation of alcohol sales. Because alcohol is often abused, causing numerous societal problems that are costly for local governments, it is an easy and logical target for differential taxation. The “other sales” language aimed to constrain taxes on alcohol by requiring the same tax on the sales of other commodities.1 If the tax rate were set too high consumers of the other commodities would voice their protests to their elected representatives. But this constraint could only be potentially effective if the sales of a number of commodities consumed by the voting public were taxed.2
*1010The “other sales” language was deleted accidently and five years later it was reenacted in substantially the same terms.3 The rule of statutory interpretation that a statute, and each part of a statute, is presumed to serve some useful purpose4 argues for interpreting the new statute as I would have interpreted the original one. But the legislative history points in a different direction. As the opinion of the court explains, the staff member who drafted the new statute, and some members of the Senate Finance Committee who reviewed it, including a eo-spon-sor, expressed the view that the new statute could be complied with by taxing just one additional commodity.
It is tempting to say that this history should not be dispositive. Many of the criticisms leveled against reliance on legislative history seem to apply here.5 The full Senate was not necessarily aware of the colloquy in committee and did not necessarily agree with the interpretation offered there. The same is true with respect to the House of Representatives, which concurred in the passage of the statute, and the Governor, who decided not to veto it. Further, those who must comply with the statute, and those seeking its enforcement, are charged only with that notice which the text of the act gives them, not that which can be gleaned from the legislative history.
This court, however, has given considerable weight to legislative history. Indeed, we rejected similar arguments against the use of legislative history in Lagos v. City & Borough of Sitka.6 There we concluded, based on the same committee proceedings referred to here, that AS 04.21.010(c)(2) prohibits differential rates of sales taxes on alcohol and *1011other commodities.7 We have stated that when legislative history is sufficiently clear it can alter what might otherwise appear to be the plain meaning of the statutory language.8 Here the interpretation suggested by the legislative history is not inconsistent with the language of the statute. Troublingly, it does go a long way towards nullifying the act’s effectiveness in municipalities that have not found it necessary to impose a general sales tax.
Based on our general approach to legislative history, the specificity of the legislative history in this case, and the fact that the interpretation supported by the history is consistent with the literal language of the act, I concur, hesitantly, with today’s opinion as to the meaning of AS 04.21.010(c)(2). I agree without reservation to the opinion’s resolution of all other points.

. In Lagos v. City & Borough of Sitka, 823 P.2d 641, 645 (Alaska 1991), we concluded, in line with this purpose, that AS 04.21.010(c)(2) requires that the alcohol sales tax rates "not exceed the rate of taxation imposed upon ... other commodities sales.”

. Taxes on commodities or services mostly consumed by nonresidents would not comport with the rationale of the statute, because nonresidents are not directly represented on municipal assemblies.

. This history is detailed in Lagos, 823 P.2d at 643-44.

. See Municipality of Anchorage v. Sisters of Providence in Washington, Inc., 628 P.2d 22, 29 (Alaska 1981), rejected on other grounds by Alaska Public Employees Ass'n v. City of Fairbanks, 753 P.2d 725 (Alaska 1988).

. Justice Scalia, a frequent critic, has questioned whether legislative history accurately reflects legislative intent. He contends that
it is a fiction of Jack-and-the-Beanstalk proportions to assume that more than a handful of those Senators and Members of the House who voted for the final version of the [legislation], and the President who signed it, were, when they took those actions, aware of the drafting evolution that the Court describes; and if they were, that their actions in voting for or signing the final bill show that they had the same "intent" which that evolution suggests was in the minds of the drafters.
Bank One Chicago, N.A. v. Midwest Bank & Trust Co., 516 U.S. 264, 279, 116 S.Ct. 637, 133 L.Ed.2d 635 (1996) (Scalia, J., concurring). Justice Scalia has also raised notice-based concerns about relying on legislative history, remarking that
[i]t may well be true that in most cases the proposition that the words of the United States Code or the Statutes at Large give adequate notice to the citizen is something of a fiction, albeit one required in any system of law; but necessary fiction descends to needless farce when the public is charged even with knowledge of Committee Reports.
United States v. R.L.C., 503 U.S. 291, 309, 112 S.Ct. 1329, 117 L.Ed.2d 559 (1992) (Scalia, J., concurring) (citation omitted).
While Justice Scalia wrote alone in Bank One and was joined only by Justices Thomas and Kennedy in his R.L.C. concurrence, a number of commentators have noticed a marked decline in the Supreme Court’s use of legislative history since Justice Scalia joined the court. E.g., James J. Brudney & Corey Ditslear, The Decline and Fall of Legislative History? Patterns of Supreme Court Reliance in the Burger and Rehnquist Eras, 89 Judicature 220, 222 (2006); Michael H. Koby, The Supreme Court's Declining Reliance on Legislative History: The Impact of Justice Scalia's Critique, 36 Harv. J. on Legis. 369, 385-87 (1999). But see Charles Tiefer, The Reconceptu-alization of Legislative History in the Supreme Court, 2000 Wis. L.Rev. 205 (2000).
Indeed, the voting alignment in the recent City of Rancho Palos Verdes v. Abrams case suggests that most members of the court may be moving away from a traditional reliance on legislative history. 544 U.S. 113, 125 S.Ct. 1453, 161 L.Ed.2d 316 (2005). Justice Scalia, the author of the opinion of the court, looked only to the statute's text, and its "express or implicit” indications, for interpretative guidance. Id. at 1459. By contrast. Justice Breyer, joined by Justices O’Connor, Souter, and Ginsburg, advocated examination of "context, not just literal text,” as a guide "to Congress' intent in respect to a particular statute.” Id. at 1462. Only Justice Stevens counseled examination of "all relevant evidence,” including not only text and the "structure of the statutory scheme” but also legislative history, to ascertain Congressional intent. Id. at 1463 (Stevens, J., concurring in the judgment).

.823 P.2d at 644-45.

. Id. at 643-45.

. A typical statement of our approach is found in Homer Electric Ass'n v. Towsley, 841 P.2d 1042, 1043-44 (Alaska 1992):
Generally, the most reliable guide to the meaning of a statute is the words of the statute construed in accordance with their common usage. Lagos v. City & Borough of Sitka, 823 P.2d 641, 643 (Alaska 1991). However, even where the statutory language considered alone seems to leave room reasonably for only one meaning, we nonetheless may consult legislative history and the rules of statutory construction, realizing that sometimes language that seems clear in the abstract takes on a different meaning when viewed in context. North Slope Borough v. Sohio Petroleum Corp., 585 P.2d 534, 540 (Alaska 1978); State v. Alex, 646 P.2d 203, 208 n. 4 (Alaska 1982). In such cases the legislative history and rules of construction must present a compelling case that the literal meaning of the language of the statute is not what the legislature intended. University of Alaska v. Geistauts, 666 P.2d 424, 428 n. 5 (Alaska 1983) ("Where a statute’s meaning appears clear and unambiguous, ... the party asserting a different meaning has a correspondingly heavy burden of demonstrating contrary legislative intent.”); State v. Alex, 646 P.2d at 208 n. 4 (under Alaska's sliding-scale approach to statutory interpretation, the more plain the language of the statute the more convincing the evidence of contrary legislative intent must be).