Court Opinion

ID: 9575769
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:16:56.108694+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:50:00.667765
License: Public Domain

Brown, C. J.
(dissenting). Although there is much in the majority opinion with which I agree, with respectful regret I am unable to concur in the result by the majority achieved. It seems to me that my brethren have unduly complicated a question which is essentially quite simple.
When I look at the Wisconsin constitution I observe that it gave separate treatment to the problems of procuring printing needed by the state, and in sec. 25, art. IV, it determined that all printing authorized by the legislature “shall be let by contract to the lowest bidder, but the legislature may establish a maximum price; . . .”
For the printing now in question Democrat Printing Company was the lowest bidder. There is no contention that the price quoted exceeded any maximum price which the legislature established. Why then is the contract not let to that company ? Only because a subordinate official, Director of the Bureau of Purchases, is not satisfied with the bid prices. To me, that is no reason at all. If it could be argued that the legislature had power to delegate to the Director the legislative function of establishing a maximum price and had so delegated it, even then the Director did not set a maximum price nor is it claimed that the Democrat’s bid exceeded the price so established. Indeed no maximum was set, or has yet been set, of which bidders are notified and which limit they are expected to observe and which they may not exceed.
Sec. 25, art. IV, Const., commands that the contract be let to the low bidder if its bid does not exceed the maximum established price. Now the Director, with the blessing of the majority of the court, adds a further condition, i.e., that a bid otherwise meeting the constitution’s conditions must also meet with the approval of the Director of the Bureau. In my opinion the Director has no authority to modify or tamper with the qualifications of printing contracts so plain*340ly expressed by sec. 25. The legislature attempted to give him no such power and without a constitutional amendment it could not.
Therefore, it is my belief that Democrat’s bid meets every constitutional requirement; the additional requirement that the bid must satisfy the Director, although the Director has established no price limit, is totally immaterial and beside the point; and the contract must be let to respondent as low bidder in obedience to sec. 25, art. IV, Const.