Court Opinion

ID: 9763335
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:41:52.606891+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:56:35.288479
License: Public Domain

Weintraub, C. J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). This suit was brought to resolve all constitutional questions suggested by the face of the statute, to the end that prospective purchasers of bonds and notes authorized *34by the statute may be informed with respect to those matters. I join in the majority opinion except in the respects hereinafter indicated.
The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Law, L. 1971, c. 137, declares in section 2 “that the general welfare, health and prosperity of the people of the State will be promoted by the holding of athletic contests, horse racing and other spectator sporting events and of trade shows and other expositions in the State; that in order to induce professional athletic teams, particularly major league football and baseball teams, to locate their franchises in the State, it is necessary to provide stadiums and related facilities for the use of such teams, in addition to the facilities for horse racing and other spectator sporting events; that such stadiums and other facilities would also accommodate other events and serve other uses which would provide needed recreation, forums and expositions for the public.” Section 2 continues with a declaration “that additional facilities are needed in the State to accommodate trade shows and other expositions in order to promote industry and development in the State and provide a forum for public events.” The same section then selects the Hackensack meadowlands as the site for these conglomerate activities, and declares the advent of the complex will “stimulate the needed development of said meadowlands.” To that end, the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, a body corporate and politic, is created.
The Authority is authorized to issue bonds and notes to obtain moneys for the project. Section 10, subd. g expressly states the bonds and notes “shall not be in any way a debt or liability of the State” and that “neither the faith and credit nor the taxing power of the State” is pledged to their payment. But section 15 provides:
The State of New Jersey does hereby pledge to and covenant and agree with the holders of any bonds or notes issued pursuant to authority of the act that the State will not limit or alter the rights or powers hereby vested in the authority to acquire, construct, maintain, *35improve, repair and operate the project in any way that would jeopardize the interest of such holders, or to perform and fulfill the terms of any agreement made with the holders of such bonds or notes, or to fix, establish, charge and collect such rents, fees, rates or other charges as may be convenient or necessary to produce sufficient revenues to meet all expenses of the authority and fulfill the terms of any agreement made with the holders of such bonds and notes, together with interest thereon, with interest on any unpaid installments of interest, and all costs and expenses in connection with any action or proceedings by or on behalf of such holders, until the bonds, together with interest thereon, are fully met and discharged or provided for.
Central to the program are the proceeds of parimutuel betting at the proposed racetrack. As the Attorney General said in his brief before ns:
* * * The key to the financial success of the Authority, however, lies in the fact that it must pay only % of one per cent of the total handle derived from pari-mutuel wagering to the general treasury, as compared to the larger percentage paid by privately owned racetracks. Act, § 7f; L. 1971, c. 159. Thus the Authority will use the revenues generated by pari-mutuel wagering to finance construction of the other less profitable facilities it is authorized to construct.
The question is whether section 15 purports to tie the hands of future legislatures with respect to that subject matter in a way the State Constitution forbids.
Before discussing the issues I find troublesome, I should say a word about the claim that the project authorized by chapter 137 is beyond the legislative power. I have no doubt the statute is not vulnerable on that account. The Constitution limits the Legislature to the pursuit of a public purpose, but the Legislature has vast discretion in this area and the Legislature could decide the public interest would be furthered by this venture. It should be stressed that it is not for the judiciary to say whether the legislative decision is sound or unsound. The judiciary can pass only upon the legislative power to act. To hold the power is there, is not to endorse the merits of the program. Rather it is only to respect the authority of the Legislature to act, and to recognize the legislators, if they err, are accountable to the voters and not to the judiciary.

*36
I

As noted above, tbe Legislature itself selected tbe site for the racetrack. In doing so, the Legislature departed from the existing statutory policy that a track shall not be licensed without the affirmative approval of the voters of the county and of the municipality in which the proposed track will be situated. N. J. S. A. 5 :5 — 39.1. That policy reflects the dispute as to whether racing with parimutuel betting is a bane or a blessing to a community. Indeed, it is a matter of public record that a proposed track not far from the site involved in this matter was disapproved by the voters of the municipality there concerned in 1967. See Jersey Downs, Inc. v. Division of New Jersey Racing Commission, 102 N. J. Super, 451 (App. Div. 1968). Nevertheless in the statute now before us the Legislature itself selected the site and did not submit it to a referendum. The question is whether the residents here concerned were thereby denied equality of treatment.
If a single statute provided that a referendum shall be held as to all tracks except a track the State itself operated, I would doubt the validity of the classification, for it is hard to find that the identity of the operator is relevant. The reason for a referendum is to permit local decision upon the desirability of racing and associated gambling. In terms of impact upon the community, it does not matter that a track is in public rather than private hands. But I believe the short answer to the issue of unequal treatment is that the Legislature which adopted chapter 137 was not bound by the decision of a prior Legislature that there be a referendum, and hence if a constitutionally prohibited inequality exists because of the conflict between chapter 137 and the prior statute, it would be the prior law which would have to yield. Therefore chapter 137 is not vulnerable because it departs from the policy of a prior statute.
*37II
Section 7 of chapter 137 authorizes the Authority to apply to the Racing Commission for a permit to operate a racetrack. Section 7, subd. c provides that if the Racing Commission acts favorably, the permit “shall remain in force and effect so long as any bonds or notes of the authority issued for the purposes of the meadowlands complex remain outstanding, the provision of any other law to the contrary notwithstanding.” The same subsection goes on to say that “Notwithstanding the provision of any other law to the contrary, the Racing Commission shall allot anually to the authority, in the case of harness racing, not less than 100 racing days, and in the case of running racing, not less than 56 racing days, if and to the extent that application is made therefor.”
The question is whether section 7, subd. c, read with section 15 quoted above, binds the State (1) not to abolish racing or betting, and (3) not to refuse the Authority the number of racing days just mentioned.
It is axiomatic that the police power of the State cannot be bargained away. The term, police power, in its largest usage, embraces all the powers of government other than eminent domain and the power to tax. It probably is true that some part of the police power, as thus broadly defined, may be bargained away as an unavoidable incident of a contract required in the public interest. The distinction sometimes suggested is between the power to govern and the power to deal with the property interests of the State. I see no need here to be more precise, for at least this much is clear: a legislature cannot contract away the power to protect the public safety, health and morals, and the power thus inalienable embraces the subject of racing and gambling. Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U. S. 814, 25 L. Ed. 1079 (1880); Boston Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S. 25, 24 L. Ed. 989 (1878); Mugler v. Kansas, 133 U. S. 633, 8 S. Ct. 273, 31 L. Ed. 205 (1887); Northwestern Fertilizing Co. v. Hyde *38Park, 97 U. S. 659, 24 L. Ed. 1036 (1878); Douglas v. Kentucky, 168 U. S. 488, 18 S. Ct. 199, 42 L. Ed. 553 (1897); Butchers’ Union Slaughterhouse & Live Stock Landing Co. v. Crescent City Livestock Co., 111 U. S. 746, 4 S. Ct. 652, 28 L. Ed. 585 (1884); Chicago B. & Q. R. Co. v. Nebraska ex rel. Omaha, 170 U. S. 57, 18 S. Ct. 513, 42 L. Ed. 948 (1898); Home B. & L. Assn. v. Blaisdell, 290 U. S. 398, 436, 54 S. Ct. 231, 78 L. Ed. 413, 428 (1934); see El Paso v. Simmons, 379 U. S. 497, 506-509, 85 S. Ct. 577, 13 L. Ed. 2d 446, 453-455 (1965).
Hence chapter 137 cannot obligate the State not to abolish racing or related gambling.1 The purchasers of bonds or *39notes are chargeable with that understanding and may not maintain either that the State is thus restrained or that the State will incur a dollar liability if it exerts the police power by prohibiting racing or gambling.
I think the stipulation as to the minimum racing days also remains subject to legislative change if the occasion is appropriate, either because undue harm is found to abide in the statutory minimum number of days or because the tax yield to the State from other tracks is unduly impaired by so extensive an allocation to this track. Again, the purchasers of bonds and notes must be charged with an awareness of this continuing power to protect the public welfare.
Ill
The most troublesome question is whether chapter 137 violates the debt clause of our State Constitution. Art. VIII, § II, ¶ 3, reads:
The Legislature shall not, in any manner, create in any fiscal year a debt or debts, liability or liabilities of the State, which together with any previous debts or liabilities shall exceed at any time one per centum of the total amount appropriated by the general appropriation law for that fiscal year, unless the same shall be authorized by a law for some single object or work distinctly specified therein. Regardless of any limitation relating to taxation in this Constitution, such law shall provide the ways and means, exclusive of loans, to pay the interest of such debt or liability as it falls due, and also to pay and discharge the principal thereof within thirty-five years from the time it is contracted; and the law shall not be repealed until such debt or liability and the interest thereon are fully paid and discharged. No such law shall take effect until it shall have been submitted to the people at a general election and approved by a majority of the legally qualified voters of the State voting theron. All money to be raised by the authority of such law shall be applied only to the specific object stated therein, and to the payment of the debt thereby created. This paragraph shall not be construed to refer to any money that has been or may be deposited with this State by the government of the United States. Nor shall anything in this paragraph contained apply to the creation of any debts or liabilities for purposes of war, or to repel invasion, or to suppress insurrection or to meet an emergency caused by disaster or act of God.
*40A debt clause was first introduced in the Constitution of 1844 (Art. IV, §VI, ¶4). The history need not be recounted in detail. States had incurred substantial bonded indebtedness in pursuit of public purposes, as the result of which bankruptcy or near bankruptcy ensued. For that reason debt clauses were incorporated into almost all of the state constitutions. Clayton v. Kervick, 52 N. J. 138, 146— 147 (1968). The object was to prevent a legislature from binding succeeding legislatures, or to limit or condition its power to do so. About half of the debt clauses absolutely prohibit loans in excess of a stipulated sum; the clauses in two States permit such loans upon a vote of more than a majority of the legislators; the others permit such loans only if approved by the voters on a referendum. Constitutional Debt Control in the States (The Tax Foundation, Inc. 1954), p. 17; Heins, Constitutional Restrictions against Stale Debt (1963), pp. 9 — 12; pp. 93-120. In upholding the constitutionality of a debt clause requiring approval of 60% of the voters, the Supreme Court of the United States said tersely: “It must be remembered that in voting to issue bonds voters are committing, in part, the credit of infants and of generations yet unborn, and some restriction on such commitment is not an unreasonable demand.” Gordon v. Lance, 403 U. S. 1, 6, 91 S. Ct. 1889, 1892, 29 L. Ed. 2d 273, 277 (1971). Our debt clause permits the Legislature thus to bind succeeding legislatures if the debt is approved by a majority of the legally qualified voters of the State voting on the proposal. For further assurance against unreasonable treatment of future taxpayers, our debt clause also limits to 35 years the period within which the debt must be liquidated, requires the measure to state “the ways and means, exclusive of loans,” to pay the principal and interest, and prohibits the repeal of the law prior to payment.
I am speaking of the debt clause, and not of the appropriations clause of the Constitution, Art. VIII, § II, ¶ 2, discussed at length in the majority opinion. As to the ap*41propriations clause, I agree with the majority that it does not require that all State revenues shall go physically into the State treasury.
I find the debt clause applies to chapter 137 upon this thesis: (1) that the constitutional provision permitting racing and parimutuel betting mandates that there shall be a reasonable revenue yield to the State from every such operation, and (2) an irrevocable pledge by the State of that revenue for the payment of a debt of the Authority makes that debt a debt of the State within the meaning of the debt clause despite the disavowal in the statute that the State incurs an indebtedness or pledges its credit. I will discuss those propositions in that order.
(!)
Gambling has a well documented constitutional history. The Constitution of 1844 provided that “No lottery shall be authorized by this state; and no ticket in any lottery not authorized by a law of this state shall be bought or sold within the state.” Art. IV, § VII, ¶ 2. This paragraph was amended in 1897 to read:
b.o lottery shall be authorized by the legislature or otherwise in this state, and no ticket in any lottery shall be bought or sold within this state, nor shall pool-selling, book making or gambling of any kind be authorized or allowed within this state, nor shall any gambling device, practice or game of chance now prohibited by law be legalized, or the remedy, penalty or punishment now provided therefor be in any way diminished.
The prohibition was thus absolute, and it barred a gambling event without regard to the identity of the operator or the public purpose sought to be furthered with the proceeds of gambling. The ban applied to the State itself; it, too, could not conduct a gambling venture.
Parimutuel betting was introduced by a constitutional amendment in 1939. The gambling clause, as thus amended, read:
*42It shall be lawful to hold, carry on, and operate in this State race meetings whereat the trotting, running or steeplechase racing of horses only may be conducted between the hours of sunrise and sunset on week days only and in duly legalized race tracks, at which the pari-mutuel system of betting shall be permitted. No lottery, roulette, or game of chance of any form shall be authorized by the Legislature in this State, and no ticket in any lottery shall he bought or sold within this State, or offered for sale; nor shall pool-selling, bookmaking, or gambling of any kind be authorized or allowed within this State, except pari-mutuel betting on the results of the racing of horses only, from which the Slate shall derive a reasonable revenue for the support of government; nor shall any gambling device, practice, or game of chance, or pari-mutuel betting thereon now prohibited by law, except as herein stated and otherwise provided, be legalized, or the remedy, penalty, or punishment now provided therefor be in any way diminished.
I have italicized the phrase “from which the State shall derive a reasonable revenue for the support of government.” This promise of revenue was critical in the campaign for the adoption of the 1939 amendment, and I think it beyond dispute that its explicit demand for revenue is mandatory and unyielding.
The history of the 1939 amendment includes an abortive legislative attempt to authorize parimutuel betting to obtain revenues. In 1934, finding a fiscal emergency affecting municipalities, the Legislature adopted chapter 56 which authorized municipalities to lease property “for the conducting and operation of greyhound racing under the parimutuel system.” The Legislature also adopted chapter 179 which authorized the State Racing Commission to issue licenses for such operations. Reciting that “a financial emergency exists in this State whereby municipalities and other political subdivisions of the State are unable to collect their taxes,” section 4 of chapter 179 provided that “for the purpose of assisting such municipalities and such subdivisions where dog racing may be allowed, the Racing Commission may permit tire use of the pari-mutuel system under such terms as they may prescribe and wherein a portion of the profits are to be paid to the municipality for the support thereof.” This scheme was found to be so blatantly unconstitutional that *43the operator of a licensed track was held liable in a suit for penalties under another statute notwithstanding his assertion that an act of the Legislature authorizing parimutuel betting should provide protective cover prior to a judicial declaration that it is void. Hyman v. Long Branch Kennel Club, Inc., 115 N. J. L. 123 (E. & A. 1935). In 1934 the New Jersey State Racing Commission urged a constitutional amendment to permit parimutuel betting, on the premise that revenues would be obtained. In its First Annual Report (1935), the Commission stressed the State’s need for revenue and predicted the tax on admissions and on wagering would provide $1,500,000 per year (pp. 19-22). The Commission used a tax of 3y2% on wagers in computing that estimated yield. The proposed amendment drew strong opposition on economic as well as moral grounds. So, for example, a news item in 1939 reported that five Senators, assailing the racing proposal, argued that (1) the projected yield of $1,500,000 was inflated; (2) the referendum would cost $1,000,000; (3) legalized racing would increase the relief rolls; and (4) a corrupt lobby would result (Newark Evening News, June 17, 1939, p. 2:1). The New Jersey Chamber of Commerce issued a report, The Economic Effects of Pari-Mutuel Horse Racing (1939), opposing the amendment and expounding the theme that the probable tax revenues would not compensate for the damage done to business in this State.
Thus the history of the 1939 amendment clearly shows that its mandate to derive revenue is an essential part of the constitutional provision. The Legislature cannot authorize parimutuel betting except upon compliance with that demand. The 1939 amendment was incorporated in its entirety in Art. IV, § VII, ¶ 2, of the Constitution of 1947 by the reference therein to gambling “heretofore submitted to, and authorized by a majority of the votes cast by the people at a special election.” The “restrictions” *44in the 1939 amendment were expressly continued. Hence the mandate remains that “the State shall derive a reasonable revenue for the support of government.”
A passing reference to other terms of the gambling clause of the 1947 Constitution is appropriate, for the theme is consistent that gambling is permitted only to produce moneys for some worthy end.2 Thus certain organizations may conduct bingo games or raffles “when the entire net proceeds of such games of chance are to be devoted to educational, charitable, patriotic, religious or public-spirited uses.” So, too, the 1969 amendment empowers the Legislature “to authorize the conduct of State lotteries * * * when the entire net proceeds of any such lottery shall be for State institutions, State aid for education.” The undeviating thesis has been that gambling will not be permitted for mere amusement or for private profit alone.
There is cause to doubt that the State itself may operate parimutuel betting, whether directly or through some agency. As already said, the 1897 constitutional ban against gambling barred a State operation as well as a private one. The parimutuel amendment of 1939 (unlike the 1969 State lottery provision) seems to contemplate private management with the State deriving a tax revenue from the operation. Nonetheless, since a constitutional restriction upon the legislative power should be read narrowly if the sense will permit it, I would not read it to ban a State operation. But it would do violence to the plain demand of the gambling clause if the State operated parimutuel betting without satisfying the positive demand for the production of “reasonable revenue for the support of government.” Thus, although the State may and customarily does exempt its own opera*45tions ox those of its agencies from taxation as section 7, subd. h of chapter 137 purports to do, here the power to exempt is restrained by constitutional demand that parimutuel betting shall yield “a reasonable revenue for the support of government.” And it cannot matter, in this regard, whether the State conducts the operation directly or through a corporate agency.
The only room for argument, in my view, is as to whether all of the dollar gain thus obtained in a State operation of gambling must be deemed to be “revenue for the support of government” or whether there is constitutionally committed for the support of government only so much of that revenue as matches the tax imposed upon a private operation. I think all of the dollar gain from gambling is thus committed, but upon either view chapter 137 would transfer to the support of the Authority’s projects substantial revenues which the gambling clause requires to be obtained for the support of government. Chapter 137 does provide in section 7, subd. f that “as an initial payment to the State, an amount equal to of 1% of all parimutuel pools shall be deposited annually in the General State Eund.” That deposit of course does not represent all of the revenue from the gaming operation. Nor does it match the tax imposed upon parimutuel pools of a private operator, which, as to harness racing, is 6% of all pools up to $40,000,000 in a calendar year and 7% with respect to the excess above that figure, and as to other racing, is 9.15% of the total pools. N. J. S. A. 5:5-66 as amended by L. 1971, c. 159, § 1. The Legislature thereby established those yields as the “reasonable revenue for the support of government.” The yi of 1 per cent payable under chapter 137 is but a small portion of that “reasonable revenue.”
If chapter 137 had not excluded parimutuel betting at the Authority’s track from the statute imposing the tax on parimutuel betting, and instead had directed that the State Treasurer pay to the Authority so much of the tax revenue from the Authority’s track as exceeds Y2 of 1 per cent of *46its pools, it would be evident that chapter 137 transferred tax revenues to the Authority for the payment of its bonds and notes. That fact should be no less evident because chapter 137 took the form of limiting the tax to y¿ of 1 per cent of the Authority’s pools.
Thus I cannot avoid the proposition that chapter 137 would make available for the payment of the Authority’s indebtedness a substantial portion of the revenues mandated by the Constitution to go to the State “for the support of government.” Indeed, basic to the plan of the sports conglomerate is the supporting financial role that parimutuel gambling is expected to provide. This, of course, was recognized by the Attorney General in the passage from his brief quoted above wherein he said “The key to the financial success of the Authority * * * lies in the fact that it must pay only y2 of one per cent of the total handle derived from pari-mutuel wagering to the general treasury, as compared to the larger percentage paid by privately owned racetracks.”
I want to make it plain that there is no constitutional objection to the use of these monej^s to support the venture of the Authority. Since chapter 137 seeks to further a project the Legislature constitutionally may decide to pursue, it follows that tax revenues of the State, whatever their source, may be expended to that end (except of course revenues dedicated by the Constitution to some special use). So the Legislature could appropriate to the Authority all the revenues yielded by the parimutuel tax at the private tracks, or the revenues from a gasoline tax or from an inheritance tax. In short, the use of the revenues derived from betting at the Authority’s track for the Authority’s purposes would indeed constitute the use of such revenues for the support of government within the meaning of the gambling clause. But the issue is whether a statute directing that disposition of revenues can bind future legislatures in the absence of compliance with the specific demands of *47the debt clause of the Constitution, notable among which, of course, is the demand for the approval of the voters.3
*48(2)
Thus we come to the question whether the irrevocable pledge of State revenue for the payment of the Authority’s bonds and notes comes within the debt clause of the Constitution.
The taxing power being the principal source of State revenues, a binding commitment to appropriate tax revenues until a claim is liquidated must result in a State “debt” upon any reasonable view of the word. An unqualified promise to levy a tax for its payment must be the hallmark of a debt. The decisions here and elsewhere amply support that evident proposition.
The cases elsewhere divide, not upon the question whether a promise to impose a tax for the payment of an obligation makes the obligation a debt of the State, but rather upon whether the debt clause was intended to embrace all such debts. In some States it has been held, either upon the phrasing of the debt clause or upon its history, that their constitutions barred only a commitment to levy a tax upon property, with the result that an excise tax could be committed irrevocably to the payment of a debt without running afoul of the debt clause. But I would stress that such cases do not say an obligation thus to be paid by an irrevocable excise tax is something other than a “debt” of the State. Rather the proposition there propounded is that the debt clause was intended only to protect the owners of property from ad valorem taxation thereof and hence the Legislature is free to incur a debt so long as the owners of property are not subjected to a tax upon their property holdings to repay it. That view was taken in State v. Board of Public Instruction, Okaloosa County, 214 So. 2d 723 (Fla. Sup. Ct. 1968); State v. Tampa Sports Authority, 188 So. 2d 795 (Fla. Sup. Ct. 1966); State ex rel. Boynton v. Kansas State Highway Comm., 138 Kan. 913, 28 P. 2d 770 (Sup. Ct. 1934); Cottingham v. State Board of Examiners, 134 Mont. 1, 328 P. 2d 907 (1958); State ex rel. Capitol *49Addition Building Comm. v. Connelly, 39 N. M. 312, 46 P. 2d 1097 (Sup. Ct. 1935); Briggs v. Greenville County, 137 S. C. 288, 135 S. E. 153 (1926).
The line thus drawn between a property tax and an excise tax is odd in the light of fiscal realities since the excise tax is indeed an essential source of State revenue. Hence understandably other jurisdictions deem the debt clause to apply whatever the nature of the tax.4 Borchert v. Scott, 248 Ark. 1041, 460 S. W. 2d 28 (Sup. Ct. 1970); In re Senate Resolution No. 2, 94 Colo. 101, 31 P. 2d 325 (Sup. Ct. 1933); People ex rel. City of Chicago v. Barrett, 373 Ill. 393, 26 N. E. 2d 478 (Sup. Ct. 1940); Curlin v. Wetherby, 275 S. W. 2d 934 (Ky. Ct. App. 1955); State ex rel. Diederichs v. State Highway Commission, 89 Mont. 205, 296 P. 1033 (Sup. Ct. 1931); State v. Steen, 183 Neb. 297, 160 N. W. 2d 164 (Sup. Ct. 1968); Boswell v. State, 181 Okl. 435, 74 P. 2d 940 (1937); State ex rel. Washington State Finance Committee v. Martin, 62 Wash. 2d 645, 384 P. 2d 833 (1963); see Naftalin v. King, 257 Minn. 498, 102 N. W. 2d 301 (Sup. Ct. 1960); see also State ex rel. Public Institutional Building Authority v. Griffith, 135 Ohio St. 604, 22 N. E. 2d 200 (Sup. Ct. 1939); State ex rel. Public Institutional Building Authority v. Neffner, 137 Ohio St. 390, 30 N. E. 2d 705 (Sup. Ct. 1940).
*50We need not labor to demonstrate that the debt clause of our Constitution is not limited to a pledge of ad valorem taxes. Quite obviously the “ways and means” which the debt clause requires to be specified cannot be read to mean only an “ad valorem tax.” Indeed, at the time tire 1844 Constitution was adopted, there was no statewide property tax, the revenue for State government being derived from excise taxes, and again in 1947, the year the present Constitution was adopted, the State ended the only State tax upon property (for school aid) and thereby withdrew from the use of the property tax. Report of the New Jersey Tax Policy Committee (1972), Part II, p. 3. In the light of the phrasing of our debt clause and the history of taxation in our State, it would be startling to say the debt clause was designed only as a shield against the taxation of property.
Thus it is plain to me that an irrevocable commitment of any State tax revenue for the payment of an obligation thereby constitutes that obligation a debt of the State within the reach of the debt clause of the Constitution.5 This is precisely what we held in Holster v. Board of Trustees of the Passaic County College, 59 N. J. 60 (1971). There the statute provided for the appropriation of State moneys to counties to cover one-half of the sums needed for the payment of bonds the statute authorized a county to issue on the county’s sole credit. The trial court, construing the statute to bind future legislatures to make such appropriations, held the debt clause applied and the statute invalid for want of compliance wtih the constitutional provision. We reversed, but only by finding that the statute did not bind the State to make the annual appropriations. We said (pp. 66-67):
*51It is an accepted principle of statutory interpretation that, if possible, legislation will be so read as to sustain its constitutionality. Our reading of the statute differs from that of the trial judge. We hold that the bonds do not become the obligations of the State and that the statute does not impose upon the State a legally binding or enforceable obligation to pay them or to reimburse the county upon its making payment. Accordingly we conclude that there is no infringement of the debt limitation provision of the Constitution.
Although there is doubtless a strong likelihood that payment of the bonds will in fact be met by legislative appropriations, we find nothing in the statute compelling the State to make such payments as a matter of law. Hence, both issuing counties and purchasing bondholders are on notice that the faith and credit of the State will not be pledged in respect of bonds issued pursuant to this enactment, but that payment on the part of the State will be dependent upon appropriations provided from time to time. Lacking such appropriations, recourse can be had only against the county which will have no recourse over against the State.
Perhaps the point is more sharply made by referring to the authorization in the gambling provision of the Constitution for State lotteries “when the entire net proceeds * * * shall be for State institutions, State aid for education.” If a statute provided for the issuance of $100,000,000 in bonds to raise moneys for State institutions or for State aid for education or for both, and pledged irrevocably the revenues from State lotteries for the payment of the bonds within 35 years, the statute would satisfy the mandate that the net revenues be devoted to the public purposes stated in the gambling clause. Such a statute would also meet the requirements of the debt clause for a statement of the public use to be furthered by the bond issue, and for the specification of the ways and means for the payment of the loan. But there would remain to be satisfied the further demand of the debt clause that the loan be authorized by the voters. And it would not matter in the least that the bonds stated explicitly that the holder would look only to the revenues from lotteries as the ways and means for repayment and disavowed any further claim on the credit of the State. Uor would it matter whether the bonds were issued directly by the State or by an authority created to that end. The reason, of course, is *52that no legislature can bind future legislatures as to the use of tax revenues without the concurrence of the voters. That is the aim of the debt clause. An irrevocable pledge of State revenues without voter approval defies the letter and the spirit of that provision.
For the reasons given, I find (1) that the Constitution mandates that there be a reasonable revenue yield to the State from parimutuel betting and (2) chapter 137 violates the debt clause insofar as it commits the mandated funds (whether the mandated revenues are held to be all of the net revenues from parimutuel betting or only so much as matches the yield from the tax on such betting at private tracks) to support the obligations of the Authority upon its bonds and notes.
The question then is whether this unconstitutional aspect is severable. I think it is. We may fairly assume the Legislature would want the balance of the Act to remain. Whether the program continues to be viable of course will depend upon whether the bonds and notes of the Authority will be purchased if the buyers understand, as in Holster, that succeeding legislatures are not bound thus to devote the revenues from parimutuel betting conducted by the Authority to the payment of those bonds and notes.
I should mention a subject to the end that its irrelevance may be pointed out. There is a “special fund” doctrine usually invoked when a self-liquidating facility is acquired. The charges paid by the users constitute “the special fund,” and it is to this fund alone that the bondholder agrees to look for payment. The special fund concept was referred to in New Jersey Turnpike Authority v. Parsons, 3 N. J. 235, 246 (1949), and Clayton v. Kervick, supra, 52 N. J. at 149.
It is generally held that when the bonds issued to purchase the facility are thus payable out of the user charges and nothing else, the debt clause does not apply.6 I agree there *53is no debt clause problem in such circumstances. Indeed I see no difference, in this regard, between a self-liquidating project entrusted to a corporate authority and one operated directly by the State, so long as the bonds are payable from the project’s own revenues, unaided by an irrevocable promise of the proceeds of a tax. Accordingly, as an abstract proposition, the State could, directly or through a corporate authority, acquire a racetrack, with the costs to be paid solely out of the revenues of the track. Such a program would fit within the special fund doctrine, and for present purposes, I will assume the proceeds of the track could also be pledged under that doctrine for the cost of the sundry other projects authorized by chapter 137. But if I am correct in my view that the Constitution mandates that parimutuel betting shall yield revenue for the support of government, the special fund doctrine would not obviate that constitutional demand, for the special fund could consist only of the net proceeds after the required tax on the wagering has been exacted and paid to the State. Again, successive legislatures could appropriate those tax revenues to the special fund if they wished, for by hypothesis the project is for a public purpose and tax revenues may be spent to further that purpose. But the proposition remains unassailable that no statute can bind future legislatures to that end, except upon compliance with all the provisions of the debt clause including the requirement for the affirmative approval of the voters at an election for that purpose.
I add a reply to the majority’s response to the foregoing dissent. The majority say the questions raised in the dissent are hypothetical and therefore the majority do not answer them. The majority then say the State is bound by its contracts, citing a number of cases for that indisputable proposition. But the issue is whether the commitment by the State *54in the statute is lawful, and that issue is not hypothetical. The very purpose of this proceeding, unless I misunderstand it, is to have adjudged every issue which might concern the purchaser of bonds. A prospective purchaser wants to know what revenues are pledged for the payment of the bonds and whether that pledge is revocable. It is no answer to say he will find out when and if a future legislature departs from the statute’s script. Nor do I understand how the prospective purchaser is enlightened by the observation that if the contract is valid, the State will be bound by it. If the majority mean that after the bonds are sold, it will be too late for the State to challenge the legality of the commitment, then the majority thereby demonstrate that the issue of legality must be decided now and is not hypothetical. And if the majority mean that the State may not challenge the legality of bonds either before or after their sale, then of course all constitutional restraints would be nullified. Eor example, if a legislature authorized the sale of State bonds in bald defiance of the debt clause, the violation, upon that premise, would be beyond redress. This would be so because a challenge to the issuance of the bonds would be hypothetical on the thesis that it ought not to be supposed a succeeding legislature would repudiate the illegal act, and on the other hand, if a succeeding legislature should try to do so, the repudiation would be too late. Upon that approach, we should not have reached the debt clause issue in Holster, supra, 59 N. J. 60.
Perhaps by “hypothetical” the majority mean the issues are academic, that is, that they believe purchasers of bonds would not decline to buy because future legislatures are free to take the several actions I have said will be within their power to take. If those views are thus academic, then of course it will not matter that the majority omit to respond to them. But if prospective purchasers will be concerned with the validity of those views, then, as every member of the Court understands, the sale of the bonds will be inhibited if the majority of the Court do not decide those issues con*55trary to those views and do so unambiguously. The question then is whether the majority opinion can be read to pass upon those hypothetical” issues. I am satisfied the majority opinion cannot stand that reading. The several propositions are stated succinctly in Part IV of my opinion. The position of the majority upon those propositions can of course be easily stated directly, and with crystal clarity. Since the majority opinion does not address itself to any of those propositions, I must conclude the opinion does not undertake to pass upon them. This is supported by the fact that the majority opinion does not attempt to meet the theses expounded in Points II and III of this opinion or to deal with the authorities cited therein. In short, the most that can be gleaned from the majority opinion is the general proposition that a State is bound by a lawful commitment, without however deciding whether the commitments here in question are lawful or are lawfully made.
IV
Accordingly I conclude (1) that the power remains in future legislatures (a) to abolish racing, (b) to reduce the allotted racing days if the public interest so requires, (c) to abolish parimutuel betting, (d) to withdraw from the Authority the net proceeds obtained from parimutuel betting (or at least so much as equals a tax thereon at the rate of taxation at private tracks), and (2) that the State will in cuino financial obligation to the holders of bonds or notes of the Authority if any or all of those legislative actions are taken. The statute is nonetheless constitutional but the purchasers of bonds or notes would be chargeable with notice of these conclusions.
Proctor, J., joins in this opinion.

 Thus in Stone v. Mississippi, supra, 101 U. S. 814, 25 L. Ed. 1079, where a statute incorporating a company authorized it to conduct a lottery for 25 years upon the payment of stipulated sums to the State, the Supreme Court unanimously held that it was beyond the power of that legislature to bargain away the power of succeeding legislatures to prohibit lotteries, saying (25 L. ed. at 1081):
* * * Certainly the right to stop them is governmental, to be exercised at all times by those in power, at their discretion. Anyone, therefore, who accepts a lottery charter, does so with the implied understanding that the People, in their sovereign capacity and through their properly constituted agencies, may resume it at any time when the public good shall require, and this whether it be paid for or not. All that one can get by such a charter is a suspension of certain governmental rights in his favor, subject to withdrawal at will. He has, in legal effect, nothing more than a license to continue on the terms named for the specified time, unless sooner abrogated by the sovereign power of the State. It is a permit, good as against existing laws, but subject to future legislative and constitutional control or withdrawal.
We note a factual difference in the case at hand, to wit, that bonds will be sold and thus the purchasers might urge the consideration should be returned if parimutuel betting is prohibited. The point has not been made, but nonetheless we note that the hypothesis upon which chapter 137 proceeds is that the bonds are not sold on the credit of the State. To say the State would nonetheless have to pay the bonds if a future legislature thus exercises the police power, would of course be to say that chapter 137 in that way creates a debt upon the part of the State within the meaning of the debt clause of the Constitution, discussed in Part III of this opinion, and upon that approach chapter 137 would fall because it was not approved by referendum as required by the debt clause.

 Even the 1933 statute, which authorized horse racing (without gambling), required a tax yield of 10% of the gross admission fees and directed that the “revenue thereby received by the State Treasurer shall be turned over by him to either regularly incorporated hospitals caring for charity patients or to regularly incorporated homes for crippled children in this State.” L. 1933, c. 333, § 12.

 In Finger Lakes Racing Assn. v. New York State Off-Track Pari-Mutuel Betting Commission, 30 N. Y. 2d 207, 331 N. Y. S. 2d 625, 282 N. E. 2d 592 (March 1972), the statute authorized off-track betting and created a public corporation for that purpose. The statute provided for a tax of one-half of one per cent on all off-track parimutuel bets, and directed the public corporation to pay 80% of its net revenues up to $200,000,000 to the participating municipality and 20% to the State, the excess over the stated total to be divided equally between the State and the municipality. The parimutuel clause of the New York Constitution, adopted in 1939 as was ours, also mandated that “the State shall derive a reasonable revenue for the support of government.” The attack upon the off-track betting statute included the claim that the provision for distribution to the municipality violated that mandate. The statute was upheld by a vote of 4 to 3. The majority opinion rejected that claim, saying (p. 217, 331 N. Y. S. 2d p. 629, 282 N. E. 2d pp. 594-595):
Plaintiffs suggest that revenues which go to the support of municipal governments are not for the support of ‘government’ within the constitutional language, or at least not for the support of State government. But the part of the net revenues which go to the participating municipalities is so closely tied in to the interrelated financial dependence of the local governments on the State, that fiscal assistance through a State agency to the political subdivisions of the State must be regarded as revenue for the support of State government, since it may, and the Legislature could reasonably conclude that it will, proportionately benefit the State’s revenues. The result in the end is a fiscal bookkeeping balance between governments. The beneficial effect on the State treasury of revenue passing on to municipal governments which are creatures of the State is very different from private profits arising from pari-mutuel races by corporations operating tracks and pari-mutuel systems.
The dissenters held that the parimutuel clause required all of the revenues from parimutuel gambling to be paid into the State treasury, to be appropriated periodically by further legislation. The case did not involve the New York debt clause. Presumably the statute did not purport to commit those revenues irrevocably to the payment of any debt of the municipality. At any rate, the issue which troubles me was not considered in that ease. That case is relevant, however, insofar as both the majority and the dissent deemed the total net revenue of the public corporation to be “revenue” within the meaning of the gambling clause.

 I do not read the cases to support the statement in 49 Am. Jur., States, Territories, and Dependencies, § 67, p. 280, and in the annotation, 100 A. L. R. 900, 901 (1936), that “generally” debt clauses have been construed to cover only debts for which a property tan is committed. On the contrary, a majority of the courts do not thus limit the debt clause.
A narrow view of a debt clause could be encouraged when the clause absolutely prohibits loans, as distinguished from a clause permitting borrowing upon a referendiim vote. In Oregon, in which the debt clause is absolute in its prohibition, a loan was sustained notwithstanding a tax commitment for repayment, in Moses v. Meier, 148 Ore. 185, 35 P. 2d 981 (Sup. Ct. 1934). The tax was in fact an excise tax but the opinion did not spell out the rationale for the result.

 I do not suggest that an irrevocable commitment of State moneys derived other than from taxation (i. e., sale of property) would be beyond the debt clause. The source of the moneys is of no moment, in my view of that clause.

 Most courts go a step further and hold that where a project is thus acquired on a self-liquidating basis, the revenues from the in*53itial acquisition may be pledged for the payment of additions to the project. Annotations, 103 A. L. R. 579 (1936); 165 A. L. R. 855 (1946).