Court Opinion

ID: 9685628
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:53:39.474894+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:08.777780
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(concurring in result). The right of the people to propose a law (the initiative) and to reject a law (the referendum) was established by a 1913 amendment1 *to the 1908 Constitution.2 The amendment spelled out at length provisions concerning the form of petitions and other details, including deadlines for filing petitions. The initiative and referendum section of the 1963 Constitution (art 2, § 9) is a condensation of the 1913 amendment3 *739and leaves to the legislature the task of spelling out details, including the time for filing a petition proposing a law.
The 1908 Constitution, as so amended in 1913, provided that a petition proposing a law may be filed not less than ten days before the legislature convenes. That constitutional requirement was reiterated in a section of a statute enacted in 19414 and was reenacted in 1954 as § 472 of the election law.5 Since the adoption of the 1963 Constitution the legislature has not expressed its intention concerning the time for filing a petition proposing a law.
The questions presented in this case are whether the 1954 legislative restatement of the 10-days-be-fore-the-session 1908 constitutional requirement was repealed by implication when the 1963 Constitution was adopted; and, if not, whether the ten-day provision is constitutional.
For weighty reasons of fundamental policy, we avoid constitutional questions if a case can be decided on less momentous grounds.6 I see no need to reach the constitutional question because in my opinion the 1954 legislation, which merely parroted the 1908 constitutional provision, did not survive the adoption of the 1963 Constitution.
I.
Section 472 of the election law provides:
“Petitions to initiate legislation shall be filed with the secretary of state not less than 10 days before the beginning of a session of the legislature.”
This paraphrased Const 1908, art 5, § 1 (initiative and referendum):
*740“Initiative petitions * * * shall be filed with the secretary of state * * * not less than 10 days before the commencement of any session of the legislature.”
The ten-days-before-the-session provision must be placed in context to be understood. Under the 1908 Constitution (1) the legislature met biennially in odd-numbered years until 1952 when it began to meet annually,7 and (2) there was an April general election in odd-numbered years in addition to the November general election in even-numbered years.8
The operative effect of the ten-days-before-the-session provision was to require that a petition proposing a law be filed with the Secretary of State not later than either the closing days of December or the first few days of January, depending on the precise date the legislature would convene.9 Canvassing was to be completed between the time the petition was filed and the date on which the legislature convened. If the petition was in order the Secretary of State was required to transmit the petition to the legislature when it convened. Within 40 days after receipt of the petition, i.e., not later than the end of February, the legislature was either to enact or reject the proposed law. If the law was rejected, then within six weeks, at the spring election in April, the proposed law would be voted upon by the people. Thus, less than 3-1/3 months would intervene between the date 10 days before the session and the date of the election.10
*741It is apparent that the ten-days-hefore-the-session requirement was a step in a relatively short timetable shaped around the facts that the legislature then met regularly only in odd-numbered years and that there was an election in April of such years.
This timetable was thrown out of kilter when in 1952 the legislature regularly began to meet annually. Since the “next ensuing general election” in even-numbered years is in November, the time between the last date for filing a petition with an even-numbered year legislature and the general election would be 10-1/3 months. Thus, under the 1908 Constitution, there came to be two different time spans: as to odd-numbered year legislatures, 3-1/3 months; and as to even-numbered year legislatures, 10-1/3 months.
Among the changes made by the 1963 Constitution was the elimination of the biennial spring election.11 Now that there would no longer he a spring election, why continue to require that a petition proposing a law he filed ten days before the legislative session begins? Why should the 10-1/3-month time span, *742adventitiously established as to even-numbered years, because of the spring election during the biennial meeting of the legislature in oád-numbered years, be continued now that the factual background is completely reversed: the legislature now meeting annually, not biennially, and general elections now being held biennially, not annually?
These questions may have prompted the elimination during the drafting of the 1963 Constitution of the ten-days-before-the-session language as a constitutional requirement and the decision to leave the establishment of a time limit for filing a petition proposing a law to legislative decision :12
*743“The committee is of the opinion there is much within the existing section [Const 1908, art 5, § 1] of a purely legislative character and, therefore, several exclusions and changes are suggested. # # * Removed from constitutional status are the provisions on content and time of filing petitions, canvassing of the names on petitions, type sizes and right of the legislature to prescribe penalties.”13 (Emphasis supplied.)
“Matters of legislative detail contained in the present section of the constitution are left to the legislature.”14
The last sentence of the initiative and referendum section of the 1963 Constitution imperatively provides :
“The legislature shall implement the provisions of this section.” Const 1963, art 2, § 9.
Const 1963, art 3, § 7 provides:
“The common law and the statute laws now in force, not repugnant to this constitution, shall remain in force until they expire by their own limitations, or are changed, amended or repealed.” (Emphasis supplied.)
*744I think it clear that the constitutional convention which, when confronted with the two alternative time spans — 3-1/3 months and 10-1/3 months— chose to leave the decision to the legislature, and which imposed on the legislature the duty of implementing the people’s initiative and referendum rights, did not intend that this important question would he decided by default.
Section 472, which merely restated a 1908 constitutional requirement and which was adopted years before the 1961 constitutional convention confided to the legislature the task of deciding the time-of-filing-a-petition question, does not embody a legislative choice. Section 472 is “repugnant” (Const 1963, art 3, § 7) to the clear intention of the constitutional convention that the time-of-filing question would be decided legislatively. Section 472 was, accordingly, impliedly repealed by the 1963 Constitution.
II.
Just as we should be slow to declare acts of the legislature unconstitutional, we should be equally careful to avoid finding legislative choice and decision where there is none. Both intrude upon the legislative preregotive.
It has been said that
“if the authority of the legislature to enact a particular statute is derived solely from a particular constitutional provision or amendment, a repeal of such provision or amendment operates as a repeal of the statute.”15
Whatever authority the 1941 and 1954 legislatures had to enact the 10-day provision was clearly derived solely from the 1908 Constitution; a time limitation for filing petitions either one moment longer *745or shorter than the 10-day provision could not have been constitutitionally adopted in 1941 or 1954.
In truth it is a misnomer to describe §472 (§2 of the 1941 act) as legislation. The legislature might enact a law of nature or science; if this were done, it would remain a law of nature or science, and if proved to be incorrect in the light of more advanced knowledge it would not become more durable because enacted by the legislature. Similarly, if the legislature wishes to bask in the light of the people’s vote and reiterate a constitutional requirement, it may do so but the reiterating enactment is merely a restatement of the Constitution, not an independent law.16 If the constitutional provision so restated is repealed, then, in my opinion, the legislative restatement should ordinarily be deemed impliedly repealed.17 Any other rule would elevate to permanent law an enactment which did not represent a legislative choice and decision when enacted and which did not have any independent significance or effect as law when enacted. To find a legislative intent or purpose in such a law one must ignore the salient fact that the policy there expressed was determined by the people, not the legislature,18 and would, as *746well, be inconsistent with the people’s right to expect that legislative decisions shall be made when the legislature is free to act legislatively.
We are loath to interfere where a decision has been made by the people or the legislature in their spheres of competence in accordance with the political or legislative processes. It would be ironic, in the name of deference to legislative decision, to deny the people’s right of initiative because of this nondecisional vestige of a former constitutional provision deliberately deleted from the present Constitution. To do so would be to add judicial to legislative inertia.
Chief Judge Lesinski has pointed out forcefully how § 472 unnecessarily clogs the right of the people to propose a law by initiative petition. But in 1941, when this section was first enacted, and in 1954 when it was reenacted, the legislature had no authority to reduce the time span and could not have considered his arguments on the merits. In 1963, with the adoption of the new Constitution, it could have done so. It seems to me that it is sounder to let the legislature consider the merits of his arguments and make the choice than to say that the choice was made by the 1941 and 1954 legislatures — when actually they had no choice — and then to hold that this non-choice was unconstitutional because irrational.
III.
I am also satisfied that § 472 was not inferentially reenacted when the legislature met in special session in December, 1963. After the adoption of the new Constitution by vote of the people in 1963,19 a hipar*747tisan committee of the legislature was created to consider and recommend “to the legislature, in bill form or otherwise, proposed legislative actions best suited to the prompt, orderly and sound implementation of the recently adopted state constitution.”20 This committee recommended a number of laws, many of which were adopted during the second extra session of the 1963 legislature which met in December, 1963. Among these was PA 1963 (2d Ex Sess), No 9, which conformed §§471 and 474 of the Michigan election law to 1963 Constitutional provisions (art 2, § 9, and art 12, § 2) concerning the initiation of amendments and referendum petitions.
It may be, as has been contended, that members of the bipartisan committee reviewed § 472 and decided that the 10-days-before-the-session provision was sound and should be continued. But such a committee decision, unless communicated to and enacted by the legislature, is not a law. The legislature cannot delegate its legislative powers to a bipartisan legislative committee.21 A law cannot be enacted except in the manner provided in the Constitution.
“There is no doubt that a legislative body may not delegate to another its lawmaking powers. It must promulgate, not abdicate.” Osius v. City of St. Clair Shores (1956), 344 Mich 693, 698 (58 ALR2d 1079).22
The Constitution requires that “all legislation shall be by bill”,23 its object must be expressed in its *748title,24 and no bill may become a law unless it has been printed or reproduced and in the possession of each house for at least five days, read three times in each house, and approved by a majority of the members elected and serving of each house whose votes and names must be entered in the journal.25 Additionally, the governor enjoys the power of veto.26 These provisions, designed to insure knowledgeable and careful consideration by the members of the legislature and public awareness and accountability, leave no room for legislation by proxy.
Furthermore, there is no no evidence that the bipartisan committee did in fact consider the time of filing question. A staff memorandum prepared for the committee indicates that it conceived its function to be recommendation of changes needed to avoid conflict with the new Constitution, not to seek out areas where the legislature could now legislate but, formerly, was prohibited from acting.27
We know that the committee did an incomplete job, not only because the governor in a message said that much work remained to be done,28 but also because a “necessary” conforming amendment to §§ 476 and 477 of the election law, also concerning initiatory and referendary petitions, was overlooked.29
*749The wisdom of the constitutional provisions prescribing the manner in which the legislature may exercise its powers is illustrated by the facts of this case. Section 472, when enacted, did not represent a legislative choice; it merely repeated a constitutional requirement. Now it is claimed that because a bipartisan committee may have decided that § 472 represents a sound choice, that the legislature itself made a choice.30
*750I think it highly unlikely that the legislature, aware that it has a choice and aware of its responsibility, would continue to clog the people’s right of initiating laws by a time-for-filing requirement which, while it made sense when the legislature met only in odd-numbered years and there was a spring election in such years, manifestly requires remolding in light of the complete reversal of the factual context— the legislature now meeting annually and general elections now being held only biennially.
If a bill proposing such an unnecessarily restrictive time limit is introduced and after public scrutiny is adopted by the legislature and signed by the governor or becomes law without his signature, it will be soon enough to consider its constitutionality.
Summarizing, the 1961 constitutional convention left to legislative decision the establishment of a time limit for filing a petition proposing a law. Section 472 of the election law, enacted in 1954, never represented a legislative decision but merely echoed language already in the 1908 Constitution. It was repealed by implication when the 1963 Constitution was adopted because it is repugnant to the decision of the constitutional convention that the time-of-filing question would be left to legislative determination.
The 1963 legislature delegated to a bipartisan committee the task of recommending changes in the laws required by the 1963 Constitution, but the corn*751mittee did not present to the legislature a proposal limiting the time for filing a petition proposing a law. That question has neither been considered nor decided by the legislature. The legislature has not acted.
There is, therefore, no viable statutory provision limiting the time for filing a petition proposing a law.
I concur in the issuance of a writ of mandamus.

 PA 1913, p 793 et seq.

 Const 1908, art 5, § 1.

 The section added by the 1913 amendment (see footnote 1) was modified by vote of the people in 1941. See PA 1941, p 781 et seq.

 PA 1941, No 246, § 2.

 MOLA § 168.472 (Stat Ann 1956 Rev § 6.1472).

 16 Am Jur 2d, Constitutional Law, § 113, p 301.

 See Const 1908, art 5, § 13, as originally adopted, and PA 1951, p 594 for the amendment of that section.

 See Const 1908, art 7, §2; art 11, §§ 2, 3 and 6; PA 1925, No 351, pt 1, ch 1, §§ 3, 4 and 5; PA 1917, No 203, §§ 3, 4 and 5.

 See footnote 7.

 The timetable for proposing a law established under the 1908 Constitution:
1. Time for filing petitions with secretary of state. Petitions shall be filed with the secretary of state “not less than 10 days before the commencement of any session of the legislature.”
*7412. Canvassing of petitions. “Upon receipt of any initiative petition the secretary of state or such other person or persons hereafter authorized by law shall canvass the same to ascertain if such petition has been signed by the requisite number of qualified and registered electors.”
3. Time when the secretary of state shall transmit the petition to the legislature. If the “petition is legal and in proper form and has been signed by the required number of qualified and registered electors, such petition shall be transmitted to the legislature as soon as it convenes and organizes.”
4. Time for consideration of proposed law by legislature. “The law proposed by such petition shall be either enacted or rejected by the legislature, without change or amendment, within 40 days from the time such petition is received by the legislature.”
5. Time for vote by the people. “If any law so petitioned for be rejected, or if no action is taken upon it by the legislature within said 40 days, the secretary of state or such other person or persons hereafter authorized by law shall submit such proposed law to the people for approval or rejection at the next ensuing general election.”

 See Const 1963, art 2, § 5, and accompanying convention comment reprinted as annotation in 1 MOLA, p 770, and 1 Stats Ann 1965 Rev, p 431.

 The conclusion here expressed that the 1963 Constitution empowers the legislature to prescribe the time for filing a petition proposing a law necessarily rejects one aspect of the plaintiffs’ constitutional challenge to the 10-day filing requirement, namely, the contention that the 1963 Constitutional directive that the legislature either enact or reject the law proposed by an initiative petition within 40 session days from the time the petition is received by the legislature (Const 1963, art 2, § 9) precludes the legislature from establishing any other time limitation.
The 1908 Constitution provided both that initiative petitions shall be filed 10 days before the legislature convenes and that the legislature shall act thereon within 40 days from the time the petition is received by the legislature. It is therefore apparent that a deadline for filing petitions is not necessarily inconsistent with a limitation on the amount of time the legislature can deliberate on an initiative petition. (The 1908 “40 days” time limitation was changed by amendment on the floor in the 1963 Constitution to “40 session days.” [2 Record, p 3085].)
Also (see accompanying text, infra) the report of the 1961 constitutional convention committee which proposed art 2, § 9 (initiative and referendum) recommended elimination of the 10-days-before-the-session requirement, stating that matters of legislative detail, including the time for filing petitions, should be left to the legislature and at the same time recommended retention of the 40 days requirement; this indicates that the draftsmen of art 2, § 9 saw that there may be need for legislation concerning the time for filing petitions even though the Constitution retained the limitation on the amount of time the legislature could deliberate on a law proposed by an initiative petition.
Merely because a member of the convention visualized the possibility of a petition being filed on the last day of a legislative session (2 Record, p 3085), which was entirely possible with the elimination of the 10-days-before-the-session provision as a constitutional requirement and the implied repeal of § 472, does not *743preclude future legislation imposing reasonable time limits as contemplated by the constitutional convention.
The logistics of presenting initiative petitions and voting on a proposed law may well require the establishment of time limits in addition to the limit on the amount of time during which the legislature may consider a proposed law. Before legislative consideration can begin the petition must first be canvassed to determine its sufficiency or insufficiency. After the 40 session days have elapsed and before the issue can be submitted to the people, ballots and voting machine strips must be printed. All this requires time and it would be entirely consistent with the 40 session day requirement and the legislature’s duty and prerogative to “implement” art 2, § 9 for the legislature to establish reasonable time periods for the canvassing of petitions and the printing of ballots and other voting materials.

 Report of the chairman of the committee on legislative powers of the 1961 constitutional convention, in submitting committee proposal 118, which, as amended, eventually became art 2, § 9 of the 1963 Constitution, 2 Record, p 2392.

 Convention comment; reprinted as annotation to art 2, 8 9, 1 MCLA § 780, 1 Mich Stats Ann 435.

 50 Am Jur, Statutes, § 541, p 548.

 “It is the business of courts to look through form to substance.” On the same principle that documents which appear to be one kind of legal instrument have been held in reality to represent something else (Rothenberg v. Follman [1969], 19 Mich App 383, 391, n 14) § 2 of the 1941 act and § 472 of the 1954 act are not legislative, but constitutional in nature.

 A different question would be presented if there was evidence in the record of the 1961 constitutional convention that the convention relied on § 472 as pertinent existing legislation which would survive the effectiveness of the new Constitution until changed by affirmative legislative action.

 PA 1941, No 246, and chapter XXII of the election law, adopted in 1954, concern initiating petitions. Sections 1-3, which restate constitutional requirements, are an informative preamble to the provisions that follow concerning canvassing of petitions, judicial review and voting.
To ascribe to the 1941 and 1954 legislatures a purpose to enact legislation to become effective when, as and if the 1908 Constitution should be repealed would be to ascribe to those legislatures both *746an extraordinary omniscience and, as well, a presumptuous purpose to invade the prerogative of the legislature sitting at the time of the repeal.

 PA 1963, p 496.

 2 House Journal, pp 1397, 1398 (April 18, 1963).

 See dictum in State v. Gaunt (1885), 13 Or 115 (9 P 55); Central of Georgia Railway Co. v. State (1898), 104 Ga 831 (31 SE 531, 533). See, also, cases eited in footnote 22.

 Similarly, see O’Brien v. State Highway Commissioner (1965), 375 Mich 545, 557; Lievense v. Unemployment Compensation Commission (1952), 335 Mich 339, 342; Coffman v. State Board of Examiners in Optometry (1951), 331 Mich 582, 589. See, also, People v. Collins (1854), 3 Mich 343.

 Const 1963, art 4, § 22.

 Const 1963, art 4, § 24.

 Const 1963, art 4, § 26.

 Const 1963, art 4, § 33.

 “Of course, the legislature is no longer bound to the details contained in the 1908 Constitution, but no changes are required to conform to the 1963 Constitution.” Staff memorandum of April 22, 1963. (Emphasis supplied.)

 House Journal (2d Ex Sess 1963), December 3, 1919, p 19.

 Under the 1908 Constitution (art 5, § 1; art 17, § 2), the sufficiency or insufficiency of petitions was to be decided at least two months before the election. PA 1941, No 246, §§ 6, 7 (PA 1954, §§ 476, 477 [MOLA §§ 168.476, 168.477; Stat Ann 1956 Eev § § 6-.1476, 6.1477]), repeats this language.
The 1963 Constitution, art 12, § 2, changes this time to 60 days as to petitions initiating a constitutional amendment. But PA 1963 (2d Ex Sess) No 9, apparently designed to make the changes *749in chapter XXII of the election law required to conform it to changes of that kind made by the 1963 Constitution, does not make conforming changes in §§ 476, 477.

 The argument that the 1963 legislature relied on § 472 as a viable statute begs the question' whether it was impliedly repealed when the 1963 -Constitution became effective. If it was so repealed, there was nothing to rely on.
Merely because § 472 was printed in a statute book, it does not set up an estoppel; all laws invalid because not properly enacted or because they are unconstitutional are printed in books, and sometimes are relied on by significant segments of the populace as valid for years before their invalidity is judicially declared.
Moreover, there is no way of knowing whether the legislature thought that § 472 would survive the effectiveness of the 1963 Constitution absent an expression from the legislature itself.
It would be pure fiction to conclude that the legislature was aware of § 472 and decided to rely on § 472 as an appropriate solution. There is not a particle of evidence that the 1963 legislature focused on the question. Indeed, the evidence points the other way; the staff of the bipartisan committee appears to have conceived its function in regard to chapter XXII of the election law (in which § 472 appears) to be discharged when it brought to the attention of the bipartisan committee proposed conforming changes (see footnote 27). And even if members of the staff of the bipartisan committee thought that § 472 would continue to be effective it does not appear that their view was communicated either to the bipartisan committee or the legislature.
In some judicial opinions it has been said that legislative silence after the promulgation of an administrative regulation or court decision is evidence bearing on the correctness of the administrative or judicial construction of a statute. (50 Am Jur, Statutes, § 326, pp 318, 319; 82 CJS, Statutes, § 359, pp 769, 770.) The inference has been criticized in trenchant opinions. Sheppard v. Michigan National Bank (1957), 348 Mich 577, 599; Park v. Employment Security Commission (1959), 355 Mich 103, 139; Girouard v. United States (1946), 328 US 61, 69, 70 (66 S Ct 826, 90 L Ed 1084); United States v. Turley (1957), 352 US 407, n 14 (77 S Ct 397, 1 L Ed 2d 430, 56 ALR2d 1300); Wong Yang Sung v. McGrath (1950), 339 US 33, 47 (70 S Ct 445, 94 L Ed 616); Porter v. Roach (D Or, 1946), 69 F Supp 56. There is no need to stop and analyze that issue. There is no evidence that the committee staff or the *750committee ever publicized a reliance on § 472 as continuing legislation. Furthermore, it has never been suggested that a legislature can enact a law by silence or inaction.
The common law is, indeed, replete with fictions. We should, however, be chary of creating and indulging new fictions regarding the legislative process when to do so would transform a repealed constitutional provision into a legislative decision and divine out of inaction a particularized legislative choice, especially when the operative effect in the case at hand would be to inhibit the voters’ franchise. There, perhaps more importantly than elsewhere, we should avoid doctrinaire assumptions.