Court Opinion

ID: 9538668
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:39:18.085074+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:04.400333
License: Public Domain

Hill, J.
(dissenting)—The constitutional issue presented in this case stems from the following provisions of the state constitution:
“Executive Department. The executive department shall consist of a governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, attorney general, superintendent of public instruction, and a commissioner of public lands, who shall be severally chosen by the qualified electors of the state at the same time and place of voting as for the members of the legislature.” Art. III, § 1.
“Records, Where Kept, Etc. The governor, secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, superintendent of public instruction, commissioner of public lands, and attorney general shall severally keep the public records, books, and papers relating to their respective offices at the seat of government, at which place also the governor, secretary of state, treasurer, and auditor shall reside.” Art. III, § 24.
The appellants here were the respondents in the superior court and will be herein, as in the majority opinion, designated as the respondents. The respondents on this appeal were the relators in the superior court and are so designated by the majority throughout that opinion, and will be so referred to here.
It is solely on the above two provisions that relators base their contention that respondents have violated the state constitution by failing to maintain the offices of their departments (i.e., their “public records, books and papers”) at the seat of government, for if respondents do not fall within the mandate of Art. Ill, § 24, then the argument that they have violated the other constitutional provisions relative to *112change of the seat of government can have no application or relevance.
It is significant that relators' can point to no express provision of the constitution requiring all offices of the executive department of the government to be maintained at the seat of the government. The substance of their argument is that, because the officers enumerated in Art. III, § 24, supra, are (with the exception of the lieutenant governor) the same as those enumerated in § 1 of that article as constituting the executive department of the government, § 24 must be construed as requiring the heads of all the executive offices of the state to maintain their “public records, books and papers” at the seat of government.
The cases of State v. Womack, 4 Wash. 19, 29 Pac. 939 (1892), and State ex rel. North Coast Fire Ins. Co. v. Schively, 68 Wash. 148, 122 Pac. 1020 (1912), quoted and relied upon by the majority, do no more than hold that, by enumerating the officers constituting the executive department of the government, the framers of the constitution did not intend to prevent the legislature from subsequently increasing the number of officers or offices constituting that department of the government.
This is simply a recognition of the fundamental concept of our constitutional form of government. A state constitution is a limitation and not a grant of power, and the legislature is supreme except as its power is limited by the constitution. James v. McMillan, 113 Wash. 644, 194 Pac. 823 (1921); State ex rel. Billington v. Sinclair, 28 Wn. (2d) 575, 183 P. (2d) 813 (1947).
“The entire source of governmental authority is found in the people. Either directly or through the legislature they create such officers and agencies as they deem desirable for the administration of public functions and declare the quantum of power to be exercised by each. Their will, in these respects, finds its expression in the Constitution and laws.” State ex rel. Dragstedt v. State Board of Education, 103 Mont. 336, 62 P. (2d) 330 (1936).
Subject only to limitations and restrictions imposed by the constitution, the power to create and abolish a public *113office is vested in the legislative department of the government. Edwards v. Town of Lake Pleasant, 242 N. Y. S. 635 (1930); O’Connor v. Greene, 174 Misc. 597, 21 N. Y. S. (2d) 631 (1940); Nichols v. Commissioner of Public Welfare, 311 Mass. 125, 40 N. E. (2d) 275 (1942); 67 C. J. S. 119, Officers, §§ 9, 10.
In interpreting the meaning of the quoted provisions of our constitution, the majority makes no distinction between constitutional offices and offices created by statute. It is on that distinction that this dissent is based. As stated in State ex rel. Grant v. Eaton, 114 Mont. 199, 207, 133 P. (2d) 588 (1943):
“ ‘Constitutional offices differ in many ways from offices created by statute. Over the latter, the legislature has full control, whereas its power over constitutional offices is limited. It cannot abolish a constitutional office, nor can it change such an office, except as expressly permitted by the Constitution itself.’ (42 Am. Jur., sec. 18, pp. 894, 895.)”
See, also, Black v. Sutton, 301 Ky. 247, 191 S. W. (2d) 407 (1945).
Through the provisions of Art. Ill, § 1, the framers of our constitution established the constitutional officers and offices of the executive department of the government. They provided for terms of office (Art. III, §§ 2, 3), elections (§ 4), duties and powers (§§ 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23), salaries (§§ 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23), qualifications (§ 25), the location of the state seal and “public records, books and papers” (§§18, 24), and the manner of filling vacancies (§§10, 13). They further designated the extent to which changes could be made “by law,” and in § 25 designated the offices which the legislature, in its discretion, could abolish. Except in the manner expressly provided, the legislature has no authority to change or alter the mandates of the constitution concerning these constitutional offices.
The legislature is vested with sole authority to
“ . . . create a public office, other than one created by the Constitution, provide for the election or appointment of its incumbent, establish and modify from time to time its *114tenure, compensation and duties, and abolish the office as the public interest may require.” Cullen v. Mayor of Newton, 308 Mass. 578, 580, 32 N. E. (2d) 201 (1941).
In short, in the absence of some, constitutional limitation, the legislature has the power to impose either the same or different limitations on the offices which it creates as were imposed by the framers of the constitution upon the offices created by that instrument.
What the majority does here is read into the constitution an intent by its framers that the designation of the location of the offices which it created and which, in the manner designated, were withdrawn from legislative control, should also apply to. offices created under the power vested in the legislature. I am convinced that the framers of the constitution had no such intent, and that such a construction of the quoted provisions is not justified by nor consistent with the recognized rules for constitutional construction.
The majority recognizes that the framers of the constitution were aware of the necessity for subsequent creation of offices of the executive department by legislative enactment as the public interest might require, and that they did not intend to deprive the legislature of its power to create such offices. Granting this and the additional fact that the provisions of the constitution are a limitation and not a grant of power, I can find neither reason nor justification for reading into those constitutional provisions a limitation on the power of the legislature to determine where the public offices which it creates shall be maintained.
The whole purpose of Art. Ill is to designate those matters relating to the offices there enumerated which were thereby removed from legislative control. This was the intent of the framers and the extent to which the limitations therein contained can be extended. In the absence of some further limitation, the power to legislate concerning any other public offices was left wholly to the legislature.
It is true, as the majority indicates, that the only offices of the executive department provided for in the.constitution are those enumerated in Art. Ill, § 1.. The legislature *115had not yet met, and had had no opportunity to exercise its power to create additional offices. I am unable to follow the reasoning that, because no other offices in that department were created by the constitution, the framers of that document could not have intended to exclude offices subsequently created by the legislature from limitations which they placed upon offices created by the constitution. Furthermore, the question is not whether they intended to exclude such offices, but whether they intended to include them. The framers of the constitution recognized the right of the legislature to create such offices, and if it was their purpose to limit the right of the legislature to determine the location of such offices, they could have expressly done so. In the absence of such a limitation, the legislature’s control over the location of the public offices which it creates is complete.
Therefore, instead of upholding the position of the relators with an admonition to respondents that their remedy lies in the provisions for the amendment of the constitution, we should put the shoe on the other foot; an admonition should be extended to the relators that their remedy lies in an appeal to the legislature.
The determination of the location of offices of the executive department created by the legislature lies within the exclusive control of the legislative branch of the government in the absence of a constitutional restriction, and Art. Ill, § 24, is not such a restriction. Under our form of government, the location of these offices is a political, not a constitutional, question.
For these reasons, the demurrer to the petition should have been sustained.
Hamley, Weaver, and Finley, JJ., concur with Hill, J.