Court Opinion

ID: 9553139
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:22:50.452815+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:29:47.652273
License: Public Domain

QUINN, Chief Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from parts IV and V of the court’s opinion. In part IV the majority holds that the appropriation bills at issue here do not violate the separation-of-powers doctrine by impermissibly infringing on the Governor’s constitutional power to administer appropriated funds and that, therefore, the district court properly entered summary judgment on behalf of the General Assembly with respect to the Governor’s constitutional challenge to these bills. In contrast to the majority, I believe that the resolution of the separation-of-powers issue involves a mixed question of fact and law that should not have been resolved by summary judgment. In part V, the court holds that the Governor’s vetoes of the appropriation bills were invalid because the vetoed provisions constitute only “parts of items” rather than “items.” *1388I view the majority’s interpretation of the term “item” as inconsistent with the purpose underlying the item veto power granted to the Governor by article IV, section 12 of the Colorado Constitution.
I.
C.R.C.P. 56(c) states that summary judgment should be granted only if “the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” “In the context of summary judgment proceedings, a material fact is simply a fact the resolution of which will affect the outcome of the case. A mixed question of law and fact involves the application of a legal standard to a particular set of evidentiary facts in resolving a legal issue.” Mt. Emmons Mining Co. v. Town of Crested Butte, 690 P.2d 231, 239 (Colo.1984). Being a drastic remedy, summary judgment should be granted only when the evidentiary and legal prerequisites are clearly established. E.g., Gleason v. Guzman, 623 P.2d 378 (Colo.1981); Abrahamsen v. Mountain States Tele. & Tele. Co., 177 Colo. 422, 494 P.2d 1287 (1972). Any doubt as to the propriety of summary judgment should be resolved against the moving party. E.g., Jones v. Dressel, 623 P.2d 370 (Colo.1981). As we stated in Mt. Emmons Mining Co., 690 P.2d at 239:
Even if the historical facts underlying the mixed question might be undisputed, as long as a reasonable trier of fact nevertheless could draw divergent inferences from the application of the legal criteria to the facts, summary judgment should be denied. Not only is the party against whom the judgment might otherwise be entered entitled to the benefit of all favorable inferences that may be drawn from the facts, but, with the case in this particular evidentiary posture, it cannot be definitively determined that the party to be favored by the court’s putative action is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
The majority, relying on this court’s decision in Anderson v. Lamm, 195 Colo. 437, 579 P.2d 620 (1978), concedes that, in fulfillment of the constitutional mandate to faithfully execute the laws, Colo. Const. art. IV, § 2, the Governor must be given the authority “to administer the funds appropriated by the legislature for programs enacted by the legislature” and that “[t]he [G]eneral [A]ssembly must not interfere with the exercise of that power” by attaching to a general appropriation bill conditions which purport to reserve to the legislature those “powers of close supervision that are essentially executive in character.” Ante, at 1380 (quoting Anderson, 195 Colo. at 442, 579 P.2d at 624). The majority further acknowledges that “a close particularization of the cash revenue sources and amounts to be used to meet an appropriation exerts an indirect pressure on the executive to allocate administrative assets and conduct administrative activities so as to generate revenues necessary to fund the appropriations fully.” Ante, at 1381. Notwithstanding these concessions, the majority holds that the legislative conditions specifying the sources of cash funding pass constitutional muster because, in the majority’s view, there is no evidence in the recoid to support the conclusion that the specification of sources would affect the Governor's constitutional authority to administer the executive department of government. With this conclusion I disagree.
The appropriation bills on their face raise the issue of whether the amount of cash funding on which an overall appropriation is conditioned will significantly interfere with the Governor’s constitutional authority to administer the funds appropriated to the executive department of government. Resolution of that question will necessarily require the application of a legal standard —namely, the General Assembly may not interfere with the Governor’s constitutional authority to administer funds appropriated for programs enacted by the legislature, Anderson, 195 Colo. at 442, 579 P.2d at 623—to the particular evidentiary facts in*1389volved in the case.1 In a summary judgment proceeding such as this, even though the facts may be undisputed, the Governor is nonetheless entitled to the benefit of the inference that the General Assembly’s specification of the amount of cash funding might well require the executive department to substantially alter the type and level of activities in order to ensure that its operations are fully funded. Mt. Emmons Mining Co., 690 P.2d at 239. Such a change in program activities could directly affect personnel and resource allocation, matters clearly within the Governor’s constitutional power of administration. Anderson, 195 Colo. at 442, 579 P.2d at 623-24. The state of the record is such that, in my view, it cannot be definitively determined that the appropriation statutes have not so conditioned the executive power of administration as to violate the separation of powers mandated by article III of the Colorado Constitution.
The majority’s resolution in this ease puts the Governor to a Hobson’s choice. As explained in part II, infra, the Governor must either accept the detailed restrictions imposed on funding sources for the appropriation of a particular governmental function, along with the consequential encumbering of his constitutional authority to administer that function, or he must veto not only the specification of funding sources but also the entire appropriation to which this specification relates. In view of this court’s recent opinion in Colorado General Assembly v. Lamm, 700 P.2d 508 (Colo.1985), which prevents the Governor from transferring surplus funds from one executive department of government to another even though the latter’s appropriations are insufficient to accomplish its governmental mission, today’s opinion holds out the potential for further constraint by causing some of the executive programs to operate at or above specified levels of activity in order to ensure the appropriation set by the General Assembly. These constraints can only frustrate rather than enhance the efficient operation of the many departments within the executive branch of government.
II.
While I would reverse and remand the case to the district court for trial on the separation-of-powers issue, I believe it appropriate to address the majority’s construction of the item veto provision of article IV, section 12 of the Colorado Constitution. The majority construes “item” to mean that when, as here, an appropriation bill specifies the source of funds for a particular appropriation, the funding source is merely an indivisible “part of an item” that cannot be vetoed without vetoing the item or items to which the source of funds relates. I view this interpretation of the term “item” as ill-founded and conducive to legislative abuse of the appropriation process.
The Colorado Constitution expressly permits the Governor to selectively veto individual items contained in appropriation bills. Because appropriation bills, unlike other bills, may embrace more than one subject, Colo. Const. art. V, § 21, such bills are subject to the abuses of “log rolling” and “riders.” The “item” veto power en*1390ables the Governor to combat these abuses by disapproving particular “items” in an appropriation bill without vetoing the entire bill. See Stong v. People, ex rel. Curran, 74 Colo. 283, 220 P. 999 (1923); Green v. Rawls, 122 So.2d 10 (Fla.1960); Commonwealth ex rel. Attorney General v. Barnett, 199 Pa. 161, 48 A. 976 (1901). Given the clear purpose underlying this selective veto power of the Governor, the term “item” should be interpreted in a manner that permits the Governor to curb legislative abuses without providing the executive department with positive legislative authority. See Stong, 74 Colo. at 292, 220 P. at 1003.
Although no case appears to address the precise issue before us, several courts have grappled with analogous issues and have developed what I believe should be the controlling principle for this case. Fairfield v. Foster, 25 Ariz. 146, 214 P. 319 (1923), is representative of these cases. There, the Arizona legislature appropriated $72,880 to the Corporation Commission. Of that appropriated amount, $53,880 was designated for salaries and wages, and of this latter amount $2,100 was appropriated for one rate clerk’s annual salary. The Governor, acting under a constitutional provision allowing him to object to one or more “items of appropriation of money,” vetoed the clause providing for “one rate clerk ... $2,100 per annum.” The plaintiff in that case contended that the only item subject to veto was either the entire $72,-880 appropriated to the Corporation Commission or the $53,880 appropriated for salaries and wages, but that the $2,100 per annum appropriated for one “rate clerk” was merely a legislative directive and not an appropriation of a particular “item” within the veto power of the Governor. The Arizona Supreme Court rejected this contention and concluded that such a construction would utterly negate the Governor’s authority to control log rolling:
If we follow that line of reasoning, the Legislature may simply make a separate appropriation in any lump sum for each department, or, by proper language in the general appropriation bill, consolidate the funds for almost the entire state government, and, under the guise of “directing” the expenditure of the money, limit its application to matters and amounts which the Governor believes to be highly injurious in part to the best interests of the state, practically compelling him to choose between abandoning the veto power, or suspending the operations of the government, thus nullifying the provisions of the Constitution under consideration, and going back to the very conditions its makers sought to avoid.
Id. 214 P. at 323. To preserve the Governor’s veto authority, the Fairfield court defined “item” as “a separate particular in an enumeration, account or total.” Id. This court expressly approved Fairfield's reasoning in Stong, 74 Colo. at 287, 220 P. at 1001, characterizing the decision as a “remarkably able opinion.”
The only real difference between the facts in Fairfield and the instant case is that this case involves specification of funding sources, while Fairfield involved specification of funding objects. Here, as in Fairfield, specified sums tied to particular purposes were included in larger sums appropriated for more inclusive programs. The specified sums here are no less “items” than were the funding objects involved in Fairfield. It was therefore entirely within the Governor’s authority to veto these funding sources. See also Brown v. Firestone, 382 So.2d 654 (Fla.1980) (in the context of a qualification or restriction “a specific appropriation is the smallest identifiable fund to which a qualification or restriction is or can be directly and logically related”); Karcher v. Kean, 97 N.J. 483, 479 A.2d 403 (1984) (approving language in Brown v. Firestone); State ex rel. Brotherton v. Blankenship, 158 W.Va. 390, 214 S.E.2d 467 (W.Va.1975) (item may be “any separate subject and amount within an account or total”).
*1391The majority’s interpretation of the term “item” logically leads to a situation that permits the General Assembly to mandate the purposes for which money will be spent while shielding such appropriation from a governor’s veto under the umbrella of a larger inclusive lump sum appropriation. The fiscal 1981-82 supplemental appropriation bill at issue provides an example of this potential for abuse. That bill provided a total appropriation of $30,728,480 for the Division of Accounts and Control in the Department of Administration. Ch. 2, sec. 2, 1982 Colo.Sess.Laws 96, 97-98. This appropriation was broken down into eleven subcategories, including appropriations for administration, group health and life, workmen’s compensation insurance premiums and shift differentials. The administration subcategory was further divided into three appropriations for personal services, operating expenses, and travel and subsistence. The majority opinion could possibly be read to prohibit the Governor from vetoing the appropriation for personal services, or the inclusive appropriation for administration, because both of these categories are merely “parts of an item.” By comparison, under the definition of item as “a separate particular in an enumeration, account or total,” Fairfield v. Foster, 214 P. 319, 323 (Ariz.1923), I would hold that the Governor could veto the appropriation for personal services or any of the appropriations for the eleven subeategories within the Division of Accounts and Control, with the effect of reducing the overall appropriation by the total of the individual vetoed appropriations. This resolution would properly limit the scope of the Governor’s veto power and at the same time permit the Governor to counteract what might be perceived as improper efforts at log rolling or legislative riders.2
I would also regard the Governor’s veto of the asterisked note in the fiscal 1981-82 supplemental appropriation bill as having the obviously intended effect of increasing the moneys available from the highway users fund from $2,493,125 to $4,505,000 as appropriated in the original 1981-82 long bill. This asterisked note constituted an item as did the other notes in question. Because the vetoed note was an amendment to a preexisting note, the Governor’s veto simply voided the amendment, thereby leaving the original note in effect.
For the above reasons, I would reverse the summary judgment and remand the case to the district court for further proceedings.
I am authorized to say that Justice RO-VIRA joins me in this dissent.

. To the extent that a more thorough factual record may be required for a resolution of the separation-of-powers issue on the merits, the parties on remand could present evidence relating to the historical levels of actual program receipts in the years immediately preceding the fiscal 1981-82 appropriations. The court would then be in a position to compare these amounts with the cash funded appropriations in the challenged statute. Evidence establishing that the levels of receipts in preceding years were substantially less than the amount of cash funding specified in the fiscal 1981-82 appropriations would be some indication that the General Assembly had exercised its power to specify funding sources for appropriations inconsistently with the executive power of administration. If, on the other hand, actual program receipts exceeded the amounts specified for corresponding programs in the vetoed footnotes, the court could conclude that the legislative action did not improperly encroach on legislative authority.

. If the Governor were able to veto an individual item contained within the larger overall appropriation without reducing the overall appropriation by the amount of the vetoed item, the Governor could thereby remove any legislative condition as to how that money could be spent. Although some courts have construed the Governor’s veto authority to allow this result, e.g., Reardon v. Riley, 10 Cal.2d 531, 76 P.2d 101 (1938); Green v. Rawls, 122 So.2d 10 (Fla.1960), the effect of such a construction is to vest the Governor with a positive legislative power that is broader than necessary to combat log rolling or other legislative abuse. In view of this potential for executive abuse of the legislative power of appropriation, I agree with the majority’s rejection of such a construction, because it is inimical to the system of checks and balances contemplated by Article III of the Colorado Constitution.