Court Opinion

ID: 9577887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:39:08.613172+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:24.428845
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Justice
(concurring):
I join in the majority opinion. However, that opinion does not expressly address the principal assertion underlying the Attorney General’s position — that article VI, section 29 of the Utah Constitution embodies the overarching principle that public funds may not be expended in aid of private ventures, even if the public indirectly benefits from the expenditure. Accordingly, the Attorney General argues that we should give article VI, section 29 an expansive reading so as to strike down the UTFC legislation in its entirety because its primary purpose is to benefit private enterprise. I think this contention should be firmly laid to rest because it is entirely without support in the Utah Constitution and in our case law.
In support of his claim for a broad construction of article VI, section 29, the Attorney General cites to the comments of several participants in the 1895 constitutional debates to the effect that article VI, section 29 was intended to prevent the expenditure of public funds in aid of private businesses under any circumstance, even if the public might ultimately benefit. That may have been the view of some of the delegates to the Utah constitutional convention; indeed, it might even have been the view of a majority. That fact is irrelevant, however, because no such ban was written into the constitution. Instead, as Justice Howe’s opinion notes, the longstanding rule has been that the legislature is free to provide financial aid to private ventures in any way it chooses, so long as it finds that the public will ultimately benefit from the expenditure (a finding that this Court has traditionally been unwilling to examine closely), and so long as the means chosen to provide the financial assistance *416does not run afoul of the two narrow, express prohibitions contained in article VI, section 29 against lending the State’s credit and purchasing stock or bonds “in aid of” private ventures.1
Justice Howe’s opinion demonstrates that this Court has never read article VI, section 29 as broadly as the Attorney General suggests, and the briefest reflection will demonstrate that the legislature has never thought itself precluded by this provision from expending public money for the benefit of private ventures. In the years since the constitution was adopted, the legislature has repeatedly benefitted private ventures through the expenditure of public funds. Perhaps the most obvious current examples are the many tax exemptions given private enterprise. A glance at our tax code reveals provisions creating exemptions for a number of specific businesses, exemptions that obviously cost the public money because everyone’s taxes must be increased to cover the revenue losses resulting from these exemptions. See, e.g., U.C.A., 1953, §§ 59-2-1(2) (property used for irrigation exempt from taxation); 59-2-7 (power plants, transmission lines, and property used for generating and delivering electrical power utilized in pumping irrigation water exempt from taxation); 59-2-32 (livestock exempt from taxation); 59-5-67(4) ($50,000 of gross value of minerals or oil and gas exempt from occupation tax annually); 59-13-4 (specified corporations exempt from franchise and privilege taxes) (Supp.1986).
In drafting the UTFC legislation, I presume that the legislature was aware of our long history of leniency toward measures that indirectly benefit the public by directly benefitting specific businesses. The majority’s decision does not mark a retreat from that pattern of deferring to the legislature’s judgments in this area. The legislature is still free under article VI, section 29 to use what it judges to be the most efficient and effective means for accomplishing legitimate legislative purposes, so long as it does not run directly afoul of one of the two archaic limitations on the powers of state and local government contained in that provision of our constitution. Cf. Municipal Building Authority of Iron County v. Lowder, 711 P.2d 273 (Utah 1985). Unfortunately, in the present case the legislature did authorize direct equity investment and, thus, ran afoul of one of these two specific prohibitions. Until the people choose to modify the constitution, we cannot ignore its plain language. Nothing we say today, however, should deter the legislature from devising other means to assist private enterprise when the legislature determines that such assistance is in the public interest.
DURHAM, J., concurs in the concurring opinion of ZIMMERMAN, J.

. Implicit in the Attorney General’s argument is the suggestion that the UTFC legislation is ill conceived. It may be that the legislation will primarily benefit a small group of promoters, underwriters, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs who want to start or assist others in starting companies that are devoted to "high technology." It may also be that statistically, the chances that any one of these enterprises will succeed are slim. Moreover, the likelihood is speculative at best that any of the people of Utah, other than those directly involved in the specific venture, will ever realize any benefit. However, as the majority notes, under applicable legal principles, the wisdom or efficacy of the legislation is not for us to judge. See Wilson v. Connecticut Product Development Corp., 167 Conn. 111, 355 A.2d 72 (1974).