Court Opinion

ID: 9678612
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:25:40.760882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:06.041428
License: Public Domain

PAUL H. ANDERSON, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either of them being made. — Otto von Bismarck1
I agree with the majority that chapter 231 violates the Single Subject and Title Clause of Article IV, Section 17 of the Minnesota Constitution, but I do not agree that we can simply excise one offending provision and allow the remainder of the law to continue in effect. Therefore, I respectfully dissent on Part II of the majority opinion.
For the reasons expressed in the majority opinion, the inclusion of a prevailing wage law concerning school construction in what was essentially a tax bill violated Article IV, Section 17 of the Minnesota Constitution. While the “mere filament” test has served this court for many years, its interpretation has now become so deferential as to render Section 17 ineffectual. Part I of the majority opinion correctly reflects the trend of our court’s decisions on Section 17 over the past 15 years: and returns our court to its proper role in interpreting this section of our constitution, namely to give each part of the constitution the plain meaning and effect of its language.
While agreeing that chapter 231 is unconstitutional under Section 17, I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that we' can simply strike the offending provision of this'law and permit the remainder to continue in effect. The majority’s analysis ignores the constitution’s plain language, confuses the various phases through which ■ a legislative enactment must pass, and ultimately encourages the very mischief Section 17 was designed to prevent.
Section 17 is directly worded, stating that: “No law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title.” Minn. Const, art. IV, § 17. The majority claims that this language does not require us to invalidate chapter 231 in its entirety. But such a reading ignores that Section 17 is contained in Article IV, which defines the legislature and the procedures by which legislation is enacted. As such, Section 17’s language has meaning only in the context of enacted session laws; otherwise, the application of Section 17’s title provision would be meaningless. The title of a law exists only with respect to the session law and is not part of the statutes as codified by the revisor of statutes. See generally Minn.Stat. § 3C.08 (1998). Furthermore, Section 17 in no way addresses the validity of the provisions of a law. The majority’s interpretation essentially would rewrite Section 17 to read: “No provision of a law shall be valid unless it is embraced *312by the subject of the law, of which there shall be only one, and which shall be expressed in its title.” But Section 17 does not give us any authority by which to hold a provision of a law unconstitutional. As stated above, Section 17’s mandate is simple and clear, “No law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title.” Minn. Const, art. IV, § 17 (emphasis added).
The majority fails to appreciate the distinctions between bills, laws, and statutes. A bill is proposed legislation that has not completely made its way through the legislative process. Laws are bills that have been enacted by the legislature and then signed by the governor, enacted after three days of gubernatorial inaction, or passed by a legislative override of the governor’s veto. See Minn. Const, art. IV, § 23. Statutes are enacted laws that are codified, organized, and assembled by the revisor of statutes. See generally Minn.Stat. § 3C.10 (1998) (defining the publication powers of the revisor of statutes).
Our court has authority articulated in Minn.Stat. § 645.20 (1998) to sever a provision of a law that has been found to be unconstitutional. In the context of a statute, this makes sense because any particular provision of a statute may have been passed years apart from the remainder of the statute. This section also reflects the legislature’s intent that, when possible, only the unconstitutional provision of a validly enacted law be stricken and that the balance, of the law be preserved. However, severing a provision of a law found to be in violation of Section 17 is profoundly different from severing an unconstitutional provision under section 645.20.
The severability of a provision of a law as articulated in section 645.20 is predicated on the basis that the law containing the challenged provision was properly enacted and that a court has subsequently determined that the provision’s requirements or prohibitions violate the constitution. Such a determination is different from saying that the law containing the provision itself was not validly enacted. The latter infirmity is not only fatal to the challenged provision, but to every other provision of the same law. A violation of Section 17 strikes at the validity of the entire law, not merely the challenged provision.2 We commented on the consequence of a violation of Section 17 in Blanch v. Suburban Hennepin Regional Park District when we said: “[W]e are constrained to observe that since it is the presence of more than one subject which renders a bill constitutionally infirm, it appears to us at this time imlikely that any portion of such a bill could survive constitutional scrutiny.” 449 N.W.2d 150,155 (Minn.1989). Our reasoning in Blanch was sound and there is no cause to depart from that reasoning today.
I agree with Justice Page when he notes in his dissent that severing the challenged provision defeats the purpose of Section 17. Not only would severance encourage “logrolling,” it may well facilitate it. The majority correctly notes that the purpose of Section 17 is that of a “Sunshine law.” Section 17 is designed to ensure that bills are passed with reasonable notice of their contents, both to legislators and to the public at large. It is also designed to ensure that unpopular and unrelated provisions are not hidden in voluminous bills or attached to popular bills to ensure their passage. Severance of a challenged provision of a law found to be in violation of Section 17 would defeat Section 17’s purpose and establish the judiciary as a “super-legislature.”
By allowing severance, the majority essentially permits the legislature to pass *313whatever bills it pleases, knowing that if challenged, the courts will strike only the challenged provisions. As Justice Page points out, the legislature may be willing to act on the remote chance that a provision will be challenged and, if challenged, struck. Even more problematic would be the ability of the legislature to pass provisions popular with the general public, but injurious to certain parties, with the ability to assure those parties that the courts will likely excise the provisions if challenged.
As the introductory quotation suggests, the passage of a legislative enactment is a complex process whereby diverse interests are harmonized and consensus is built. It is a process that involves compromise and negotiation. Section 17 limits that process. We recognized that limit in State v. Women’s & Children’s Hospital where the challenged law contained only two provisions on distinct subjects: homeless children and hospitalization for pregnant women. See 143 Minn. 137, 138-39, 173 N.W. 402, 402 (1919). The majority claims that chapter 231 is clearly distinguishable from the law in Women’s & Children’s Hospital. I disagree. The dispositive issue in Women’s & Children’s Hospital was not the balancing of the two provisions, but rather the inclusion of more than a single subject in the law. See id. While chapter 231 is more complex and comprehensive than the legislation in Women’s & Children’s Hospital, it still suffers the exact same constitutional infirmity: the inclusion of more than a single subject.
The majority argues that because chapter 231 is so complex, we may sever an unrelated part as we would an unconstitutional provision in a validly enacted law. Again, this argument ignores the basic fact that the aforementioned authority to sever is specifically articulated in Minn.Stat. § 645.20. Here, our authority comes directly from Section 17, which dictates the title clause and the single subject requirements. By excising the challenged provision, the majority has now created a piece of legislation that was not passed by either house of the legislature nor signed by the governor. The majority essentially establishes a “judicial line-item-veto” without any constitutional basis. I cannot countenance such a usurpation of the legislative function by the judiciary. Therefore, I am compelled to conclude that when a law is found to have violated Section 17, then it is the entire law that is invalidated.
I am not unmindful of the drastic effect that invalidating a major piece of legislation such as chapter 231 will have on those in this state who have reasonably relied on its validity. This is especially true when that legislation has been in effect for many years. Nor can I ignore the potential rush of litigation that this result may encourage. I also acknowledge the role our court may have played in encouraging this reliance by our overlong unwillingness to give Section 17 its stated force and effect. For the past 30 years, we have not used Section 17 to invalidate any piece of legislation. We may have been overly deferential to the legislature’s continuing abuses in this area.
In recent years, members of this court have warned the legislature that omnibus legislation will receive greater scrutiny under Section 17. But the recurring nature of omnibus-tax and fiscal legislation in recent years should indicate to the court that our colleagues’ warnings have gone unheeded. I find this understandable. While the writings of individual justices of this court are important parts of the judicial process, this court only speaks as a coequal branch of government through its majority decisions. See generally Anchor Cas. Co. v. Miller, 258 Minn. 585, 585-86, 105 N.W.2d 689 (Minn.1960). This court has issued no warnings of a like nature through its majority opinions.3
*314I believe that the inclusion of the prevailing wage provision in Minnesota Laws 1996, chapter 231 violates the single subject and title requirements of Article IV, Section 17 of the Minnesota Constitution and that a violation of Section 17 renders the entire session law invalid. However, for all the reasons I have previously stated and under the precedent of our rulings in Holmberg v. Holmberg, 588 N.W.2d 720, 726-27 (Minn.1999), Nieting v. Blondell, 306 Minn. 122, 132, 235 N.W,2d 597, 603 (Minn.1975), and Spanel v. Mounds View School District No. 621, 264 Minn. 279, 292-94, 118 N.W.2d 795, 803-04 (Minn. 1962), I would have the effect of this decision be prospective, applying only to those laws passed after the date of this opinion. Such application may also give the legislature an opportunity, if it so desires, to consider such constitutional amendments necessary to exempt omnibus fiscal legislation from the requirements of Section 17.4

. While the exact origin and form of this quotation are not readily ascertainable, the comparison of law and sausage making is widely attributed to German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck-Schoenhausen (1815-1898). See Lewis D. Eigen & Jonathan P. Siegel, The Macmillan Dictionary of Political Quotations 325 (1993).

. The majority refers to our comment in Foster v. Naftalin, 246 Minn. 181, 74 N.W.2d 249 (1956), to support the proposition that a violation of Section 17 is not a flaw in a law’s enactment. However, Naftalin dealt with a fatal variance between the bill passed by the legislature and that signed by the governor, not a violation of the Single Subject and Title Clause. See 246 Minn, at 199, 74 N.W.2d at 261.

. The majority today argues that such a warning was given in Blanch. In Blanch, Justice Yetka claimed that "the majority opinion adopts the position of my concurrence in Mattson [v. Kiedrowski, 391 N.W.2d 777, 783 (Minn. 1986) (Yetka, J., concurring special*314ly) ]." However, the Blanch majority did not explicitly do so and appears to apply the same deferential "mere filament” standard to uphold the challenged legislation. Id. at 155. Blanch is a tepid warning at best.

. Many states that have single subject provisions in their constitutions also have created constitutional exceptions lor omnibus fiscal legislation. See generally Millard R. Rudd, "No Law Shall Embrace More Than One Subject," 42 Minn. L.Rev. 389, 414, n. 102 (1958).