Court Opinion

ID: 9628120
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:08:33.978769+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:57.775296
License: Public Domain

RABINOWITZ, Chief Justice,
dissenting in part.
I concur in Senior Justice Dimond’s dissent. In addition to the grounds advanced by Justice Dimond, I wish to note a further point of disagreement with the majority opinion. More particularly, I have concluded that even if the Alaska Bar Association’s meeting was exempt from the Administrative Procedure Act, holding the meeting in Hawaii violated Article IX, Sec. 6 of the Alaska Constitution, which provides:
Public Purpose. No tax shall be levied, or appropriation of public money made, or public property transferred, nor shall the public credit be used, except for a public purpose.
*45We have stated that the “public purpose” concept in this provision is not capable of precise definition. Wright v. City of Palmer, 468 P.2d 326, 330 (Alaska 1970); Walker v. Alaska State Mortgage Ass’n, 416 P.2d 245, 251 (Alaska 1966); DeArmond v. Alaska State Dev. Corp., 376 P.2d 717, 721 (Alaska 1962). Under even the broadest of definitions, however, I have difficulty finding any legitimate public purpose in locating the meeting in Hawaii. The use of the dues mandatorily paid by ABA members, which I agree with Justice Dimond constitute public monies, to hold the meeting outside Alaska seems to me to be clearly prohibited by Article IX, Sec. 6 of the Alaska Constitution.
This same principle is subsumed within the broader constitutional guarantee of substantive due process of which appellants argue they have been deprived. Substantive due process is denied when the actions of a public agency are arbitrary and bear no reasonable relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. Concerned Citizens of Kenai Peninsula v. Kenai Peninsula Borough, 527 P.2d 447, 452 (Alaska 1974). While one challenging government action bears a heavy burden of proof under this standard, I am persuaded it has been met here. The ABA has not offered any legitimate reasons for holding the meeting in Hawaii.
The ABA alleges appellants have not shown that they were deprived of any cognizable liberty or property interest by the actions of the Board of Governors, since no issues directly affecting the appellants’ livelihood were resolved at the meeting, and since none of the appellants have indicated that they attempted to attend the meeting in Hawaii or would have attended the meeting even if it had been held in Alaska. There remains the fact, however, that property of appellants in the form of mandatory dues money was spent by a public agency in an apparent arbitrary manner. This, in my opinion, is probably sufficient to establish a violation of substantive due process under the standard noted herein.