Court Opinion

ID: 9649875
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:12:08.011344+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:15.601901
License: Public Domain

NIX, Justice
(dissenting).
The only issue raised in this appeal which had not been decided in our most recent decision of Stroup v. Kapleau, 455 Pa. 171, 313 A.2d 237 (1973) was the effect of the Senate’s adjournment, without the concurrence of the House, upon the gubernatorial power of temporary appointment. Ignoring the clearly defined issue to be decided, the majority seized upon this opportunity to establish principles that have in the past been consistently re*188pudiated and reached a conclusion contrary to precedent and violative of the language and the spirit of the Constitution of this Commonwealth. I therefore dissent.
The majority opinion is prefaced upon the view that the draftsmen of our Constitution expressed a preference that appointments “be made by gubernatorial nomination-senatorial consent for traditional checks-and-balances purposes” 1 Proceeding from this point, the majority then reasoned that: “The exception [the temporary appointive power] was designed for use only when the preferred procedure could not be employed.” This same premise formed the basis of the dissenting opinion .by Mr. Chief Justice Brown in Commonwealth ex rel. Lafean v. Snyder et al., 261 Pa. 57, 69-72, 104 A. 494, 497 (1918). The majority of the Court, however, expressed its unwillingness to find an intention in the language of the 1874 Constitution that a preference should be given to appointment by advice and consent.2 In Ritenour v. Peirce, 442 Pa. 1, 272 A.2d 900 (1971), this Court, in an alternative ground for decision, applied the Lafean rationale to article IV, section 8 which is presently under consideration. There the Court' stated:
“. . . appellant argues, the Governor had the power to make an appointment only with Senatorial confirmation. We do not agree; the appointment here challenged was valid even if Article IV is applicable, . The Governor did nominate a person to fill the Barrett vacancy before the Senate’s adjournment; the Senate took no action in the following nine *189months prior to its adjournment; during the ensuing recess of the Senate the Governor made the appointment. In so doing he did all that he was required to do under Article IV, Section 8, and there is no indication in the Constitution that non-action by the Senate while it is in session operates to foreclose the Governor from exercising the right, granted by the same constitutional section, to appoint during the recess of the Senate.” Id. at 10, 272 A.2d at 905.
Again rejecting the suggestion that appointment with the advice and consent of the Senate should be favored, three Justices in an Opinion in Support of a Per Curiam Order in Creamer v. Twelve Common Pleas Judges et al., 443 Pa. 484, 495-96, 281 A.2d 57, 62 (1971) reasoned:
“It has been argued that the interpretations we have reached places undue power in the hands of the Executive, which if misused could circumvent the power of the Senate to advise and consent. Conversely, however, the opposition holding could be said to place undue power in the Senate, which if misused could circumvent the power of the Governor to appoint. These arguments were raised and answered by the Court in Lafean. Because of the wisdom and current validity of the Court’s opinion on these aspects, we quote it at length.” 3
Most recently in Stroup v. Kapleau, supra, we observed :
“The phrase, during the recess of the Senate, now only tells us when the Governor may temporarily appoint —not when the vacancy must occur. This change thus strengthens the conclusion in Lafean, that the executive authority to make temporary appointments is distinct and separate from his authority to make perma*190nent appoints requiring Senate confirmation.” . (Emphasis in original text). Id. 455 Pa. at 179-180, 313 A.2d at 241.
At another point in the Strowp decision the Court stated:
“We conclude that the Governor has the power to make temporary recess appointments whether or not he has submitted, for the Senate’s approval, a nominee for permanent appointment. If, as the appellant Senators have argued, the executive authority to make temporary appointments should be limited, it is for the people, not this Court, to amend the Constitution of Pennsylvania.” (Emphasis added). Id. at 181, 313 A.2d at 242.
This writer also had occasion to set forth reasons for rejecting the theory that there was an underlying intention that appointment by advice and consent of Senate should be given preference. Because those views remain unaltered, I will repeat them here:
“To argue that today’s result vests within the Governor ‘the power to whimsically and continually circumvent the constitutional requirement of Senate advice and consent’ is to ignore that this Court as early as 1918 allowed the recess appointive power to be used to fill a vacancy first happening while the Senate was in session. (Citation omitted). The circumvention of Senate approval of which the dissent now complains was fully accomplished when the Lafean Court rendered the Senate’s power of dissent impotent.
That opinion clearly expressed its refusal to find an intention in the language of the 1874 section of the dominance of appointment by advice and consent that would justify a restriction upon the recess appointment by implication.
If we were faced with only a reconsideration of the earlier judicial interpretation of this constitutional *191provision, I would have grave difficulty in reaching the result of the Lafean Court and those cases which followed. But it must be remembered that our task is not the reassessment of prior judicial interpretations but rather an interpretation of the will of the people of this Commonwealth as expressed in the 1967 Amendment to the Constitution of this State. In searching for the true intent of the document the Court’s theory of government must be subservient to the expressed will of the people. The prior interpretation of the former 187U section, the adoption of the present section without significant change forces the conclusion that the intention was to construe the section in accordance with the principles announced by Lafean. To attempt now to ignore this public mandate toould be judicial over-reaching of the most offensive nature.” (Emphasis added) Stroup v. Kapleau, 455 Pa. 171, 313 A.2d at 247. (Concurring Opinion— Nix, J.)
The majority opinion, without explanation as to why former precedent should cease to be controlling or justification for now embracing a premise consistently repudiated in the past, predicates the conclusion reached today upon its view that the authority to issue temporary commissions only exists when the preferred procedure (appointment with the advice and consent of Senate) cannot be employed. This flagrant abandonment of “stare decisis”, without the slightest acknowledgment of the departure and absent any attempt to demonstrate its need, cannot be condoned and epitomizes the height of judicial irresponsibility.
Viewing, as I think we must, article IV, section 8 as creating two separate and distinct powers of appointment, we are compelled to conclude that a unilateral adjournment of the Senate does not prevent the exercise of the temporary recess appointment.
*192Article IV, section 8 provides:
“Section 8(a) The Governor shall appoint an Attorney General, a Superintendent of Public Instruction and such other officers as he shall be authorized by law to appoint. The appointment of the Attorney General, the Superintendent of Public Instruction and of such other officers as may be specified by law, shall be subject to the consent of two-thirds of the members elected to the Senate.
(b) Except as may now or hereafter be otherwise provided in this Constitution as to appellate and other judges, he may, during the recess of the Senate, fill vacancies happening in offices to which he appoints by granting commissions expiring at the end of its session and fill vacancies happening in the office of the Auditor General or State Treasurer or in any other elective office he is authorized to fill. If the vacancy happens during the session of the Senate except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, he shall nominate to the Senate, before its final adjournment, a proper person to fill the vacancy . . . ”
While it is apparent that the phrase “recess of the Senate” in subsection (b) encompasses something more than the normal parliamentary parlance referring merely to an interruption or break in a daily meeting, I cannot accept the majority’s view that it refers to a “sine die” adjournment. By definition a “sine die” adjournment is the, termination of the life of the legislative body then existing.4 Under article II, section 4 5 which provides *193for a continuing body during the elective term of members of the House of Representatives, a “sine die” adjournment may only occur at the end of the mandated session during the even-numbered years. Thus, accepting the reasoning of the majority that “recess of the Senate” in article IV, section 8(b) is limited to a “sine die” adjournment is totally inconsistent with our holding in Strowp where we sustained temporary recess appointments made at the close of a session during an odd-numbered year.6
The majority has properly noted that the framers of article IV, section 8 used the term “final adjournment” when they intended to refer to a “sine die” adjournment. However, it is most persuasive that although they did employ the term “final adjournment” in subsection (b), when designating the time within which the Governor must submit a name for Senate approval it did not do so when indicating the period during which the temporary appointive power was effective. The use of the term “final adjournment” in one instance and reference to “recess” in the other in the same subsection forces the conclusion that there was an intention to refer to a different period of time. I am forced to reaffirm our conclusion in Stroup that “recess in the Senate” refers to that period following the termination of the mandated yearly sessions. See article II, section 4.
*194We now turn to the only issue in ruy judgment left unresolved by our decision in Stroup. May the Senate by unilateral action terminate its annual session? The only express constitutional limitation placed upon the recess power of either House is article II, section 14 which provides:
“Neither House shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.” .
The language of article II, section 14 in no way suggests that a final adjournment of an annual session of one of the Houses cannot be effectuated without concurrence of the other, provided however that the adjournment complies with the provisions of that section. Further, the plaintiffs concede that at least in one instance the framers of the Constitution contemplated a unilateral final adjournment by the Senate without the concurrence of the House of Representatives where under article IV, section 12 the Governor convenes the Senate “in extraordinary session by proclamation for the transaction of executive business.”
Equally as compelling is that a careful reading of the Constitution establishes that throughout the framers of the document used the term “Senate” only when it was meant to refer to that body. We have found not one instance where “Senate” was used either as a synonym for “General Assembly” or “House of Representatives”.
Under our Constitution, participation in the appointment process is vested exclusively in the Senate and the Governor. It is significant that under no circumstances is the approval, concurrence or joint action of the House of Representatives provided for or required. The right of the Governor to validly exercise his temporary power of appointment is not dependent upon the status of the House but rather of the Senate. Thus, the specific refer*195ence to a recess of the Senate in article IV, section 8(b) was not fortuitousness but quite in keeping with the constitutional scheme for the exercise of the power.
We are not impressed with the argument that since the beginning of annual legislative sessions in Pennsylvania, the General Assembly has consistently adopted concurrent resolutions for sine die adjournment regardless of the proximity of the next succeeding session. The fact that a body does not elect to use a particular power is not impressive evidence that the body does not possess that power, particularly in absence of a showing of circumstances that would have provided a compelling need for the exercise of the power in question.
Here, in conformity with article II, section 14 the Senate declared a recess which in effect was a final adjournment of the annual session because of the expiration of the life of the session by virtue of article II, section 4. To attempt to distinguish this recess from one resulting from joint action would create a distinction without meaning and wholly unsupported by the language and clear intention of the Constitution. As the majority of this Court observed in Stroup, supra at 177, 313 A.2d at 240:
“In the face of constitutional challenges we have frequently said that the legislative acts of the legislative branch, the General Assembly, in which the supreme legislative power is vested (article II, section 1), are to be presumed constitutional unless clearly shown to be otherwise.”
Under article II, section 14, a new session was mandated to commence at 12 o’clock noon on Tuesday, January 1, 1974. Necessarily, the former session would have legally expired at 11:59 A.M. on that date. Therefore the action taken by the Senate in recessing on December 31, 1973 fulfills the requirement of article II, section 14 in that it was a recess of less than three days. To conclude that this recess did not in fact terminate the annual ses*196sion is contrary to fact, and the majority’s attempt to describe it as something less than a termination of an annual session is, in my judgment, completely without foundation.
I would therefore hold that the defendants are legally entitled to thé offices for which they have been appointed and that the complaints should be dismissed.

. I am completely at a loss to understand the reference in the majority opinion to the views of Alexander Hamilton, expressed in the Federalist Papers, as being germane to the question of the intent of the framers of the 1967 Amendment of the Pennsylvania Constitution and the will of the people of this state when they approved this Amendment.

. In Lafean the majority held that the rejection by the Senate of a nomination by the Governor did not prevent the Governor from appointing the rejected nominee to the same office under his temporary appointive power.

. While the Court in the Creamer decision, supra, was primarily concerned with an interpretation of article V, section 13, it nevertheless recognized that the same considerations were involved as in an interpretation of article IV, section 8.

. “Section 445 Motion to Adjourn Sine Die.
3. A motion to adjourn sine die has the effect of closing the session and terminating all unfinished business before the House, and all legislation pending upon adjournment sine die expires with the session, while a motion to adjourn from day to day does not destroy the continuity of a session and unfinished business simply takes its place on the calendar of the succeeding day.” Mason’s Manual of Legislative Procedure, §

. See note 5 on page 193.
*193445 at 301 (1970); See also Brown v. Brancato, 321 Pa. 54, 62, 184 A. 89, 92-93 (1936).
“No power is vested in the House to act independently of the Senate after the Assembly adjourns sine die..... The legislative action of the General Assembly, in virtue of the session which convened, . . ., ended with its adjournment.”

. Article II, Section 4 provides:
The General Assembly shall be a continuing body during the term for which its Representatives are elected. It shall meet at twelve o’clock noon on the first Tuesday of January each year.

. The appointments in Stroup v. Kapleau, supra were made after the General Assembly adjourned on December 28, 1971.