Court Opinion

ID: 9767127
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:10:43.293544+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:28.773550
License: Public Domain

CALVERT, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I agree that a writ of mandamus should issue in Cause No. A-11215, but I cannot agree that a writ should issue in Cause No. A-11224.
The right of the relator in Cause No. A-11215 to a writ turns entirely on a proper interpretation of constitutional provisions establishing the beginning and ending dates of his four-year term of office as a Senator. I agree, for the reasons stated in the Court’s opinion, that his four-year term of office began on the day of the general election in November, 1962, and will end on the day of the general election to be held in November, 1966, and thus that he is not ineligible to hold the office of Attorney General for a term beginning January 1, 1967, if he should be elected thereto in the general election in November.
The facts in Cause No. A-11224 present an additional and entirely different constitutional problem. The relator in this cause was elected in the general election held in November, 1964; and if his election at that time was for a four-year term from the day of his election, he is rendered ineligible to hold the office of Attorney General for a term beginning January 1, 1967, by the provisions of Sec. 18, Art. III of the Constitution. Sec. 18 provides:
“No Senator or Representative shall, during the term for which he may he elected, be eligible to any civil office of profit under this State, which shall have been created, or the emoluments of which may have been increased during such term; * * * ”
But it is said that Sec. 18 does not render the relator ineligible because at the beginning of his four-year term the Legislature re-apportioned and cut down his term of office to two years. This requires an examination of the provisions of Sec. 3, Art. III. • It reads:
"The Senators shall he chosen by the qualified electors for the term of four *931years; but a new Senate shall be chosen after every apportionment, and the Senators elected after each apportionment shall be divided by lot into two classes. The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the first two years, and those of the second class at the expiration of four years, so that one half of the Senators shall be chosen biennially thereafter.”
It will be noted that the opening clause of the section explicitly and emphatically states that “The Senators shall be chosen * * * for the term of four years; * * * ” The authors of the Constitution could hardly have used plainer language. It is undoubtedly true that Sec. 3 provides two circumstances under which a four-year term to which a Senator was elected may effectively be ended before it has run its full course. The four-year term of a Senator who is in office when reapportionment is voted is cut to two years by the requirement for the election of a new Senate. The four-year term of one-half of all Senators elected after re-apportionment is cut to two years by the provision vacating their seats if they are unlucky in the division of the Senate into two classes by lot. In light of these provisions the Court interprets Sec. 18 as though it read: “No Senator or Representative shall, during the term for which he may be elected, be eligible” etc., “except that he shall be eligible if by some other provision in the Constitution the four-year term to which he is elected is reduced to a two-year term.”
As a matter of hindsight, perhaps the authors of the Constitution would now modify the language of Sec. 3 by adding the same exception which the Court has added. If I were entrusted with the power to rewrite or amend the Constitution, I would add the exception; but there is only one way to change the Constitution and that is by an amendment submitted by the Legislature and approved by the electorate. I cannot get my consent to usurp the power.
I would deny relief in Cause No. A-11224.