Court Opinion

ID: 9668338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:09:46.301515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:44.726389
License: Public Domain

COOPER, Justice,
concurring.
I must disagree with the plurality opinion’s conclusion that HB 250, which created the health provider tax, was not a revenue raising measure within the contemplation of section 47 of our Constitution. However, I agree that it would be the amendments which were introduced in the Senate, not the tax, which would be thus rendered invalid. See Farris v. Shoppers Village Liquors, Inc., Ky., 669 S.W.2d 213 (1984) in which a Senate amendment unrelated to the revenue raising measure was declared invalid. Appellants are not attacking any specific provision traceable to a Senate amendment to HB 250, but are only challenging the constitutionality of the provider tax, itself. Although they assert that the Senate would not have passed the provider tax without the amendments, that assertion is supported only by supposition, not proof. It was the refusal of the House to pass the bill as amended by the Senate which resulted in the bill being referred to the free conference committee.
Accordingly, I concur in the result reached by the plurality opinion.