Court Opinion

ID: 9854285
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:04:28.194016+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:00.195764
License: Public Domain

Schwellenbach, J.
(concurring)—I concur in the result arrived at by the majority because I am convinced that there was an emergency requiring that this act go into effect April 1st. However, I do not concur with the majority’s interpretation of the seventh amendment. My views were discussed quite fully in my concurring opinion in State ex rel. Pennock v. Reeves, 27 Wn. (2d) 739, 179 P. (2d) 961.
Art. II, § 1 (b), of the constitution (the seventh amendment) provides:
“Referendum. The second power reserved by the people is the referendum, and it may be ordered on any act, bill, law, or any part thereof passed by the legislature, except such laws as may be necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety, support of the state government and its existing public institutions, either by petition signed by the required percentage of the legal voters, or by the legislature as other bills are enacted. . . .” (Italics mine.)
*588Section 1 (c) provides:
“No act, law, or bill subject to referendum shall take effect until ninety days after the adjournment of the session at which it was enacted. ...” (Italics mine.)
To state it another way, no law passed by the legislature shall take effect until ninety days after the adjournment of the legislative session unless some emergency arises which requires that it shall go into effect immediately. Prior to the enactment of the seventh amendment, Art. II, § 31, of the constitution provided that no law, except appropriation bills, should take effect until ninety days after the adjournment of the session in which it was enacted unless in case of any emergency. There are no cases in our reports involving any emergency laws enacted by the legislature under that clause. However, since the enactment of the seventh amendment, the legislature has seen fit to attach emergency clauses to a goodly percentage of the laws enacted. For example, of the two hundred ninety laws enacted by the last regular session of the legislature, sixty-three, or 22%, had emergency clauses attached to them. Two of these emergency clauses were vetoed by the governor. The result is that, of the two hundred ninety laws passed, sixty-one went into effect immediately and two hundred twenty-nine will become effective at the expiration of ninety days from the adjournment of the legislative session.
Naturally we should give credence to an expression of an emergency by the legislative branch of the government. However, there is nothing sacred about such a legislative expression (at least the governor did not consider it so in two instances). The legislature has no right to tack an emergency clause onto an act in order to prevent the people from exercising their right of referendum.
The judicial branch of the government owes a duty to the people, in order to protect their right of referendum, which they took unto themselves when they passed the seventh amendment, to scrutinize closely every act containing an emergency clause coming before it for its con*589sideration, and to determine whether or not, as a matter of fact, an emergency actually did exist in each given case.
My understanding of the seventh amendment is this. Under the provisions of subdivisions (b) and (c), we must first examine the act in its entirety and determine whether or not an emergency exists. If there is an emergency, then neither the act nor any portion thereof can be subject to referendum. On the other hand, if the act itself is not actually emergent, then the people may refer the entire act, or any part thereof.
In determining whether or not an act is emergent, we must decide whether it is necessary for either the immediate preservation of the public peace, the immediate health or safety, or the immediate support of the state government and its existing institutions. In determining this question, we must recognize that such act, if not emergent, would go into effect ninety days after the adjournment of the legislative session. An emergency clause may not be attached to an act merely because (as stated by the majority) the act “is necessary for the support of the state government and its existing public institutions.” It may be attached because the act is necessary for the immediate support of the state government and its existing public institutions; so immediate that it must go into effect now, and cannot wait until ninety days after adjournment. We cannot take into consideration the fact that, if an act or any portion thereof may be referred by the people to themselves, such act or the portion thereof referred would not then become effective until after that question be decided by the people at the next general election. Our only concern is whether an act is so emergent that it must go into effect immediately rather than ninety days after the adjournment of the legislative session.