Court Opinion

ID: 9739774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:20:40.334519+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:13.837557
License: Public Domain

Whittemore, J.
(dissenting) I am unable to find in the preamble to St. 1963, c. 506, any statement “setting forth the facts constituting the emergency” as the Constitution requires. Nor, as I read it, is there any such statement in the body of the statute which provides, in part, for payments of increased allowances in the 1963 session. An implication that supporting facts underlie the statute does not appear to me to be enough.
The facts that probably constituted the emergency of public convenience and that led to the enactment of St. 1963, c. 506, with its emergency preamble, come to mind when the statute is read. They include the general increase in the cost of board, room, and travel and the burden of long legislative sessions. These facts are not stated, however, as of course they could have been. Indeed, if the preamble in c. 506 were to be held inadequate, such facts could be stated in legislation to be enacted, which, I think, could serve to confirm the payments made under c. 506, and those to be made in the period until the referendum.
I read the Prescott case, 299 Mass. 191, 202, as construing a statute with an express recital in the preamble, the Russell case, 331 Mass. 501, 503-504, as construing a statute *61with such a recital in the preamble and in the body of the statute, and the Yont case, 275 Mass. 365, 366, as speaking of a statute with an express recital of an emergency fact in the title adequately incorporated in the preamble by reference.
Long continued legislative practice certainly reinforces the solemn obligation that exists in every case in which an act of a coordinate branch of the government is put in issue, that is, to indulge every presumption in support of the validity of the act. Notwithstanding my recognition of this obligation and my regard for the views of my colleagues, I am unable to conclude that the preamble to St. 1963, c. 506, is constitutionally adequate.