Court Opinion

ID: 9748758
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:12:16.085869+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:39.146715
License: Public Domain

ABRAMSON, J.,
concurring in result only.
I concur in result only and write separately to state a point of fundamental disagreement with the well-reasoned majority opinion. Specifically, I disagree with the following observation by the majority regarding how it came to pass that the confirmation provision in § 93, as amended in 1992, was confined to the Senate:
We are unwilling to assume that the General Assembly omitted reference to the House in § 93 by oversight. Instead, we agree with Fox that the absence of language referencing the House in § 93 should rationally be interpreted as a conscious decision by the General Assembly not to include the House in confirming nominees.
Before, during and after the 1992 legislative session, the Kentucky General Assembly has passed legislation, which provides for bicameral confirmation of appointments to at least eight different boards and commissions. In my view, these laws reflect a clear, good faith belief on the part of the majority of both houses of the General Assembly that bicameral confirmation is constitutionally permissible. Unfortunately, given the plain wording of § 93, it is not. I firmly believe that the wording of § 93 was chosen to address the separation of powers issue raised, and eventually addressed by this Court, in Kraus v. Kentucky State Senate, 872 S.W.2d 433 (Ky.1994). In a classic case of focusing on the tree and forgetting to see the forest, SB 226 produced a constitutional amendment which specifically recognized the Senate confirmation provision at issue in Kraus but inadvertently undermined the bicameral confirmation provisions which had been deliberately included in prior legislation and which would continue to be included in laws relating to various boards and commissions in the years that followed.
The majority is correct that this Court must construe what it has before it and in § 93 we have language that does not admit a construction that is most likely what the General Assembly actually intended if their prior, contemporaneous and subsequent acts are considered. As for the idea that their intent has been rendered of secondary import, or even irrelevant, by the vote of the people, I cannot fully subscribe to that view. Notably, we have entrusted to the legislature the significant responsibility of initiating the constitutional amendment process. Ky. Const. § 256. As representatives of the people, their intent in proposing a constitutional amendment is vital and, therefore, it is equally vital that that intent be fully and painstakingly stated in any ballot question. If the overarching concept of the confirmation process, which in some instances is confined to the Senate but which in other instances has been shared by both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly, had been carefully considered in drafting the proposed amendment, I truly believe that we would not have been left with the “tree” that is now before us. We have been, however, and the language used in § 93 is so unambiguous that I can find no *22defensible basis for looking beyond that clear language. Consequently, I must reluctantly concur in result.