Court Opinion

ID: 9632427
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:14:36.074896+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:15.841866
License: Public Domain

WADE, Justice
(concurring).
I have difficulty in finding that the people by these constitutional amendments or the legislature by the implementing statutes intended to terminate Dr. Bateman’s term of office. Whether such is the effect in my opinion depends on the intent with which these provisions were adopted. We should not hold lightly that a definite term of office has been terminated. In State v. Maxfield, 103 Utah 1, 132 P. 2d 660, we held that without a legitimate purpose other than to depose an officer this could not be accomplished. The fact that Dr. Bateman was appointed to succeed himself clearly shows that there was no illegitimate subterfuge in these enactments to remove him from office before the expiration of his term but still I believe that where, as here, the enactments fail to expressly provide whether such term of office is terminated or not in the absence of something inconsistent with the continuation of *187the term of office to its expiration, we should hold that such term is not terminated.
I do not question the power of the people by these amendments or of the legislature in activating them to terminate this term of office. But I doubt that it follows as a matter of course from the adoption of the constitutional amendments that such was their effect.
No doubt the object of these amendments was to take the choice of the Superintendent of Public Instruction out of politcis and from the electorate and place it in the Board of Education in the interest of efficiency. The accomplishment of this purpose does not seem to require the immediate termination of this term of office. But the legislature in implementing these amendments went further and expressly provided that the
“State Board of Education shall appoint a Superintendent of Public Instruction, * * * who shall serve at the pleasure of the Board.” (Italics mine.)
This gives the Board a greater and more immediate control over the Superintendent, and does away with any definite term of office. This indicates an intention that the Board should have the power to place and keep in office a Superintendent acceptable to the Board. Such power is inconsistent with the continuation of Dr. Bateman’s term of office to the end of the term to which he was elected. On this basis I concur with the prevailing opinion.