Court Opinion

ID: 9611809
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:00:41.485964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:52.046933
License: Public Domain

Fatzer, J.,
concurring and dissenting: It fell to my lot to present this case for the court’s decision and to write the majority opinion. However, there are times when a judge cannot agree with the court’s opinion, and I find myself in that position in the instant case.
With respect to proposition 3, and considering the case from the point of view that it is an “amendment” to the Constitution, I concur in the court’s decision that the proposition is a palpable violation of the constitutional principle involved. However, I wish to state and hereafter note briefly at least three other separate amendments contained therein. Moreover, and having an abiding conviction that proposition 2 is in clear violation of that same constitutional principle, I have no alternative except to dissent to the court’s decision on that point.
Before discussing other separate amendments in proposition 3, reference is made to the report of the Citizens’ Committee on *667Constitutional Revision to the governor and Legislature in 1969. The format of the report contained a summary of what the Committee entitled “significant changes” in each of the separate propositions submitted to revise the Constitution, including propositions 2 and 3, which preceded the text of each proposed amendment. The text of each article or proposition was then presented in the form of a concurrent resolution of the Legislature. Unchanged material in the text appeared in Roman type, new material appeared in italic type, and recommended deletions were printed in strike-type. The report stated the Committee felt “the format of using specific and clearly identified changes in the constitution is the best means of setting forth its recommendations.” (Introduction, p. VII.) (Emphasis supplied.)
With respect to proposition 3, the significant changes listed by the Committee were stated as follows:
“Article 1. — Executive
“1. The elective constitutional executive offices are limited to the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.
“2. The decision as to whether the offices of state auditor and state treasurer shall continue to exist, and if they do, then whether those two offices shall be elective or appointive is placed within the discretion of the legislature.
“3. The secretary of state may be an elective or appointive office as determined by the legislature, but is a required constitutional office.
“4. Elections for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general are to be held in oif-presidential election years commencing in 1974, and their terms are to be four years.
“5. Commencing in 1974, the governor and lieutenant governor are to be nominated and elected as a team.
“6. Deletes the requirements that the governor’s message to the legislature must be delivered at the commencement of the legislative session.
“7. Permits the governor to submit an executive order to the legislature reorganizing any agencies under the executive department. Constitutionally delegated functions are exempt from such orders. Such an order is to take effect and to have the force and effect of law unless it is disapproved by one of the houses of the legislature within a prescribed time.
“8. Authorizes the governor to proclaim martial law when public safety requires it but for not longer than twenty days at a time unless approved by the legislature.
“9. Makes the succession to the offices of governor and lieutenant governor, in the event of vacancies in both offices, a subject to be regulated by statute rather than by the constitution.
“10. Directs the governor to appoint a person to assume the powers and duties of the attorney general if the attorney general is disabled.
“11. Provides that the procedure for determining the disability of the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general shall be as provided by law.
*668“12. Removes the lieutenant governor as presiding officer of the senate, and provides that he shall assist the governor and have such other duties and powers as are prescribed by law.”
It thus appears the Legislature, in providing for the submission of the proposed changes to the Constitution, recognized and considered that the matters covered in propositions 2 and 3 involved the several specific and clearly identified independent changes stated by the Committee, and that it adopted those significant changes as a part of the submission of each of those propositions. Yet, not withstanding the fact that the particular matters covered in each proposition involved distinct, specific and unrelated changes of subject matter, the Legislature made no provision and gave the electors no opportunity to vote upon each of those amendments separately. The entire matter proposed in each proposition was submitted to the electors in a lump, and they were compelled to accept or reject all of the proposed and stated changes. They had no choice. If an elector had an opportunity, he might have desired to express his will in favor of extending the tenure of executive officers and prohibiting the governor and lieutenant governor from holding more than two successive terms. Yet he might not have approved that proposed change, and been in favor of permitting the lieutenant governor and the governor to run as a team. On the other hand, he might not approve the matter of the governor issuing reorganization orders, but favor the repeal of Article 8 and the changes made with respect to the militia. In like manner, he may have approved any one of the specific changes enumerated by the Committee, and disapproved all others. Under the method adopted by the Legislature, no choice was given, and the elector was forced to approve or disapprove all of such matters as a single proposition.
From this analysis, it is apparent the Legislature incorporated in a single amendment several distinct, unrelated, and independent propositions, any one of which could have been adopted by the electors, and the Constitution’s efficiency or completeness would not have been modified or qualified in any way by a failure to adopt any one or more of the other questions. While the Constitution places no limitation upon the Legislature as to form of proposing amendments, it expressly fixes and defines the manner of submitting the same for adoption by the electors, and requires that the submission be in such form that the electors may vote on each *669amendment separately. (Kerby v. Luhrs, 44 Ariz. 208, 36 P. 2d 549, 94 A. L. R. 1502. )
Turning to other specific amendments contained in proposition 3, I first refer to the repeal of Section 12, Article 1, eliminating the lieutenant governor as president of the Senate. Our Constitution was so framed as to vest in the Legislature all legislative powers (not otherwise limited by the Constitution), to vest in the governor the executive power, and to vest in the supreme court and other courts, the judicial power. From this division on principle, the reasonable construction of the Constitution is that the three departments should be kept separate in all cases in which they were not expressly blended, and that the Constitution should be interpreted to blend them no more than it affirmatively requires. See State, ex rel., v. State Office Building Commission, 185 Kan. 563, 345 P. 2d 674.
There are several expressly blended executive and legislative powers in the Constitution, one of which is the power conferred upon the lieutenant governor. By Section 1, Article 1, the lieutenant governor is a member of the executive department. Under existing Section 12, Article 1, the lieutenant governor shall be president of the Senate, and shall vote only on concurrent resolutions when the Senate is equally divided. (Coleman v. Miller, 146 Kan. 390, 71 P. 2d 518, affirmed 307 U. S. 433, 83 L. Ed. 1385, 59 S. Ct. 972.) The section further declares the Senate shall choose a president pro tem, to preside in case of the lieutenant governor’s absence or impeachment, or when he shall hold the office of governor.
As proposed by the Citizens’ Committee on Constitutional Revision, and submitted by the Legislature, Section 12, Article 1, was repealed. An amendment containing new material was added which provided that “[t]he lieutenant governor shall assist the governor and have such other powers and duties as are prescribed by law.”
The great importance of the lieutenant governor being the president of the Senate, and his right to vote on concurrent resolutions, is discussed at length in Coleman, supra. The point at issue was the approval by the Senate of a resolution to ratify an amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This court quoted at length and with approval from Jameson on Constitutional Conventions, 4th Ed., and concluded the Constitution authorized the lieutenant governor to vote on the resolution when the members of the Senate were equally divided. The supreme court of the United States *670affirmed. While the blended executive and legislative powers of the lieutenant governor were not specifically discussed, it is apparent that the right of the lieutenant governor to vote on limited measures as president of the Senate is the exercise of an important constitutional power, particularly on a subject of such great magnitude as to bind the people of this state in delegating their power of sovereignty to the government of the United States. The elimination of right of the lieutenant governor to exercise the blended constitutional powers of his office is, then, a drastic revolutionary alteration of the existing constitutional requirement on the subject.
This great change, then, in abolishing the right of the lieutenant governor to preside as president of the Senate, and to exercise the blended powers conferred on that office, has no bearing in any respect on the purpose of proposition 3, to change the tenure and composition of the executive department, nor is it related to, or dependent upon organizing and equipping the militia, or connected in any manner with reorganization orders issued by the governor, nor does it tend to effect or carry out that purpose, or have any relation to other subjects contained in the proposal. It must have some different object or purpose, and thus it fails to satisfy the test laid down in The State ex rel. Hudd vs. Timme, Secretary of State, 54 Wis. 318, 11 N. W. 785, as clarified and adopted in Kerby v. Luhrs, supra. A very similar point was decided by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in State ex rel. Thompson v. Zimmerman, 264 Wis. 644, 60 N. W. 2d 416, which followed and applied the Timme case, and held in effect that where a constitutional principle had been decided by the court, a separate submission was required of the amendment seeking change of the constitutional principle announced.
The office of lieutenant governor is an integral part of the expressly blended powers of the Constitution, and I conclude that a separate submission was required of the amendment abolishing the office of president of the Senate, and repealing the blended constitutional powers of the lieutenant governor.
I next refer to the Committees’ specific change 5, stated above. In my opinion the elimination of the right of the people of the state to vote separately for a candidate for the office of lieutenant governor is a subject wholly unrelated to, or dependent upon, either tenure or composition of members of the executive department, or any other subject contained in proposition 3, and requires a separate submission of an amendment eliminating this right of franchise.
*671Counsel for the parties cite no authority on the point, and my research discloses none. But, based upon logic and reason, it seems inconceivable that proposition 3 can be saved upon this point by saying that it relates to the executive department. If that argument is correct, then the mere fact that amendments — no matter how independent each from the other — relating to the Legislature, the judiciary, or as here, the executive, will permit all to be submitted as one. Whether amendments are one or many must be resolved by their inherent nature — by a consideration whether they are separate and independent subjects each from the other so that each may stand alone without the other, or all fall as a whole, leaving the constitutional scheme symmetrical, harmonious, and independent on that subject. (Kerby v. Luhrs, supra.)
The requirement that the governor and lieutenant governor be nominated and elected as a team, is a radical departure from the original scheme of the Constitution, and, as indicated, the proposal does not relate to tenure of the office of lieutenant governor, or to the composition of the executive department. What is proposed is to eliminate the right of the people to vote for the lieutenant governor separately, and require the electors to vote for the governor and lieutenant governor running together. This is fundamental change in our organic law, and is a separate subject unrelated to, or dependent upon, other changes of subject matter contained in the amendment, and requires a separate submission of the question.
Lastly, I refer to the Committees’ specific change 7, stated above, which appears as Section 6 of the amendment and contains four subsections of new material. This section is entitled “[Reorganization of state agencies of executive branch,” and provides in substance the governor may submit executive reorganization orders to the Legislature to transfer, abolish, or consolidate the whole or any part of any state agency within the executive department, except constitutionally established departments. These orders are given the force and effect of law, unless disapproved by at least one branch of the Legislature within 60 days after they are submitted, and before adjournment of the session to which they are submitted. Once in effect, such orders may be amended only by statute, although the Legislature is not permitted to amend such orders when submitted by the governor in the first instance.
It is well settled constitutional law of this state that the legislative power is vested in the House of Representatives and Senate (Sec. 1, *672Art. 2), and that the executive power is vested in the governor to faithfully execute the law enacted by the Legislature. As stated in the court’s opinion, an “amendment” implies such addition to or change within the lines of the original instrument as will effect an improvement, or better carry out the purpose for which it was framed. (Livermore v. Waite, 102 Cal. 113, 36 Pac. 424, 25 L. R. A. 312.)
On its face, the subject of reorganization of state agencies of executive branch, has no relation to tenure, or composition of the executive department as provided in Section 1, or with Section 8 relating to the “[m]ilitia and martial law” which repealed Sections 1, 2, 3 and 4 of Article 8 of the original Constitution, or with respect to the repeal of the office of president of the Senate established by Section 12, Article 1. The power to establish a state agency to carry out the purposes and objects of state government, or to transfer the powers of such an agency to another agency, or to abolish a state agency, is a legislative power, and the many decisions of this court have so held. This is such a well-established fact of state government that the citation of authority is unnecessary to support the statement. Likewise, it is a well-established constitutional principle that the power to approve or veto legislation is vested in the governor. (Sec. 14, Art 2.) However, the purport of Section 6 appears to reverse this governmental policy by authorizing the governor to exercise legislative power to transfer, abolish or consolidate state agencies of the executive branch, and to place the power of veto in the Legislature with respect to such reorganization orders issued by the governor, which have the force and effect of law. unless at least one branch of the Legislature disapproves such orders.
This is indeed a radical departure from the original lines of the Constitution and on its face constitutes a revision rather than an amendment to the Constitution. Again, counsel for the parties cite no authority on the point, and my research discloses none. While it may be said that the provisions of Section 6 may be germane to the executive department, they are in no sense germane, nor within the lines of the existing Constitution. On the contrary, they wipe out a fundamental principle of government in the existing frame of the Constitution, and substitute therefor another wholly different in several respects.
Considering the foregoing, it is apparent that Section 6 has no relation to, or dependency upon, the question whether the governor *673shall have a four-year term, or is elected as a team with the lieutenant governor, or is limited to two consecutive terms of office, or to any other subject contained in proposition 3. Obviously, Section 6 can stand alone and has no connection with other specific changes recommended by the Committee, and that an elector might favor such a change in constitutional government, and be against the others heretofore stated and those specifically enumerated in the court’s opinion.
Turning to proposition 2, it is my opinion the proposed amendment was submitted to the electors in clear violation of Section 1, Article 14. The proposition contains more than one subject, having at least two distinct and separate purposes, not related to, or dependent upon, or connected with, each other. In addition, it changes or alters a constitutional principle decided by this court (State, ex rel., v. Shanahan, 183 Kan. 464, 327 P. 2d 1042), which requires a separate submission of an amendment seeking change of the constitutional principle announced. (State ex rel. Thompson v. Zimmerman, supra.)
Before discussing separate amendments in the proposition, reference is again made to the report of the Citizens’ Committee on Constitutional Revision in 1969. As indicated, the Committee submitted, together with the text of proposition 2, its list of “significant changes” made in the proposed amendment. The changes listed by the Committee follow:
“Article 14. — Constitutional Amendment and Revision
“1. Allow submission of amendments to the voters at special elections called by the legislature for that purpose.
“2. Allow an amendment to be submitted to the voters by a descriptive title, or by stating the amendment in full as is presently required.
“3. Increase from three to five the number of amendments which may be submitted to the voters at any one election.
“4. Clarify to provide that revision of an entire article, or combining all or parts of two articles, except the article on general provisions, may be submitted to the voters as one proposition to amend, but each proposition must relate to a common subject.
“5. Amplify provision for consideration of constitutional revision or amendment by convention. Provide for limited convention. Provide procedure for submitting to the voters the question of whether or not a convention shall be held, provide for election of delegates, the powers of a convention, and for submission of the proposals of a convention to the electors for adoption or rejection.”
In providing for the submission of the proposed amendment, the *674Legislature recognized and considered that matters covered in proposition 2 involved the several specific, and clearly identified independent changes stated by the Committee, and it adopted those changes as a part of the submission of the proposition.
As indicated in the court’s opinion, Article 14 provides two methods by which changes may be effected in the Constitution. Section 1, through the adoption by the people of specific amendments which have previously been submitted by two-thirds of the members of each branch of the Legislature, and the other, Section 2, by a convention of delegates chosen by the people for the express purpose of revision of the entire instrument, or one or more articles thereof. The first is referred to as the legislative method, and the second as the convention method.
Where the Constitution prescribes a method of procedure, that method is the exclusive measure of power, and is as mandatory as a general prohibition. (State, ex rel., v. Sessions, 87 Kan. 497, 124 Pac. 403.) An “amendment” to the Constitution implies an addition to or change within the lines of the original instrument as will effect an improvement or better carry out the purpose for which it was framed. The test for determining whether a proposition contains more than one amendment is stated in Timme and clarified and adopted in Kerby. It is unnecessary to restate the test. Changes few in number, and less sweeping, are brought about by the legislative method, and it was not thought wise to permit more than three separate amendments to be submitted at one time. (State, ex rel., v. Sessions, supra.) On the other hand, a revision of the Constitution, or one or more of its articles, is required to be accomplished by constitutional convention. Jameson on Constitutional Amendments, 4th Ed. states, “[t]hat, whenever a Constitution needs a general revision, a Convention is indispensably necessary . . .” (§ 219. 2. p. 211.)
In Kelly v. Laing, 259 Mich. 212, 242 N. W. 891, the supreme court defined the distinction between revision and amendment, and stated:
“ ‘Revision and ‘amendment’ have the common characteristics of working changes in the charter and are sometimes used inexactly, but there is an essential difference between them. Revision implies a re-examination of the whole law and a redraft without obligation to maintain the form, scheme, or structure of the old. As applied to fundamental law, such as a constitution or charter, it suggests a convention to examine the whole subject and to prepare and submit a new instrument, whether the desired changes from the *675old be few or many. Amendment implies continuance of the general plan and purport of the law, with corrections to better accomplish its purpose. Basically, revision suggests fundamental change, while amendment is a correction of detail.” (l. c. 217.)
In my opinion, there is a clear distinction between the methods prescribed in Section 1 and in Section 2 for changing the Constitution. Those two sections authorize different procedures for very different purposes. The case of McFadden v. Jordan, 32 Cal. 2d 330, 196 P. 2d 787, is clearly in point. There, the supreme court of California held that a proposed amendment was in fact a revision of the Constitution. In stating the difference between the procedures for an amendment, and for revision of the Constitution, it was said:
“. . . We cannot accept such an arbitrary and strained minimization of difference between amend and revise. The differentiation required is not merely between two words; more accurately it is between two procedures and between their respective fields of application. Each procedure, if we follow elementary principles of statutory construction, must be understood to have a substantial field of application, not to be ... a mere alternative procedure in the same field. Each of the two words, then, must be understood to denote, respectively, not only a procedure but also a field of application appropriate to its procedure. The people of this state have spoken; they made it clear when they adopted article XVIII [very similar to Article 14] and made amendment relatively simple but provided the formidable bulwark of constitutional convention as a protection against improvident or hasty (or any other) revision, that they understood that there was a real difference between amendment and revision. . . . Intervenors’ contention — that any change less than a total one is but amendatory — would reduce to the rubble of absurdity the bulwark so carefully erected and preserved. Each situation involving the question of amendment, as contrasted with revision, of the Constitution must, we think, be resolved upon its own facts . . .” (l. c. 347, 348.) (Emphasis supplied.)
See, also, Ellingham v. Dye, 178 Ind. 336, 99 N. E. 1.
Sections 1 and 2 of Article 14 authorize the doing of a different thing in a different way. There is no room for doubt that a distinction was intended between the things authorized to be done by the two sections. It seems impossible to escape the conclusion that the framers of the Constitution did not suppose they were providing for doing the same thing in both methods authorized by them. There is no relation between the two things authorized to be done. The legislative method is confined to a narrow and defined purpose, and that by convention to a broader and more general and undefined purpose, embracing within its scope the former, and possibly much more. (Jameson on Constitutional Conventions, 4th *676Ed. § 574, c. p. 612.) In sum, proposition 2 contains at least two subjects relating to different procedures, which have different objects and purposes, not dependent upon, or related to the other, and which require their separate submission to the electors. The amendment and the revision of the Constitution are indeed separate subjects.
In addition, Section 1 of proposition 2, authorizes the Legislature to submit a proposed amendment by a title generally descriptive of the contents of the proposal. In State, ex. rel., v. Shanahan, supra, this court held that Section 1, Article 14, expressly requires a proposed amendment be printed in full on the ballot, to permit the electors to advise themselves of the change proposed in the Constitution. Such a constitutional deviation from that required, to that proposed, constitutes a separate subject which is required to be submitted to the electors, as a separate proposal to amend. (State, ex rel., Thompson v. Zimmerman, supra.)
The Legislature has seen to it that, by the submission of proposition 2 and its adoption by the people, a constitutional convention will never again be necessary or open to argument in Kansas. Two-thirds of the members of each house concurring, the Legislature may propose and submit at the same election, the revision of at least five separate articles of the Constitution in which all or parts of other articles may be amended, or amended and transferred to the article being revised, and thus, indirectly propose a new Constitution — all under the artifice — I do not say subterfuge — of an amendment to the Constitution. In short, the Legislature may now initiate and control the constitutional revision process. Such a fundamental check as the formidable bulwark of a constitutional convention to protect against an improvident and hasty revision of the Constitution is being set aside in the name of expediency and convenience, and by means of a tenuous interpretation to which I cannot agree.
Before concluding, I feel compelled to refer to a more basic reason, not heretofore touched upon, why propositions 2 and 3 were submitted in violation of Article 14. Those propositions, as well as others, were conceived as the result of a legislative plan to revise the Constitution without the calling of a constitutional convention as required by Article 14.
The novel device selected by the Legislature in establishing the Citizens’ Committee on Constitutional Revision (Ch. 265, L. 1968), *677has resulted in proposing a massive revision of the Kansas Constitution in violation of the mandatory provisions of Article 14. The Constitution may be revised only by a convention of the people, called for that purpose by the concurrence of two-thirds of the members of each house of the Legislature, and the question of calling such a convention has been submitted to the electors, and their vote has been in favor of a convention. Thereafter, and at the next session, the Legislature shall provide for calling the same. (Sec. 2, Art. 14.) The authorities on the question are unanimous, and a few are Ellingham v. Dye, supra; Holmes v. Appling, 237 Or. 546, 392 P. 2d 636, and McFadden v. Jordan, supra.
In Ellingham the Legislature adopted a new Constitution without calling a constitutional convention, and proposed to submit it to the electors as an amendment to the Constitution. In refusing to approve the submission, the Indiana Supreme Court stated what I believe to be the fundamental principle of constitutional revision:
“. . . [W]here the means by which a power granted shall be exercised are specified, no other or different means for the exercise of the power can be implied, even though considered more convenient or effective than the means given in the constitution . . .” (l. c. 379.)
The court summed up its decision by saying:
“. . . [T]he act of 1911, supra, is invalid for want of power in the General Assembly to draft an entire Constitution, and forthwith submit it to the people under its general legislative authority if the instrument be conceded to be a new Constitution, and not merely amendments; and that if it be considered as merely a series of amendments, it is a palpable evasion and disregard of the requirements and checks of article 16 [similar to Art. 14], and is, for that reason, void . . (l. c. 385.) (Emphasis supplied.)
The Citizens’ Committee on Constitutional Revision was directed by the Legislature to thoroughly examine the Constitution and determine the provisions “which need revision” (emphasis supplied), and to report its recommendations to the governor and the Legislature at the 1969 Session. The Committee, composed of twelve wise and able men and women of the state, held twenty meetings at which a large number of interested citizens and representatives of various groups appeared to contribute their opinions and experience. In its report to the Legislature, the Committee stated it believed that “revision of the Kansas constitution should have high priority” (emphasis supplied), and to carry out that belief, it submitted the text of separate propositions in the form of concurrent resolutions of the Legislature. The Committee’s report *678was comprehensive, and contained the text of extensive changes in fourteen of the existing fifteen articles of the Constitution. No change was recommended with respect to the Bill of Rights. Three existing articles were recommended to be repealed (Article 5— Suffrage; Article 8 — Militia; Article 13 — Banks and Currency), and some of their sections were recommended to be amended and transferred to other proposed amended articles. A new Article 5— Intergovernmental Relations — consisting of three sections, was proposed. No recommendation was made concerning existing Article 11 — Finances and Taxation — since the Committee was advised that two other committees, one created by the Legislature and one appointed by the governor — were studying possible revision of that article, and the Committee “deferred in making any recommendations for revision.” (Emphasis supplied.) In sum, the Committee’s report was that the Constitution of Kansas contain twelve proposed articles, instead of the existing fifteen articles, and that Article 11 continue unchanged. Its report further stated that certain portions of the Constitution “seemed to be in greater need of revision” (emphasis supplied); that a priority system should be established to accelerate the “program,” and “that the articles needing earliest attention are Article 14 — Constitutional Amendments and Revision; Article 1 — Executive; Article 2 — Legislative; Article 3 — Judicial; and Article 9 — City, County and Township Organization.”
The Legislature followed the Committee’s recommended priority “program,” and submitted propositions 2 and 3 as proposed constitutional amendments to the electors for their approval or rejection. If the purpose of the Legislature in establishing the Committee was to secure the adoption by the people of specific amendments, no constitutional objection would lie against such action. But, on the other hand, if its purpose was, or if the result of the Committee’s recommendations would be to submit to the people through a series of amendments so that a complete revision of the Constitution resulted, the action would be objectionable and in violation of Article 14. In the latter case, a general revision of the Constitution would result from the action of the Legislature, and from a body of its creation, and not as contemplated by the Constitution itself. That would be unconstitutional action. (Jameson on Constitutional Conventions, 4th Ed., § 574 d, p. 615.)
Considering the recommendations of the Committee to the Legislature with objective and mature judgment, I can reach no con*679elusion other than that if its recommendations do not amount to a massive revision of the Constitution, it is hard to say what would. It is obvious that the purpose of the legislative act in establishing the Committee and the result of its report is to submit to the people a complete revision of the Constitution through the artifice of amendments. (Jameson on Constitutional Conventions, § 546 c, p. 573). As concluded by the Supreme Court of Indiana, if the Committee’s proposed resolutions be considered as merely a series of amendments, it is a palpable evasion and disregard of the requirements and checks of Article 14. Propositions 2 and 3 were a part of the total plan to revise the Constitution in a manner not authorized by Article 14, and were void when submitted by the Legislature. (Ellingham v. Dye, supra.)
In conclusion, my colleagues and I, in common with other officials of the state, have taken upon ourselves the solemn obligation to support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the state of Kansas, and to discharge the duties of our offices according to the best of our ability. That such duty has been discharged by them I readily concede, as has been done in my own case, although we differ in our judgment on the application of the constitutional principles involved. If we would not observe our obligation, we would not only violate our oaths, but we would be unfaithful to the trust reposed in us by the people of Kansas. Our first duty is to them, and we shall perform it according to the best of our understanding, without regard to what the effect may be upon us individually — either present or future. If courts should ever become so weak and vacillating as to base their decisions upon public clamor to avoid criticism, or seek to meet with public approval, instead of being activated by sincere purpose to do justice, then the people of this state are denied their constitutional right to have their causes determined by an impartial and disinterested tribunal. The basic foundation of the republican form of government of the state of Kansas is the Constitution. If the Constitution of Kansas is undermined, or its provisions are disregarded by those in authority, or by any citizen of the state, the structure will fall, and that instrument will no longer be the vehicle which reconciles for the people of our state, “the requisite for progress with the requisite for safety and order.” The Constitution is the work of the people — it declares their will — and those who would disobey its provisions, instead of disobeying the people, are in fact disregarding and defying their will.
*680Courts should not bend the Constitution to suit the law of the hour; neither should they fail to look beyond the end result sought to be accomplished by the thing proposed. In my judgment, the means selected by the Legislature to change the Constitution is nothing less than a massive revision of the entire Constitution through the creation of a Citizens’ Committee on Constitutional Revision, and directing that committee to propose revision of the Constitution through the artifice of so-called “amendments.” For the Legislature to submit such propositions to the electors without substantial change, which it did in 1970, instead of calling a constitutional convention as authorized by Section 2, Article 14, permitting direct participation by the people in the proposed revision— not amendment — of the Constitution, “lacks the sanction of law [and] is a disregard of constitutional methods and limitations,” so aptly stated by Mr. Justice Brewer in the Prohibitory Amendment Cases, supra, (p. *711.) If the Constitution needs revision in whole or in part, then it should be revised in accordance with the convention method provided in Section 2, Article 14.
1 would reverse the judgment of the district court and direct it to enter judgment for the plaintiff on propositions 2 and 3.
Fromme, J., joins in the foregoing dissent as to proposition 2.