Court Opinion

ID: 9688057
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:59:01.297877+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:34.842617
License: Public Domain

BARHAM, Justice
(concurring).
Plaintiffs principal attack is that the stadium district’s bond resolution and the acts executed in response thereto are unconstitutional, being contrary to the provisions of Paragraph (S) of the constitutional amendment which created the district (Art. 14, Sec. 47), because the transaction pledges the faith and credit of the State for that district’s bonds.
We have held that the resolutions of such districts, subdivisions, and boards of this state are considered to be in parity *619with the ordinances of municipalities and parishes for the purpose of determining the applicability of Article 7, Section 10(2), of the Louisiana Constitution. Melancon v. State Board of Education, 249 La. 604, 188 So.2d 419. The laws of this state, the ordinances of municipalities and parishes, the resolutions of boards, districts, and other subdivisions are presumed to be valid and constitutional, and such acts are to be respected. The good faith of the bodies which pass the acts and their intent and ability to act constitutionally are presumed.
When such an act is susceptible of more than one interpretation, the courts are constrained to give that construction, wherever possible, which upholds its constitutionality. A statute, ordinance, or resolution may not be held repugnant to the Constitution on slight implication or conjecture, but may be held unconstitutional only when the oppugnancy is clear, complete, and unmistakable. These general principles of legal construction and interpretation have been spelled out so many times by United States Supreme Court cases, decisions of this court, and works of commentators and writers that no specific citation of authority is necessary.
Paragraph (S) of the constitutional amendment in question makes a general provision that the faith and credit of this State shall not be pledged to secure the bonds of the district. Paragraph (E) of that same amendment contains a specific authorization for the district to lease to the State and for the State to make appropriations and pledge its revenues to discharge the lease obligations, “Any other provisions of the Constitution and laws of the State to the contrary notwithstanding”.
We first presume that the people of this state would not incorporate conflicting provisions in the same constitutional amendment, and we must therefore construe the provisions of the amendment with a view toward reconciling them if this is possible.
Beginning, then, with the presumption of the constitutionality of the district’s acts, and the principle of recognizing and reconciling provisions of the Constitution when possible, I readily conclude that Paragraph (S) intends that the faith and credit of the State shall not be pledged to the bonds, whereas Paragraph (E) envisions- and specifically authorizes the leasing of the district’s facilities to the State and the State’s payment therefor “through the appropriation of funds or otherwise”. Paragraph (E) of the constitutional amendment expressly provides that the obligations of the State under such a lease “shall constitute a charge against the revenues” of the State. Hence the revenues of the State have not been pledged to secure the bonds; they have been pledged to secure the lease-payments, which in turn help to secure the-bonds. Paragraph (E) and Paragraph (S) must be placed in juxtaposition, and. when they are read together, both have *621■meaning and effect. It is wholly within the power of the people to forbid directly, .as they have, the pledge of faith and credit to the district’s bonds and yet to accomplish indirectly a similar result by providing for a pledge to a lease of revenues which are in turn pledged by the district to assist in retiring the bonds. Paragraph (S) forbids •only a pledge of the State’s faith and credit to the bonds. Nothing in the entire amendment forbids the pledging of the State’s revenues to discharge this lease obligation ■even though the lease price may be pledged by the district to assist in the discharge of its bonded indebtedness. To the contrary, Paragraph (E) provides explicitly, expressly, and unambiguously for exactly this ■procedure and this result.
Finally, if we were confronted with total conflict and irreconciláble opposition between Paragraphs (S) and (E) of the amendment, we would be forced to give effect to the particular rather than to the general. Paragraph (E) is particular, and its language is precise. The people have •declared, in effect, that if any other provision of the Constitution is in conflict therewith, Paragraph (E) should prevail; and the court must adhere to that concise dictate.
McLucas v. State Bridge Building Authority, 210 Ga. 1, 77 S.E.2d 531 (1953), which is cited by the majority, correctly •disposes of the issue before us. I paraphrase language of that case: Paragraphs (E) and (S) are of equal dignity, and in order to give full force and effect to the will of the people as thus expressed, they must be construed together, being as they are in pari materia. Paragraph (E) lifts out of Paragraph (S) any prohibition against the pledge of faith and credit of this State insofar as the pledge of faith and credit of this State is authorized by Paragraph (E) (if, indeed, the pledging of revenues and appropriations to the lease obligation is a pledge of faith and credit). Any other construction would render one of them meaningless, and the court will not ascribe to the people an intention to adopt a constitutional amendment containing inconsistent provisions.
It is argued that the entire transaction is a subterfuge to contravene the mandate of the constitutional amendment. The transaction is no subterfuge, for the district exactly followed the authority provided by the constitutional amendment in effectuating a lease with the State and pledging the revenues from the lease to assist in retiring the bonds which it had issued. Perhaps, as argued, the people were led to support the proposed amendment because of misrepresentation and their consent was obtained through subterfuge, but such an assumption does not release us from our obligation to make our determination within the confines of that amendment and upon its express language.
*623Paragraph (S) prohibits the pledge of the State’s faith and credit to secure the bonds issued by the district; but Paragraph (E) provides that the State may pledge its revenues to secure a lease on the property of the district, and Paragraph (F) provides that the district may in turn pledge these revenues to payment on its bonds. Paragraph (E) is so concise, express, and unequivocal as to be susceptible of only one interpretation. Within this constitutional amendment the people have forbidden the State to pledge its faith and credit to the bond issue of the district, but also within that amendment they have authorized the State to lend stability to these bonds through lease of the facilities and pledge of its revenues for the payment of the lease. Without regard to why the people were so motivated, these provisions are the clear expression of the desire of more than two-thirds of the voters, and represent the will of the people.
It is not within the power of this court to pass judgment upon the discernment, the sapience, the logic, the motives, the values of the people when they act through constitutional amendment. We may not test the merit of their decisions or the consequences of their actions.
The greatest danger to the people from the exercise of the judicial power is that there may be a usurpation by the courts of the people’s right to express in law their collective reason. Our obligation is to dispassionately apply and implement the people’s will as expressed through democratic process. We cannot substitute our determination of what is good and what is bad, what is wise and what is foolish, what is propitious and what is imprudent, what is beneficial and what is improvident, what is economically sound and what is extravagant.
A court in sympathy with those who originally were opposed to, or who have since become disillusioned and disenchanted with, the proposed domed stadium project could easily make a personal-value judgment on this issue. But such court decisions, founded as they are in the emotions, politics, character, or philosophy of the particular judges, are those which are now so loudly decried by the vast majority of the American people and which rightfully bring criticism of the courts. A personal determination, a value judgment cannot be substituted for the law because it accords with a judge’s own feelings or pleases the crowd at the moment, or because it reflects what the court conceives to be in the best interest of the people. Such a judgment, no matter how well intentioned, waves the warning light for free people.
We cannot question the object or motive of the people and their representatives, but only their authority and power. Our function is not to apraise the worthiness of their acts, but only to determine whether their acts are legal.
*625I firmly believe that the law in general and this constitutional amendment in particular compel a declaration by this court that the acts of the district under this amendment are constitutional.
For these reasons I concur.