Court Opinion

ID: 9856142
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:39:07.979243+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:26:08.582986
License: Public Domain

NEELY, Justice,
dissenting:
I dissent for reasons which by now have become well known. The forces of inertia in American society are as complex as they are manifold, and as these forces of inertia grow and multiply, it becomes progressively more difficult for any executive to improve the operations of government. When courts add their weight to other forces of inertia, courts become part of the problem rather than part of the solution.1
*45And so it is in this case. The Governor may have made an unwise decision, hut he made a decision. His reasons were certainly clear: (1) the State does not have any money; (2) State hospital facilities should be consolidated to avoid duplication; (3) Spencer is most efficiently used as a geriatric hospital; (4) money that can be saved from normal State operations should be used for a jobs’ program; and, finally, (5) by reducing Spencer’s budget whilst leaving the budgets of other hospitals intact, funds can be reallocated to achieve greater returns for dollars spent.
This much the majority admits in their opinion; furthermore, the majority admit that they can clearly infer these reasons from the Governor’s veto message. The Governor’s objections are sufficient to be understood by myself and by the majority; undoubtedly, therefore, they can also be understood by the Legislature. Why is it that an objection that we are able to understand does not “communicate in a rational manner to the public and current or future legislatures ... why the budget bill ... has been disapproved or reduced by the Governor”? (maj. opinion at 40) What more do we want? Where courts choose to second-guess governors, no reason or reasons are necessarily sufficient.
What kind of precedent is it for a court to presume to pass on the rationality or legitimacy of a chief executive’s reasons for an executive veto? In State ex rel. Browning v. Blankenship, 154 W.Va. 253, 175 S.E.2d 172 (1970) and State ex rel. Brotherton v. Blankenship, 157 W.Va. 100, 207 S.E.2d 421 (1973), there were no reasons assigned. To disallow a veto for the complete absence of reasons is to establish an objective standard — one with which meddlesome courts cannot tamper. To disallow a veto because the Governor’s reasons are not “sufficient” establishes a subjective standard that invites limitless mischief and the type of endless litigation of which the majority opinion purports to complain.
I believe that the majority has also mis-characterized our holding in DeVault v. Nicholson, 170 W.Va. 719, 296 S.E.2d 682 (1982). In the case now before us the Governor seeks not to close Spencer Hospital, but rather to devote it to geriatric care. In DeVault we objected to the closing of a state facility, but stated that “[cjertainly anything that changes the status quo is not automatically suspect. Nor will this Court by reflex action preserve the status quo if the executive branch has discretionary power to modify it.” DeVault, 170 W.Va. at 720, 296 S.E.2d at 683. The court today appears to retreat from this statement, and adopt the position that the Court will not by reflex action preserve the status quo unless an organized constituency which has its ear can be found that supports the status quo.
I have regularly dissented in the past when this Court has intruded itself into the legitimate decision-making functions of other branches, see, e.g., State ex rel. Board of Education v. Rockefeller, 167 W.Va. 72, 281 S.E.2d 131, 139 (1981); Pauley v. Kelley, 162 W.Va. 672, 255 S.E.2d 859, 897 (1979); Beverlin v. Board of Education of Lewis County, 158 W.Va. 1067, 216 S.E.2d 554 (1975). So long as the Court continues to confuse the wisdom with the legality of actions of other branches of government, I shall continue to do so in the future.
As a final irony, I will point out that we are overruling the Governor’s actions as he takes a step in the direction we specifically recommended in E.H. v. Matin, 168 W.Va. 248, 284 S.E.2d 232 (1981), the opinion that planted the seed whose harvest, but for our own actions, we might otherwise reap today. In Matin we described “opportunities to segregate different types of patients in specific state hospitals which would permit specialization by each hospital in the treatment of a particular type of patient” as among the opportunities we had to realize *46“increased efficiency as well as dramatic economies,” in the administration of our state's mental health programs. 168 W.Va. at 258, 284 S.E.2d at 237.
In this regard I am reminded of the classic challenge of El Cid: “Oh tongue without hands, how dare you to speak?” This Court is a tongue without hands. We do not tax. We do not administer. We are insulated by long terms and elaborate ceremony from the trades and accommodations of day-to-day, robust political life. We are not responsible for housing, feeding, educating, or employing the two million people of this State. All of these responsibilities, however, are the Governor’s. The American tradition of separation of powers and the principle of court deference to the executive and legislative branches deserves respect. The fact that a court has the power to gainsay both the executive and the legislature does not mean that the indiscriminate use of that power is wise, just, or beneficial. I await the day when the courts run everything to see if we do a better job. I tend to doubt that will be the case, but omne ignotum pro magnifico.

. There is a tendency for mature societies to become increasingly paralyzed by complex legal obstacles to any change. Institutional inertia is encouraged by the rewards that directly attend the formation of economic, and per force political, coalitions to achieve, enhance or preserve favored positions in the distribution of wealth. Such coalitions are difficult to organize, but once organized they tend to remain in place: thus, the effect of distributional coalitions is cumulative.
Examples of distributional coalitions include business cartels, professional societies, labor unions, and groups with a common interest in the prosperity of a particular geographical area. The interests of those outside such distributional coalitions — if we assume that free markets will yield optimum efficiency — is to break down the favored positions that distributional coalitions have built for themselves. However, society in general is unorganized whilst distributive coalitions are, by definition, highly organized.
Once a distributional coalition has achieved its favored position, it inevitably resorts to political means to erect legal barriers that maintain an economically favorable status quo. A political structure, then, that tends to accumulate obstacle upon legal obstacle to any change often optimizes the economic return to those in society with the most political power. The construction of what ultimately becomes a latticework of barriers is not intentional: it is a piecemeal process that occurs over time, but the ultimate effect of the total latticework is obscured whilst it is being constructed.
Although it is an unusual court that responds to distributional coalitions because of their political power per se, courts do respond to such coalitions because of their legal power. The organization of distributional coalitions implies an ability to concentrate legal resources against the general public (in the case before us as represented by the Governor) in an effort to engage a policymaking court’s concern for the isolated problem of a particular sympathy-evoking coalition (in this case, geographical). Humanitarian courts are often responsive to isolated pleas for help. These ad hoc responses to isolated pleas accumulate to form a bulwark *45that grows year by year into an unbreachable wall of daunting proportions. In turn this wall will cause mature societies to be characterized by an inertia that is, therefore, unintentionally begotten, not made. The result, over the long-run, is unjustified inefficiency, misallocation of resources, low economic growth, and even substantial barriers to upward social mobility. For detailed historical validation of these observations, see M. Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations, Yale University Press (New Haven and London, 1982).