Court Opinion

ID: 9712840
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:01:16.970657+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:14.805721
License: Public Domain

OPINION OF THE COURT
R.S. Smith, J.
Article III, § 14 of the State Constitution provides that no bill shall be passed unless it has been printed and on the desks of *417the members of the Legislature for three days prior to passage or “unless the governor . . . shall have certified . . . the facts which in his or her opinion necessitate an immediate vote thereon.” Plaintiff claims that the bill at issue here was not validly passed because the “facts” that the Governor “certified” do not support the conclusion that “an immediate vote” was necessary. We hold that, as long as the Governor’s certificate contains some factual statements, the sufficiency of the stated facts to support the Governor’s conclusion may not be challenged.
Facts and Procedural History
Senate Bill S 8177 of 2000, a bill to regulate certain sales and shipments of cigarettes, was first printed on June 14, 2000. On the same day, the Governor sent to both the Senate and Assembly a “message of necessity” that contained the following language:
“The facts necessitating an immediate vote on the bill are as follows:
“This bill is necessary to amend the public health law in relation to the shipment and transportation of cigarettes to any person not licensed as a cigarette tax agent or wholesale dealer. This bill also amends the tax law and the administrative code of the City of New York with respect to imposing and enhancing civil and criminal penalties for unlawfully possessing, selling and transporting cigarettes.
“Because the bill has not been on your desks in final form for three calendar legislative days, this message is necessary to permit its immediate consideration.”
The bill was passed by the Senate on the same day it was printed and by the Assembly on the following day. Plaintiff, the owner of a business that sells cigarettes, seeks a declaratory judgment that the bill was not validly enacted. Supreme Court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a cause of action, and plaintiff appeals directly to this Court pursuant to CPLR 5601 (b) (2). We affirm.
Discussion
Article III, § 14 of the Constitution provides in relevant part:
“No bill shall be passed or become a law unless it *418shall have been printed and upon the desks of the members, in its final form, at least three calendar legislative days prior to its final passage, unless the governor, or the acting governor, shall have certified, under his or her hand and the seal of the state, the facts which in his or her opinion necessitate an immediate vote thereon, in which case it must nevertheless be upon the desks of the members in final form, not necessarily printed, before its final passage . . .
In Finger Lakes Racing Assn, v New York State Off-Track Pari-Mutuel Betting Commn. (30 NY2d 207 [1972]) and Norwick v Rockefeller (33 NY2d 537 [1973]) we rejected claims that the facts stated in a Governor’s certificates were insufficient to comply with article III, § 14. While Finger Lakes may have left open the possibility that some statements of facts could be found inadequate, Norwick did not. We now make explicit what our affirmance without opinion in Norwick implied: the sufficiency of the facts stated by the Governor in a certificate of necessity is not subject to judicial review.
The certificate in Finger Lakes, as we summarized it, “described the general purposes of the bill . . . and certified that because the bill had not been on the legislative desks three days ‘the Leaders of your Honorable bodies have requested this message to permit immediate consideration of the bill prior to your anticipated final adjournment’ ” (30 NY2d at 219). Noting that adjournment was imminent and “the bill could not reasonably have been in final printed form for three days before adjournment,” we held that the Governor’s certificate was “a compliance in terms and in spirit” with article III, § 14 (id.). Our next words seemed to imply that it was for the Governor to decide on the sufficiency of the facts: “It is the Governor who must express the opinion that an immediate vote is desirable. The facts on which he forms that opinion must satisfy him.” (Id.) We added, however: “The facts supporting his opinion . . . are rational and reasonable” (id.)—arguably suggesting that a certificate that was not “rational and reasonable” would be insufficient.
The apparent ambiguity in Finger Lakes was resolved in Nor-wick. There, the plaintiff challenged “all laws enacted on messages of necessity during the 1971 regular legislative session” (Norwick v Rockefeller, 70 Misc 2d 923, 925 [Sup Ct, NY County 1972], affd without op 40 AD2d 956 [1st Dept 1972], affd without *419op 33 NY2d 537 [1973]). Supreme Court (Saypol, J.) summarized certain of the disputed certificates as follows:
“It appears that many of the messages currently issuing contain the following pro forma language: ‘Because the bill in its final form has not been on your desks three calendar legislative days the Leaders of your Honorable bodies have requested this message to permit its immediate consideration;’ or, mutatis mutandis, ‘Because the bill in its final form has not been on your desks three calendar legislative days, the Leaders of your Honorable bodies have requested this message to permit immediate consideration of the bill prior to your anticipated final adjournment.’ ” (70 Mise 2d at 931-932.)
Justice Saypol analyzed our decision in Finger Lakes, and observed that, as we mentioned above, the key language in Finger Lakes “can be read broadly to support the Governor’s action in all cases where he issues messages of necessity” or more narrowly (id. at 933). Justice Saypol, referring to “the dominant doctrine of separation of powers with concomitant adherence to judicial self-limitation,” chose the broader reading. He held that the sufficiency of the “facts” stated by the Governor in a message of necessity “is unassailable” (id. at 934).
By affirming without opinion in Norwick we endorsed the result Justice Saypol reached. In this case, endorsement of the result implies endorsement of the critical element in his rationale: that the sufficiency of the facts stated by the Governor as necessitating expedited consideration of a bill may not be challenged. Some of the certificates upheld in Norwick said only that the bill in question had not been on the legislators’ desks for three days and that “the Leaders of your Honorable bodies have requested this message to permit its immediate consideration.” If these facts are sufficient under the Constitution, it follows that any facts will be, as long as they satisfy the Governor.
Thus we conclude that the question presented in this case is already answered by Norwick. But if we were deciding the question afresh, we would decide it the same way. The Constitution on its face makes the Governor’s judgment of the facts determinative; he or she is to state facts that “in his or her opinion” necessitate prompt action. Whether a court’s opinion is or is not the same as the Governor’s does not matter.
*420Some contexts might justify reading into a statute or constitutional provision a requirement that a public official’s “opinion” be reasonable. Here, however, there are several reasons for giving complete deference to the Governor’s views: The Governor is far better equipped than the courts to assess the need for speedy passage of a bill; the very need for haste that prompts him or her to issue a certificate may make it difficult to prepare a detailed and persuasive statement of the reasons for it; the Legislature has its own remedy for an inadequate certificate, since if it does not think the Governor’s reasons are good ones, it is not required to act in fewer than three days—or even to consider the bill at all; and the consequences of judicial second-guessing of the Governor’s and the Legislature’s choice to expedite passage can be draconian. If we accepted plaintiffs argument here, any statute, no matter how important to the state, would have to be thrown out by the courts if the facts stated in the certificate of necessity that permitted its prompt passage were found insufficient.
Plaintiff acknowledges that both precedent and logic support giving much deference to the Governor’s statements of facts. Plaintiff argues, however, that the deference should be less than total. Even in Norwick, plaintiff urges, the certificate of necessity contained a fact supporting a prompt vote—the fact that the leaders of the Legislature had asked for one. Here, plaintiff says, the Governor’s certificate states only reasons for passing the bill, not for voting on it promptly. We are unpersuaded by the distinction. A good reason for action can be, in some circumstances, in itself a good reason for acting promptly, and it is for the Governor and not for us to decide when that is true. And in any event, we do not think there is a significant difference between facts that support the Governor’s conclusion only weakly and facts that do not support it at all. Under Norwick, the legislative leaders’ wish for expedition is a sufficient fact—as would be, presumably, the Governor’s own wish to move the bill quickly. No useful purpose is served by trying to draw a line between such facts and those stated in the certificate at issue here; on either side of the line are factual statements that may be called “pro forma,” but are sufficient under the Constitution.
The concurring opinion argues that our ruling fails to honor the “long and substantial history” of article III, § 14 (concurring op at 422). But this argument is based heavily on the history of a provision proposed in 1915 that would have abolished cer*421tificates of necessity entirely—a provision that was never adopted. The abortive 1915 proposal is relevant here, if at all, only as an indication of what the voters decided not to do. Our holding that the Governor’s stated reasons for seeking expedition are unchallengeable is consistent with the history of the constitutional provision that actually was enacted, so far as that history throws light on the authors’ expectations.
From 1894 until the present article III, § 14 was adopted in 1938, the three-day waiting period for the passage of a bill could be dispensed with if the Governor “certified to the necessity of its immediate passage.” (1894 NY Const, art III, § 15.) The present version differs by requiring the Governor to certify not only the necessity for prompt action, but the facts that give rise to the necessity. A comment at the 1938 Constitutional Convention by George Fearon, one of the delegates who sponsored the change, shows that he understood that the effectiveness of this new requirement would depend on the Governor’s cooperation. Fearon said:
“it is the hope of the members of the committee that if the Governor is required to certify facts which in his opinion constitute an emergency, it will not fall into a pro forma signing of a printed message which reads, in effect, T hereby certify the necessity for the immediate passage of bill No. so and so.’ ” (2 Rev Record, 1938 NY Constitutional Convention, at 1435 [emphasis added].)
The key word is “hope”; Fearon hoped the Governor’s certificates would be more than pro forma, but he evidently did not expect the courts to invalidate the legislation if his hope was disappointed. He presumably recognized, as do we, that invalidation of statutes on grounds like this would do less good than harm.
Accordingly, the judgment of Supreme Court should be affirmed, with costs.