Court Opinion

ID: 9858663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:34:38.233819+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:25.876189
License: Public Domain

HUMPHREYS, Justice
(dissenting).
I take advantage of the petitions to rehear by all the parties to edit my original *492dissent. This I do by withdrawing the original dissent and filing this one in its place. I concur in the result of much of the majority opinion. So, for the sake of brevity, I shall only mention that part from which I dissent.
I dissent from the redefinition of a constitutionally mandated election to permit only a referendum, so that no one can run in the August election except the appointee.
I dissent from the holding that no member of the General Assembly can serve on the nomination commission.
To the extent that the Modified Missouri Plan provides for the selection of possible appointees by a commission, it is constitutional under Article 7, § 4 of the Constitution of Tennessee which provides, “The election of all officers and the filling of all vacancies not otherwise directed or provided by this Constitution, shall be made in such manner as the Legislature shall direct.”
This part of the plan is a vast improvement over anything we have had, and since the entirely unnecessary exclusion of legislators from such a commission jeopardizes this arrangement, I must dissent.
My dissent from the holding that no member of the Legislature can serve on this commission is based on the simple proposition that, since the manner of filling vacancies is expressly entrusted entirely to the Legislature by Article 7, § 4 of the Constitution, and so is legislative business, legislators can serve on the commission without violating Article 2, § 10. Article 2, § 10 provides that “/n/o Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be eligible to any office or place of trust, the appointment to which is vested in the Executive or the General Assembly except to the office of trustee of a literary institution.” It would seem to be clear that Article 2, § 10, applies to offices that are not legislative, and not to commissions that are designed to carry out legislative business. Since Article 7, § 4 of the Constitution declares that power to fill vacancies on this Court is peculiarly the business of the Legislature, it is difficult to conceive how Article 2, § 10 prohibits this. Suppose the Legislature had provided for a commission of nine of its own members to recommend appointees to the Governor, could it be said that this commission would be unconstitutionally constituted? Suppose it had passed a law whereby it filled vacancies, would this be unconstitutional? The answer must be in the negative. Then, how can it be that three members of the Legislature cannot serve on such a commission ?
The majority opinion cites State ex rel. Carey v. Bratton, 148 Tenn. 174, 253 S.W. 705 (1923), as authority for invalidating legislator membership on the commission. This case is not in point. It involved a legislator appointed to serve on the State Election Commission. There is nothing in the Constitution that delegates to the Legislature the business of running state elections. So, it was entirely reasonable that this Court would apply Article 2, § 10 to the appointment. The present case presents an altogether different question.
If I am not clearly right about this, there is at least enough doubt to make the principle of Wallace v. Grubb, 154 Tenn. 655, 289 S.W. 530 applicable. That case declares that Article 2, § 10 should be narrowly construed so as to uphold the eligibility of the appointee whenever possible. Under this case, a legislator should not be removed from the commission.
If this part of the Plan is unconstitutional, the balance of it cannot be saved by the doctrine of elision. It is fundamental that the whole statute must fall if the part held unconstitutional is so connected with the statutory scheme, and such an indispensable part thereof, that it is not likely the Legislature would have enacted the act without the elided provision. This proposition is spelled out in a number of cases which can be found in 17 Tenn.Digest Statutes, § 64(1). For example, in Hey*493mann v. Hamilton National Bank, 151 Tenn. 21, 266 S.W. 1043, this Court said that elision is not permissible if the result attained defeats the evident legislative intent.
Since the evident legislative intent was to create a commission representative of the legislative, judicial and executive interests in the process of nominating appellate and Supreme Court judges, any act of elision by this Court which leaves such a commission unrepresentative of one of these three major interests, leaves an act which is presumptively inconsistent with the legislative intent.
The part of the Plan that does away with the popular election of judges, and substitutes a recall election, is so obviously contrary to the arrangement in our Constitution, as presently written, for the people to have the right both to nominate and elect their constitutional officers, that it is difficult to explain why it is unconstitutional. How do you explain the obvious? All you can do is to point out the plain clear words of the Constitution and say, “read it, and follow it”.
Article 6, § 3 provides “The Judges of the Supreme Court shall be elected by the qualified voters of the State”. Judges as well as other civil officers contemplated by the Constitution are to be elected as provided for by Article 7, § 5 of our Constitution. This section says in part “Elections for Judicial and other civil officers shall be held . . .”, and then goes on to say that they shall be held on the first Thursday in August next preceding the expiration of their respective terms of service. This section of the Constitution fixes the day for computing the term of office of all state judicial and civil officers, and clearly contemplates one general popular election to be held on the day fixed for all those in office whose terms expire on August 31.
Ever since the adoption of our first constitution in 1796, the election of constitutional and civil officers has been by popular vote, in elections in which the people have had the right to nominate their candidates and elect their officers; elections in which people have had the right to do as Judge Taylor did, to run without nomination. Now, the majority says that the Legislature can abolish this once constitutional right to choose and elect judges by redefining the provision so as not to require popular elections, but to permit these officials, once they get in office by appointment, to remain there until some undefined percent of the electorate votes to recall them.
I say indefinite percentage, because, although the determination of a popular election has always been on the basis of the candidate who received the most votes, this is not true of recall referendums. Recalls, not pitting one candidate against another, are not based on who gets the most votes, but upon a percentage fixed in the law under which the referendum is held. The Constitution does not fix this percentage. The percentage is not implied by the nature of the referendum as in a popular election. This leaves the Legislature free to fix the percentage as it chooses.
As important, and potentially troublesome as it is, nothing is said in the majority opinion about the effect of this holding on the election of civil officers. Article 7, § 5 not only provides for the election of judges, it provides for the election of all civil officers referred to in the Constitution. Having said Article 7, § 5 can mean no more popular elections for judges, this of course means that the Legislature can do away with popular elections for civil officers. This means that the Legislature can constitutionally keep all constitutional civil officers in office until they are recalled by a percentum of the vote the Legislature chooses to fix.
I do hot suggest that the Legislature would be so irresponsible as to do this. I simply point out that the majority in providing for judges (whose offices, I agree, should be depoliticalized to the greatest extent possible), has had to free constitutional *494•civil officers from the requirement of popular election, because judges and civil officers are both dealt with in the same article and section, and for that matter in the same sentence, in the Constitution.
It is not necessary for me to dwell on the possible chaotic consequences of the construction placed on Article 7, § 5, by the majority; and this is not, necessarily, the point. The point is that by redefining Article 7, § 5 to permit judges and civil officers to remain in office until recalled, the whole purpose and intent of the Constitution to have government by popular elections has been destroyed.
The Constitution of Tennessee, Article 2, § 1, declares that the powers of government shall be divided into three distinct departments: the Legislative, Executive and Judicial. § 2 of Article 2, declares that no person or persons belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any of the powers properly belonging to either of the others, except as permitted by the Constitution.
The very existence of constitutional government depends upon the preservation of this arrangement. It is so important that nothing should ever be done that would impair it.
As long as each of these branches of government was answerable alone to the people it could maintain its independence, and thus continue inviolate and in perpetuity the grand constitutional scheme. But now the deadly serious question that arises is, whether, since the constitutional plan for election of one of these branches of government by the people, and the plan for the election of all civil officers by the people, has been held to be within the power of the Legislature, both the other branches of government are in jeopardy. Because, if the provision for the election of Supreme Court judges and all other judges, and all constitutional civil officers, can be read as requiring only a recall election, what is to prevent the provisions in Article 2, for the election of representatives and senators, and the provisions of Article 6, § 5, for the election of district attorneys general from being construed in the same way. Virtually the same language is used in each instance. The election that is contemplated in these sections of the Constitution is no more defined than that provided for judges and civil officers. So, if “elections” by the qualified voters in Articles 6 and 7, mean a recall referendum, then, of course, it can mean recall referendums in the Articles providing for the election of representatives, senators, district attorneys general, and all other civil officers.
It is not enough to say that this may not happen. The fact that it is possible is enough to condemn the Plan.
Let me say in conclusion that I dissent from the majority opinion for the further reason that, by turning over to the Legislature the right to say how Supreme Court Judges shall be chosen, this Supreme Court abdicates its place as a coequal part of our tripartite state government, and subordinates itself to the Legislature. Of this subordination, there can be no doubt. Where once the Constitution protected this Court, and preserved it, it must now take its chances with the Legislature. Today the Plan provides for recall by majority vote. But this is only statutory, so what is to keep the-Legislature from providing for recall by a different percentage. For that matter, what is to keep it from saying that a judge must be approved by an affirmative vote of such a percentage as will empty the Bench of presently serving judges? If all of this is truly within the power of the Legislature, there is nothing to save this Court.
We are today witnessing a sad consequence of this subordination of this Supreme Court to the Legislature. Judicial notice can be taken of the fact that a bill has been introduced in the Legislature to repeal the Modified Missouri Plan. This bill may be defeated. But, that need not be the end of it. Another bill can be introduced next session, or the session after *495that, ad infinitum, so that Supreme Court Judges and, possibly, all judges, can be kept in attendance by the Legislature, hat in hand, so to speak, whenever it suits the purpose of some disgruntled representatives to snap the Court to attention with a bill to change the manner of their election. If this is not subordination, nothing is. If this is not more political than election by the people, nothing is. Have we not, like Esau, sold our precious birthright, equality and freedom for a mess of potage, a cheap, easy way to be perpetuated in office? I say this Court has opened Pandora’s Box, and, that although the evils locked up therein may not surface immediately, and in fact may never surface, there is no longer any constitutional guarantee that they cannot, as was the case before the majority opinion was written.