Court Opinion

ID: 9781784
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 17:32:01.193442+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:39.391816
License: Public Domain

Maupin, J.,
dissenting in part and concurring in part:
The Governor’s petition seeks our intervention to judicially pronounce that the Legislature has violated Articles 9 and 11 of the State Constitution by its failure to fund the education budget and balance the budget over the next two fiscal years. He also seeks an order requiring legislative compliance with these constitutional provisions, via passage of taxing measures to defray the state’s estimated expenses for the biennium beginning July 1, 2003, within a time certain. I would decline the Governor’s invitation to intervene in the legislative budgetary process — a process that represents the discretionary authority of a co-equal branch of the state government — at this time. In this, I would note that none of the parties directly named in this litigation, including the Governor, have requested the specific relief we provide today. I also note that the legislative response to the petition acknowledges the Legislature’s constitutional obligations concerning the budget.
The Governor filed this writ petition because the Legislature failed to approve a balanced budget before the start of the new fiscal year. I acknowledge, with the majority, the following undisputed features of this controversy. First, that the Governor is responsible for seeing that this state’s laws are faithfully executed1 and for proposing a state budget and submitting it to the Legislature.2 Second, that our Constitution requires the Legislature to approve a balanced budget. Third, that it also compels the Legislature to support and maintain the public school system.3 Fourth, that the Legislature must appropriate the money needed for all state government expenditures and must provide for an annual *289tax to defray the state’s estimated expenses for the two fiscal years following its regular biennial session.4 Fifth, that the state’s current fiscal year commenced July 1, 2003,5 and that the State Treasurer may not release general funds from the state treasury without specific legislative appropriation.6 All of this notwithstanding, now that the Governor has called the Legislature into special session to resolve the budget impasse over the Distributive School Account (DSA), the Legislature is under no express constitutional duty to pass its appropriations and tax bills by the beginning of the fiscal year.7 Indeed, in the last ten years, the Legislature has worked beyond the fiscal year’s beginning three times. That the Legislature has had more than enough time to comply with the funding mandates is constitutionally beside the point. Because the first quarterly distribution of funds to the various county school districts for this fiscal year will not occur until August 1, 2003,8 there is still a short window within which the Legislature can itself insure compliance with the constitutional mandate for public school funding. Accordingly, I would defer the relief afforded by today’s majority until it becomes evident that the constitutional mandate to fund education will not be satisfied in time for compliance with the statutory requirements for distribution of state funds to local school districts.

Remedies sought by the Governor

Simply stated, the Governor seeks a judicial declaration that the Legislature has violated the Constitution and an order that the Legislature comply with it. This, in my view, will not provide a solution, other than to chastise the Legislature for its inability to deal with the voting impasse in which it is now embroiled. The Legislature concedes its constitutional obligation to fund public education. Why the relief actually sought in the petition will not effect a concrete solution is explained immediately below.9
*290As a threshold matter, the separation of powers doctrine stands as an impediment to our immediate involvement. Subject only to the reservation of the legislative power to the people in Article 19, our Constitution bestows all legislative authority upon the Legislature.10 It seems well settled that “a court will not issue the writ of mandamus to compel a state legislature or an officer of such legislature to exercise their legislative functions or to perform duties involving the exercise of discretion.”11 This rule is expressed in the Nevada Constitution:
The powers of the Government of the State of Nevada shall be divided into three separate departments, — the Legislative, — the Executive and the Judicial; and no persons charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any functions, appertaining to either of the others, except in the cases expressly directed or permitted in this constitution.12
Certainly, the specifics of creating a budget fall within the discretion of the Legislature.
We are asked in the Governor’s petition, at least implicitly, to intervene in the current legislative controversy to force individual members of the Legislature to vote (exercise their discretion) in a certain way. Because the people of this state elected the individual members of the Legislature and their primacy to vote as they so choose, we cannot grant this relief. The pre-eminent right of individual lawmakers is to vote their consciences on individual measures. Their individual votes do not violate the Constitution, their votes as a body may do so.
For similar reasons, we either cannot or should not, as suggested by some of the legislators, order the Governor to amend the parameters of the special session to open previously closed budget accounts. First, this form of relief would only make a balanced budget possible; second, such relief would impinge upon the pre*291rogatives of the executive branch to define the scope of special sessions.13 This is underscored by the fact that a balanced budget is possible now; it is just improbable under the current parameters of the special session. Thus, in my view, we cannot constitutionally order any member of the Legislature to vote in a certain way and we cannot order the Governor to open budgets to create a mere possibility that the Legislature can arrive at a balanced budget.14 As of now, neither the Governor nor any individual legislator has violated the Constitution.15 This having been said, compliance with the constitutional mandate to appropriate state education funding must occur in sufficient time to allow the quarterly distribution to county school districts on or before August 1, 2003, per NRS 387.124(1).

Remedy afforded by the court

Given our intervention, the petition necessarily seeks our resolution of separate mandatory provisions in the Nevada Constitution that may remain in conflict in the current application. Section 6 of Article 11 mandates legislative funding for Nevada schools, the budget for which may be set by a simple majority of each house of the Legislature. Section 2(1) of Article 9 requires that additional taxes be created whenever projections indicate state revenue will be insufficient to defray estimated expenses of the state. And Section 18(2) of Article 4 requires that any increase in taxes must be approved by two-thirds of the members of each legislative body. Thus, while the state’s education budget may be set by simple majorities of each legislative house, any new taxes to fund the budget may only be accomplished via supermajority. These provisions are not inherently in conflict; they only conflict in the event education funding is prevented by an inability to balance the budget with sufficient funding mechanisms. That is the current state of affairs, as described by the majority.
I would now turn to address the following observations submitted by the Legislature in its response to the Governor’s petition:
With respect to the allegation that the Legislature has not balanced the state budget for the next two fiscal years, and not done so in a timely manner, that allegation is simply erroneous. . . .
*292. . . [Tjhe Legislature has worked diligently to fulfill its constitutional duties and continues to engage in such work, and . . . complete its duties as soon as possible.
.... The Answering Respondents [the Legislature] agree that the Legislature has a mandatory duty to provide money for education and to ensure adequate revenue to pay state expenses.
The Legislature goes on in its papers filed in this case to request our forbearance to allow it to acquit its admitted constitutional responsibility to fund a state education budget. I can only observe that this Legislature has completed the mandatory 120-day session, has been convened twice in special session and has failed to fund the DSA and balance the budget. It has had plenty of time to fulfill its constitutional obligations. I would give the Legislature more time; but the exigencies of the current situation require some dispatch.
Absent the immediate relief now being afforded, the Governor, of course, would have been free to amend the scope of the special session to facilitate a resolution. Also, individual legislators could, upon further deliberation, have relented to help comply with the supermajority requirements. And, as stated, there was still a window of opportunity for the two branches of government to resolve the impasse without our assistance. In the absence of an education budget crafted and funded in time to effect statutory distribution of funds to the county school districts, we could appropriately declare the impasse at an end because time then would truly be of the essence.16 Accordingly, I would give the Legislature until July 28, 2003, to resolve the impasse17 before intervening and considering the relief afforded today, along with other possibilities.18
I take this opportunity to comment upon the dynamic that brings us to this point in our state’s history. For years, a philosophical debate over provision of state services has been developing and is highlighted by the unparalleled population growth here in Nevada *293and economic conditions governed by external forces, including those attendant to the attacks of September 11, 2001. This debate is the signal feature of the 2003 legislative sessions. The primary concerns of both sets of antagonists involve the quality of state services, the extent to which state services need to be expanded and/or improved, including education services for our children, and unwise or wasteful use of state resources; resources that are paid for by the citizens of this state. This debate has been conducted in a true democratic spirit and both sides have admirably stated their cases. In my view, taking judicial notice of the public debate, considerable waste has been revealed, services can be improved, and many in our state government have been working to improve the situation. Nevertheless, it is not evident that the totality of fiscal problems facing Nevada will be solved in the near term. What is evident is that our schools must, as matter of constitutional law, be funded on or before August 1, 2003.

 Nev. Const. art. 5, § 7.

 Id. art. 4, § 2(3).

 Nev. Const. art. 11, § 6 provides that “[i]n addition to other means provided for the support and maintenance of [the state] university and common schools, the legislature shall provide for their support and maintenance by direct legislative appropriation from the general fund.”

 Nev. Const. art. 9, § 2(1) provides that “[t]he legislature shall provide by law for an annual tax sufficient to defray the estimated expenses of the state for each fiscal year.”

 Nev. Const. art. 9, § 1.

 Id. art. 4, § 19.

 Article 4, Section 2(2) of the State Constitution limits regular legislative sessions to 120 days and renders void legislative action taken at any other time except where, as here, the Governor has convened a special legislative session.

 NRS 387.124(1) requires the state superintendent of public instruction to apportion the state DSA in the state general fund among the several county school districts on a quarterly basis, starting on or before August 1, November 1, February 1, and May 1 of each year. The DSA must be funded for the current biennium for this to occur.

 See Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. v. State of New York, 801 N.E.2d 326 (N.Y. 2003) (noting that simple direction of education authorities to *290follow the New York State Constitution is problematic in terms of effecting compliance and in terms of providing adequate judicial redress for a constitutionally infirm education funding system).

 Nev. Const. art. 4, § 1; see generally Nev. Const, art. 19.

 R.T.K., Annotation, Mandamus to Members or Officer of Legislature, 136 A.L.R. 677, 677 (1942); e.g., Wells v. Purcell, 592 S.W.2d 100 (Ark. 1979) (holding that a writ of mandamus could not be issued to compel legislative officers to adjourn or attempt to adjourn the legislature, or to obtain an adjournment from the governor); Limits v. President of the Senate, 604 N.E.2d 1307 (Mass. 1992) (denying mandamus relief to compel the state legislature’s action on a proposed constitutional amendment); State ex rel. Daschbach v. Meyers, 229 P.2d 506 (Wash. 1951) (declining to issue a writ of mandamus compelling legislature to affix on a bill a different date of passage).

 Nev. Const. art. 3, § 1(1).

 See State v. Dickerson, 33 Nev. 540, 562, 113 P. 105, 111 (1910).

 Id.

 I recognize the majority’s concern that failure to provide immediate appropriations to fund the DSA will impede county school district planning and the hiring of personnel. While this is very important, it does not, in my view, require resolution of the constitutional impasse by immediate intervention by this court.

 See supra note 8.

 Id.

 Again, we are powerless to order co-equal branches of government to exercise individual acts of constitutional discretion. Our authority depends upon whether extraordinary relief is warranted and in exercising our authority to grant relief, we would be restricted to an interpretation of the Constitution, utilizing recognized tenets of statutory construction. See Nevada Mining Ass’n v. Erdoes, 117 Nev. 531, 538, 26 P.3d 753, 757 (2001) (when construing constitutional provisions, the Nevada Supreme Court uses the same rules of construction that are used to interpret statutes).