Court Opinion

ID: 9776894
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:48:09.593546+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:44.601390
License: Public Domain

MILLIKEN, Judge
(concurring).
I concur wholeheartedly in the majority opinion and think that the dissenting opinion ignores history, and dangerously tethers the present generation in the exercise of its greatest freedom, the freedom to alter or reform its basic law any time it deems proper. Furthermore, the dissenting opinion erroneously goes on the assumption that “[t]he proponents of the Act [S.B. 161] apparently contend that the legislature is ‘the people.’ ” Nothing could be farther from the truth, for the majority opinion explicitly declares that the ultimate authority to make any change in the Constitution lies with the citizens of this Commonwealth, not the legislature.
It must not be forgotten that the language of the Bill of Rights is an attempt to express in words the specific achievements of the English and American peoples in their centuries-old struggle to establish the sovereignty of the people over the divine right of kings. The freedom they won was the freedom to participate in the affairs of their government and all that that implies, and in Kentucky they expressed that freedom in Section 4 of the Bill of Rights that “ * * * they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they deem proper.” It is the people who have that right, not the legislature; only the people have the final word. The legislature is one vehicle through which the people are given the chance to have that final word whether the submission of constitutional questions is done under the specific sections, 256 and 258, or under the Bill of Rights as here.
I view Sections 256 and 258 as means of effectuating the right of constitutional change the Bill of Rights assures, but I do not see those sections as limitations on the right of the people under Section 4 “ * * * to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may deem proper.” It is inconceivable to me that the generations which fought for and drafted the Bill of Rights celebrating their own freedom, would attempt to limit future generations in the means of maintaining and developing it.
The crucial problem for this Court is to protect at every stage the democratic process, the orderly and fair presentation to the people of any proposal pertaining to their basic law, and I think the method here employed is orderly, is in the open, and is as fair as any other method of presentation so far devised. This is an exercise in freedom and the majority opinion amply protects this generation of Kentuckians in the exercise of their freedom to change their basic law — to cope with the challenges of the present time. How the citizens exercise that freedom is entirely up to them.