Court Opinion

ID: 9574695
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:07:17.650216+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:50.652892
License: Public Domain

Finley, C. J.
(dissenting)—Two questions of law are determinative of the relators’ right to relief. The first ques*916tion encompasses the rationale of State ex rel. Hamblen v. Yelle, 29 Wn.2d 68, 185 P.2d 723 (1947). It is: Does the Oceanographic Commission have power to act in any manner in which it could not act if organized as a legislative interim committee? The second question expresses a longstanding policy limitation followed in the interpretation of article 2, section 13 of the Constitution of the State of Washington. It is: Does the Commission exercise “sovereign power?”
These questions express our settled decisional law. Attempts to answer them cannot rely upon the manipulation of formulae. They must be squarely faced, and resolved with full attention to the balance of social interests involved. Unless these questions can be unequivocally answered in the affirmative, relators are entitled to the relief which they seek. To refuse relators that relief, unless it is clearly and unmistakably demonstrable that both of the questions require an affirmative answer, is an unwarranted substitution of our own discretion for that of the legislature.
I.
Relators have argued that the Commission is, in effect, a legislative advisory committee. In State ex rel. Hamblen v. Yelle, 29 Wn.2d 68, 185 P.2d 723 (1947), this court established the validity of appointments of legislators during their term of office to the Legislative Council. The powers of that council are quite broad, and are set out in the margin as approved in the Hamblen case.2 It may be urged *917that the Hamblen case concerned a council composed solely of legislators. But the Hamblen opinion relies strongly upon Parker v. Riley, 18 Cal. 2d 83, 113 P.2d 873, 134 A.L.R. 1405 (1941), a case concerning application of a similar provision of the California constitution to a “commission on interstate cooperation” consisting of members of both houses and citizens appointed by the Governor. The terms of the legislative members were to cease if they ceased to be members *918of corresponding committees of their respective houses. The California court held the membership in the commission imposed no trust or office upon the legislators not inherent in their capacity as legislators. The reasoning of that court is instructive:
The constitutional provision clearly implies that the prohibition is directed at the conferring of any other office, trust, or employment upon a member of the legislature. A member of the legislature is already an officer holding a position of trust under the state government. Where a statute merely makes available new machinery and new methods by which particular legislators may keep themselves informed upon specific problems, it cannot be said to have imposed upon them any new office or trust. The additional duties which rest upon the legislative members of the commission are identical in purpose and kind with those which they already perform. As was said in People v. Tremaine, 252 N.Y. 27, 41 [168 N.E. 817], “The duties of members of the Legislature may be enlarged without making a civil appointment or creating a new office, so long as the duties are such as may be properly attached to the legislative office. . . .” 18 Cal. 2d at 88, 113 P.2d at 876. (Italics mine.)
Has a new trust or office been imposed upon the legislative members of the Oceanographic Commission? The powers granted to the Oceanographic Commission are extensive.3 The Commission is to develop and maintain pro*919grams, undertake informational projects, and encourage, supplement, and assist the development of programs under the National Sea Grant College and Program Act by the University of Washington and other participating educational institutions of the state and region. Although it is also to conduct studies and report to the legislature, examination of its functions leaves serious doubt that they could be exercised with propriety by a legislative interim committee.
However, resolution of the second of the two queries posed in the opening paragraph of this dissent is in my opinion dispositive of this case. Consequently, further development or discussion of the principles of the Hamblen case should be deferred until they are squarely presented to the court.
*920II.
If the powers exercised by the Oceanographic Commission are not “sovereign power” within our cases, then rela-tors’ appointments to the Commission are proper and they are entitled to the relief sought in this proceeding.
I find little help in disposing of this problem in the cases cited by the majority. State ex rel. Landis v. Board of Comm’rs of Butler Cy., 95 Ohio St. 157, 115 N.E. 919 (1917), held that the clerk to a board of county commissioners did not exercise sovereign powers. State ex rel. Pickett v. Truman, 333 Mo. 1018, 64 S.W.2d 105 (1933), held that a statutorily authorized attorney employed on contract to collect back taxes was not invested with sovereign power. State ex rel. Webb v. Pigg, 363 Mo. 133, 249 S.W.2d 435 (1952), reached the same conclusion as to the clerk of an intermediate state appellate court. The standard applied in the Missouri cases is lifted in whole from the Ohio opinion, and all of the cases concern offices which are part of the traditional apparatus of government. The present case concerns itself with an interesting innovation, designed by the legislature to take advantage of a somewhat unique situation. It ought not to be disposed of by a wooden standard, woodenly applied.
Of the three heads of sovereign power set forth in State ex rel. Landis, supra, and the alternative three set out in United States v. Douglas-Willan Sartoris Co., 3 Wyo. 287, 22 Pac. 92 (1889), the majority opinion selects the police power as encompassing the activities of the Oceanographic Commission. In so doing, it relies upon Clark v. Dwyer, 56 Wn.2d 425, 353 P.2d 941 (1960), and State v. Dexter, 32 Wn.2d 551, 202 P.2d 906, 13 A.L.R.2d 1081 (1949), for the proposition that the police power comprehends the regulation, preservation, promotion and development of natural resources.
In so doing, it misapplies those cases. Clark, supra, was a case sustaining as a valid exercise of the police power a regulation of apple grading designed to promote the sale of Washington apples. State v. Dexter, supra, sustained as a *921valid exercise of the police power a statute requiring logging operators to make provision for reforestation, and an injunction closing a logging operation for noncompliance. Both cases involved the regulation of private interests.
The powers of a state legislature, insofar as they are not limited by constitutional provisions, are plenary. In dealing with state legislation, it is unnecessary to assign a source of power. Because, however, the police power can infringe what would otherwise be rights of property or individual freedoms, its breadth, plus that of natural rights, covers the entire field of human conduct. Even in classical formulations, that breadth is enormous:
The police of a State, in a comprehensive sense, embraces its whole system of internal regulation, by which the State seeks not only to preserve the public order and to prevent offences against the State, but also to establish for the intercourse of citizens with citizens those rules of good manners and good neighborhood which are calculated to prevent a conflict of rights, and to insure to each the uninterrupted enjoyment of his own so far as is reasonably consistent with a like enjoyment of rights by others.
. . . The power we allude to is rather the police power; the power vested in the legislature by the constitution to make, ordain, and establish' all manner of wholesome and reasonable laws, statutes, and ordinances, either with penalties or without, not repugnant to the constitution, as they shall judge to be for the good and welfare of the Commonwealth, and of the subjects of the same. It is much easier to perceive and realize the existence and sources of this power than to mark its boundaries, or prescribe limits to its exercise.”
“This police power of the State,” says another eminent judge, “extends to the protection of the lives, limbs, health, comfort, and quiet of all persons, and the protection of all property within the State. According to the maxim, Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas, which being of universal application, it must, of course, be within the range of legislative action to define the mode and manner in which every one may so use his own as not to injure others.” And again: [By this] “general police power of the State, persons and property are subjected to all kinds *922of restraints and burdens, in order to secure the general comfort, health, and prosperity of the State; of the perfect right in the legislature to do which, no question ever was, or, upon acknowledged general principles, ever can be made, so far as natural persons are concerned.” (Footnotes omitted.) T. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 706-08 (5th ed. 1883)
Where the police power is felt in the regulation of private rights and interests, protective constitutional bulwarks must be scrupulously noted and effectuated by the courts. But police power is of little consequence, constitutional or otherwise, in the relations of governmental units inter se. Nor is it the police power which operates when government neither regulates nor commands, but exhorts.
It is quite possible that “sovereign power” as that term is used in our precedents is not solely comprehended in taxation, eminent domain, and the police power. But this Commission is a new species in Washington. The Hamblen case supra sustained our present Legislative Council. The only other case in point in this jurisdiction, State ex rel. French v. Clausen, 107 Wash. 667, 182 Pac. 610 (1919), invalidated an appointment to the “Industrial Code Commission,” a mixed body of legislators and appointed citizens possessing investigatory powers. As Judge Hill has pointed out, Ham-blen, supra at 92, the case was vitiated by the Hamblen decision.
Our precedents concerning increases in the emoluments of office deal with the traditional offices of state and local government, and are of little help. The records of the Constitutional Convention of 1889 are fragmentary. Those that remain are of no help in determining the reach of article 2, section 13. See Journal of the Washington State Constitutional Convention—1889, 531 (1962).
We have interpreted article 2, section 13 as expressing an intent both to preserve a pure public policy by preventing improper bias in the vote of representatives, State ex rel. O’Connell v. Dubuque, 68 Wn.2d 553, 567, 413 P.2d 972 (1966), and to prevent the creation of offices to be filled by the creators. State ex rel. French v. Clausen, supra at 673-*92374. If such is the purpose, it would be more in keeping with sound administration to develop a standard designed to effectuate that purpose than to continue to apply the classic theories of a simpler age.
The result reached by the majority is neither required by our precedents nor justified by sound logic. The institution of judicial review is not a license for this court to substitute for the discretion of the legislature our own ideas of the wise, the usual, or the politic. Where the validity of a statute is assailed, there is a presumption of the constitutionality of the legislative enactment unless its repugnancy to the constitution clearly appears or is made to appear beyond a reasonable doubt. Clark v. Dwyer, supra; Port of Tacoma v. Parosa, 52 Wn.2d 181, 324 P.2d 438 (1958). That is not the case here. On the contrary, somewhat disingenuous reasoning has been required to reach the conclusion at which the majority opinion arrives.
Article 2, section 13 is by any analysis one of the lesser anchors of the ship of state; however, it is not to be minimized. It must be administered with a proper standard. I do not believe that the majority has provided that standard. Of a far more weighty provision of the federal constitution, Justice Holmes once remarked:
Great constitutional provisions must be administered with caution. Some play must be allowed for the joints of the machine, and it must be remembered that legislatures are ultimate guardians of the liberties and welfare of the people in quite as great a degree as the courts. Missouri, K. & T. Ry. v. May, 194 U.S. 267, 270, 48 L. Ed. 971, 24 Sup. Ct. 638 (1904).
If legislative efforts to guide the process of growth in our dynamic culture consistently received such Procrustean treatment from this court, our governmental apparatus may attain theoretical elegance, but it is quite unlikely to be responsive to the need of our resourceful society.
Respondents have, in my opinion, failed to meet their burden as to a showing of unconstitutionality. I would grant the writ.

Laws of 1947, ch. 36, pp. 61-64:
“Sec. 2. The council shall have the following powers and duties: (1) To perform, either through the council as a whole or through subcommittees thereof, all duties and functions customarily delegated to special interim legislative committees;
“(2) To examine and study the administrative organization and procedures of the state government, its offices, boards, committees, commissions, institutions and other state agencies and to make recommendations, where found advisable, directed to the elimination of unnecessary overlapping or duplication of functions, procedures and expenditures, and to the promotion of economy and efficiency in state government;
*917“(3) To make current examination and. reports concerning the current condition of all state funds, appropriations and other state moneys; concerning whether or not such appropriations are being currently expended for the purposes and within the statutory restrictions provided by the Legislature; and concerning the current availability of revenue to meet expenditures under appropriations;
“(4) To make such other studies and examinations of the state government and its state agencies as it may find advisable and to hear complaints, hold hearings, gather information and make findings of fact with respect thereto;
“(5) To receive messages and reports in person or in writing from the Governor or any other state officials and to attend generally to any and all business addressed to or affecting the Legislature during the interim between regular legislative sessions; and
“(6) To make reports from time to time to the members of the Legislature and to the public with respect to any of its findings or recommendations. The council shall keep complete minutes of its meetings. The council shall make and distribute its final report to the members of the ensuing Legislature at least ten days prior to the convening of the Legislature.
“(7) To cooperate, act and function with similar councils or committees of other states, with the Council of State Governments, and with other interstate research organizations.
“Sec. 3. In the discharge of any duty herein imposed, the council and its subcommittees shall have the authority to examine and inspect all files, records and accounts of any state office, department, institution, board, commission or agency, and to administer oaths, issue subpoenas, compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of any papers, books, accounts, documents and testimony, and to cause the deposition of witnesses.....
“Sec. 5. The council shall have authority to select and employ an executive secretary, together with such other clerical, legal, accounting, research, and other assistants as it may deem desirable, whose compensation and salaries shall be fixed by the council.
“Sec. 7. The State Legislative Council shall have authority to make its own rules and regulations governing the conduct of its business not otherwise prescribed in this act. . . .”

RCW 43.94.040:
“The commission shall have the following powers, duties and functions:
“(1) Encourage, assist, develop and maintain a coordinated program in oceanography for the benefit of the citizens of the state and the nation;
“(2) Encourage private industrial enterprise to utilize the Puget Sound area as a base for oceanographic work;
“(3) Promote national interest in Puget Sound as a base for national oceanographic programs;
“(4) Assist in developing educational programs to provide the professional and technical graduates required by oceanographic expansion in the area;
“(5) Undertake projects designed to inform the citizenry of the importance of oceanography to the development of the area;
“(6) Assist in the study of problems of waterfront development, pollution, and parks and recreation areas for public use;
*919“(7) Accept funds, gifts, bequests, and devises from any lawful source given or made available for the purposes of this chapter, including but not limited to grants of funds made with or without a matching requirement by the federal government;
“(8) Encourage, supplement and assist the development of programs under the National Sea Grant College and Program Act of 1966 by the University of Washington and other participating educational institutions of the state and region. The programs and misssion of the commission and its institute are not to be in duplication of the existing program of the University of Washington or other educational institutions of the state in oceanographic research, training or public service, or of the program developed under the National Sea Grant College and Program Act of 1966.
“(9) Make annual reports to the Washington state legislature, or to the appropriate interim committee thereof, all activities undertaken in connection with the power, duties and functions assigned in this section together with any recommendations for new legislation designed to accomplish the purposes of this chapter.
“(10) Delegate in its discretion and to the extent permitted by the state Constitution, any of the powers and duties set forth in subsections (1) through (8) to the Oceanographic Institute of Washington formed pursuant to RCW 43.94.050.”
As the enactment contains a severability clause, speculation on the validity of the delegation to the Oceanographic Institute (RCW 43.94.050 (1967)) is unnecessary. It appears, however, that the act contemplates a delegation of the unusual powers to the Institute, leaving the Commission charged solely with a reporting function more normally associated with legislative committees.