Court Opinion

ID: 9785727
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:16:48.905036+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:31.997661
License: Public Domain

BRYNER, Justice,
with whom CARPENETI, Justice, joins, dissenting in part. >
I join in all parts of the opinion except its conclusion that the confinement clause al*385lowed the legislature to include language in the Valdez Therapeutic Treatment Program appropriation that was merely descriptive. I would hold that the disputed language violates the confinement clause, even though it is merely descriptive. Because this language is wholly superfluous, it violates Hammond 's necessity factor; as a superfluous and ineffectual appendage, its presence necessarily prevented the appropriation measure from being confined to an appropriation. Nor should this descriptive appendage be excused on the ground that it is "apparently without legal effect."1 Its presence is almost as damaging as if it were binding. The governor and other executive branch officials have no way of knowing whether gratuitous language like this is mandatory or descriptive. They must choose between guessing that the language means nothing, at the risk of being wrong, or challenging the language in court to find out what it means. Either way, the language ereates a problem by constraining executive branch action. By holding that the legislature is free to include superfluous de-seriptions in appropriation measures without violating the confinement clause, the court's opinion allows it to do so routinely in the hope that the executive branch will mistake the language as directory and follow it.

. Op. at 383.