Court Opinion

ID: 9607059
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:55:03.397921+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:34.651316
License: Public Domain

Sprouse, Justice,
dissenting:
I concur with the opinion of the majority except those parts of the opinion relating to Account Nos. 160 (Office of the State Treasurer), 250 (Office of the Secretary of State), and 295 (State Department of Education — State Aid to Schools), and I respectfully dissent to that portion of the decision ruling on those accounts.
Article VII, Section 1 of the Constitution provides that: “The executive department shall consist of a governor, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, commissioner of agriculture and attorney general * * * . They * * * shall perform such duties as may be prescribed by law.” It is clear from the bare language of this section that each constitutional officer has equal authority in their individual sphere of government as prescribed by the legislature. Prior to the passage of the Modern Budget Amendment in 1968, the Constitution also assigned them certain powers and duties relating to the budget. Article VI, Section 51, prior to its 1968 amendment, divided executive participation in the budget making process among these constitutional officers comprising the Board of Public Works. The main function of shaping and submitting the budget was the responsibility of the Board. *130Thus, the governor’s power over the budget was severely-limited.
After passage of the budget by the legislature, even the Board had no authority to alter it. The governor, under Article VII, Section 15, could veto the total bill or any item contained in it, but his veto could be overridden by a majority vote of each house of the legislature.
It is difficult to know with what purpose the framers of our Constitution drafted this governmental interplay. This type of process certainly provided an avenue of political and governmental checks among the departments comprising the executive branch. It became obvious over the years, however, that such a budget making scheme also resulted in inefficiency in government and political horse trading. The purpose of the Modern Budget Amendment was to create a sounder governmental approach to fiscal matters and to create stronger directive powers in the office of governor.
Under the Modern Budget Amendment, the power to shape and submit the executive budget is reposed exclusively in the governor. In its amended form, Article VI, Section 51, subsection D, paragraph 11, provides, among other things, as follows:
“ * * * The governor may veto the bill, or he may disapprove or reduce items or parts of items contained therein. * * * The bill, items or parts thereof, disapproved or reduced by the governor, shall be returned with his objections to each house of the legislature.
“Each house shall enter the objections at large upon its journal and proceed to reconsider. If, after reconsideration, two thirds of the members elected to each house agree to pass the bill, or such items or parts thereof, as were disapproved or reduced, the bills, items or parts thereof, approved by two thirds of such members, shall become law, notwithstanding the objections of the governor. * * * ”
*131It is true that despite some attempts from time to time to have the secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, commissioner of agriculture and attorney general constitutionally demoted to the status of appointive officers within the governor’s official family of the executive branch, that such amendatory action has never been taken. They remain constitutional officers.
Their only constitutionally described functions, the budget making powers, however, have been taken from them by the amended Section 51. In addition to this, the governor has been given specific authority to alter their appropriations unless his action is overridden by a vote of two-thirds of the legislature.
Power over the purse is undoubtedly power in many instances to control administration. The voters of this State have granted the governor authority over the purse strings of the other components of the executive branch of government.
In the absence of any evidence as to legislative intent or of any special purpose or meaning of the proposed constitutional language communicated to the people, it must be assumed the voters were aware that in ratifying the new Article VI, Section 51, they were altering the functions of the constitutional members of the executive branch of the government in the manner expressed by the plain language of the proposed Section 51.
The majority of my colleagues agree that the governor has the authority to disapprove or reduce any account in the executive branch including that of the other constitutional officers. They insist, however, that the governor cannot go so far as to disapprove the entire budget of any of these departments. This is where I respectfully disagree. The majority, in their opinion, indicate that this Court must review the governor’s action when he has abused his discretion in exercising veto authority over the executive budget. In my view there *132are areas in which a governor’s abuse of his constitutional power can be judicially reviewed, but this is not one of them.
In Slack v. Jacob, 8 W.Va. 612, 664, it is said:
“ * * * As to all authority specially confided to the governor, whether by the constitution or by statute, it will be presumed that reasons of a conclusive nature required it to be so confided as an authority properly and peculiarly, if not exclusively, pertaining to the executive department, and therefore not subject to coercion by judicial powets. * * * ” (Italics Supplied.)
In Hatfield v. Graham, 73 W.Va. 759, 81 S.E. 533, the Court held in the first point of the syllabus as follows:
“The office of governor is political and the discretion vested in the chief executive by the Constitution and laws of the State respecting his official duties is not subject to control or review by the courts. His proclamations, warrants and orders made in the discharge of his official duties are as much due process of law as the judgment of a court.” (Italics Supplied.)
This principle of law was as recently affirmed as State ex rel. Bache & Co., Inc. v. Gainer, 154 W.Va. 499, 177 S.E.2d 10, in 1970.
The majority opinion quoted language from McConaughy v. Secretary of State, 106 Minn. 401, 119 N.W. 408, as follows:
“The Governor may exercise the powers delegated to him, free from judicial control, so long as he observes the laws and acts within the limits of the power conferred. His discretionary acts cannot be controllable, not primarily because they are of a political nature, but because the Constitution and laws have placed the particular matter under his control. * * * ”
In applying this established principle of law, the majority reason that the governor’s acts, in relation to his disapproval of these parts of the budget, were in “excess *133of his constitutionally granted powers.” His acts at most are an abuse of discretion, and as was said in McConaughy, “[h]is discretionary acts cannot be controllable.” To apply this principle otherwise would require this Court in each instance to determine what percentage of the budget a governor can approve or disapprove. Would, for example, the governor have operated unconstitutionally if he had disapproved five percent of the budgets of the treasurer and secretary of state, or ten or fifty or seventy-five percent? The majority’s answer is that if a department is left with insufficient funds to operate, the governor has abused the discretion allowed him or has acted “in excess of his constitutionally granted powers.”
It is my belief that the governor has complete discretion, under the language of the amended Section 51, to veto the bill or disapprove or reduce items or parts of items contained therein. The language of paragraph 11 of subsection D of Section 51 places absolutely no limitations on the degree to which this veto may be exercised in this regard. The language is in absolute, clear, and unambiguous terms. When a constitutional provision, as well as a simple statute, is clear and unambiguous, it is to be applied and not construed. This Court reiterated this constitutional principle no later than State ex rel. Browning v. Blankenship, 154 W.Va. 253, 175 S.E.2d 172.
Moreover, paragraph 13 of subsection D provides in part: “In the event of any inconsistency between any of the provisions of this section and any of the other provisions of the Constitution, the provisions of this section shall prevail. * * * ”
The people, by their enactment of the amended Article VI, Section 51, gave the governor authority to absolutely veto or reduce the budget of all branches or divisions of the executive government. Since the exercise of discretion in this area of executive power is not reviewable by the judiciary, the governor’s actions are political *134in the generic sense. Consequently, aside from legislative override of the veto, the only sanctions imposed upon the governor’s abuse of his discretion are removal through the electoral process or by impeachment. Certainly if he were to act so irresponsibly as to effectively eliminate the operation of one of the branches of state government during his term of office, the people would respond by not returning him to the office at the next election. This is the people’s response to political accounting. Secondly, if he grossly abused the power reposed in him by the people, he is subject to be removed from office under the provisions of Article IV, Section 9 of the Constitution. This provides in part: “Any officer of the State may be impeached for maladministration, corruption, incompetency, gross immorality, neglect of duty, or any high crime or misdemeanor.”
I assume the majority would agree that the governor has the right to veto, disapprove or reduce any item of the budget of the State Department of Highways or the Department of Public Safety whether or not that completely eliminated all the money in those particular budgets. The functions of those departments are just as vital to the government of West Virginia as are the functions in the treasurer’s office or in the office of the secretary of state. For that matter, a good argument could be made for the impeachment or removal of an irresponsible governor who would completely eliminate the operation of the state department of highways or the department of public safety or any other vital component of government by the arbitrary use of veto power granted in Section 51.
The fact that the secretary of state and treasurer are mentioned in Article VII, Section 1, as constitutional officers gives them no more standing to have their budgets protected from the actions of the governor than the other vital components of state government. The amended Section 51 specifically brought those constitutional officers under the governor’s budget making authority.
*135In my view, the people of West Virginia, in ratifying the amendment of Article VI, Section 51 in 1968, clearly evinced their desire to have a truly executive budget and by the Modern Budget Amendment, the governor of West Virginia was constituted, a truly strong constitutional executive officer. This power goes one step further than decided by the majority opinion and permits the governor to have control over the entire executive budget, excepting the salaries of the other constitutional executive officers.
The same reasoning applies to the governor’s action in vetoing the items in Account 295, the school account.
Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution provides: “The legislature shall provide, by general law, for a thorough and efficient system of free schools.” Here again, like the provision of Article VII, Section 1, providing for the existence of the constitutional offices of secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, commissioner of agriculture and attorney general, Article XII, Section 1 has imposed upon it by Article VI, Section 51 the governor’s authority to make a budgetary imput into the school system by the veto, reduction or disapproval.
While it is almost inconceivable that a governor would arbitrarily use his power to impair the operation of the free school system, it is equally inconceivable that a governor would impair the operation of the state department of highways or the department of public safety. Assuming, however, that this should come to pass, the only limitation is the limitation of the legislature overriding his budget action by a two-thirds vote of those bodies, or by impeachment under Article IV, Section 9, or by the ultimate electoral process.
I am authorized to state that Justice Haden joins in this dissenting opinion.