DocketNumber: No. 13,805.
Judges: MR. JUSTICE BURKE delivered the opinion of the court.<page_number>Page 529</page_number>
Filed Date: 10/28/1935
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/5/2016
THIS opinion is written in response to the governor's interrogatories in re the constitutionality of the chapter 89, page 298, Session Laws 1935, hereinafter referred to as chapter 89.
Section 3, Article VI, of our Constitution provides that "The supreme court shall give its opinion upon important questions upon solemn occasions when required by the governor, * * *." What are such questions and occasions rests ultimately with the court. In ReInterrogatories,
Chapter 89 was approved April 4, 1935, and members of the board therein provided for were appointed by the Governor. We are advised by the submission herein that the decision (May 27, 1935) in Schechter v. U.S.,
[1, 2] The act here in question contains nineteen sections and covers fourteen printed pages. It is a so-called "Industrial Recovery Act" modeled on the federal legislation dealt with in the Schechter case and is tied into that legislation by numerous references and provisions. We are specifically asked if it violates any one of four sections of article II, or any one of three sections of article V, or section one of article X, or any part of article III of the state Constitution, or the due process and equal protection clause of section one of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution, and generally if it violates "any other provision of the state Constitution or of the Federal Constitution." As pointed out by this court almost half a century ago, when asked only for a construction of four sections of article XVI of the state Constitution, such responses are impossible, not within the intention of said section 3 of article VI, and would otherwise be fraught with immeasurable dangers. If chapter 89 is unconstitutional for any reason our duty ends when we have so declared. Beyond that we would become legal advisers to future sessions of the General Assembly, a field forbidden us by the Constitution. *Page 531
This cause has been extensively briefed and ably argued, both by the attorney general's office and amici curiae and we are greatly indebted to them therefor.
[3] That chapter 89 is a plain violation of article III of our state Constitution, which divides all governmental powers into three departments and prohibits the interference of one with another, and of section 1 of article V vesting all legislative power in the General Assembly (save for an exception not here involved) seems to us beyond doubt. Burcher v. People,
MR. JUSTICE HILLIARD and MR. JUSTICE BOUCK (who will file a dissenting opinion) dissent.
The following dissenting opinion was filed November 21, 1935.