Did Utah’s Legislature Ignore the Constitution?

Tom made an interesting comment on this post about SB2 (the education omnibus bill) that I’ve been thinking about for a couple of days. I think he’s probably right.

This omnibus bill may be unconstitutional under the Utah Constitution. (See Article VI, Section 22)

One argument in favor of calling it constitutional would be to consider it an “appropriations” bill, which is partially true. However, the constitution requires it to be a “general appropriations bill”, which I would argue it is not. (See SB1 for an example of a general appropriations bill.) Further, there are stand-alone sections of the bill (e.g. lines 469-491, which come directly from HB 419, a bill that had no appropriation), which give further evidence to the notion that this bill has a) more than one subject, and b) the title (”Minimum School Program Budget Amendments”) does not accurately reflect the body of the bill, both of which are constitutional requirements of bills.

It’s clear in my mind that at the very least, the intent of Art VI Section 22 was violated by the omnibus approach.

I’m no lawyer but it does seem that Tom has a point. I was pretty disappointed that the legislature was able to throw all this stuff into an Omnibus and get it passed as one bill. Commonsense dictates that the people aren’t well served when legislators can avoid voting on substantial changes to Utah law and new programs by sticking them together with essential appropriations in an omnibus bill. It seems that Utah’s constitution is on the side of commonsense in this case.

Thank you Tom!

6 Comments »

1. You know Jeremy the television industry has been thriving on this same ideal of packaging a ton of crap together and saying take it all or you don’t get the good stuff. Honestly who wants five home shopping channels in their basic programming package? I’d wager that 95% of Utah is very concerned about their T.V. programming yet the industry thrives on this “take it all or nothing” technique. Why wouldn’t the Utah legislator do the same thing? Especially when only 10% or less of Utah slightly cares about what the legislators are doing up there in their fancy building.

   Comment by Dignin — March 11, 2008 @ 9:33 am

2. What’s most alarming is that either nobody on the Hill knew that it wasn’t Constitutional or nobody cared. Oh the irony that legislators who spend so much time talking about the US Constitution can’t be bothered to read the state one.

   Comment by Jesse Harris — March 11, 2008 @ 10:02 am

3. Here’s a dirty secret–a duly passed law is constitutional until a court says it isn’t. Because this is the case, legislators have little incentive to care about a bills constitutionality unless it is blatantly unconstitutional. Sad but true.

   Comment by Daniel — March 11, 2008 @ 11:20 am

4. Yeah, I was just thinking about that.

   I wonder Who would have standing to pursue legal action on the legislation?

   Comment by Jeremy Manning — March 11, 2008 @ 11:48 am

5. “Standing” was one of my first questions too. One strategy would be to join as many plaintiffs as possible: legislators who originally opposed the bill, representatives of political organizations (e.g. PTA), parents, taxpayers affected by the property tax changes, businesses that might be adversely affected, etc. I would think anyone affected by the bill should have standing. (IANAL, but if that weren’t the case, and only the governor or legislative body were given standing, and such an interpretation would render the section moot.) Still, any suit could not be brought until the issue becomes “ripe,” which could change depending on what action (if any) the governor takes.

   Daniel is right about the presumption of constitutionality–not only is a bill presumed constitutional until challenged, the courts will grant deference to the legislature in evaluating constitutionality. If a conflict exists, they will rule (if possible) in a way that presumes constitutionality.

   One interesting bit of history: In 2006, the State Board of Ed suggested an education omnibus bill that bundled three separate programs might be unconstitutional under this article (HB 181). The legislature was still in session; the bill was quickly substituted with a version containing only one program.

   Comment by Tom — March 17, 2008 @ 3:16 pm

6. Governor Huntsman apparently agrees it’s not an appropriations bill and is justifying his decision by the distinction. Would his statement hold a lot of sway in a courtroom?

   http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_8658959

   Huntsman, however, signed the bill without any line-item vetoes Thursday. The governor’s spokeswoman, Lisa Roskelley, said vetoing parts of the bill was not an option.
   “Line-item veto only applies to appropriations items, and most of [SB2] was actually statutory,” Roskelley said.

   Comment by UtahTeacher — March 22, 2008 @ 2:40 am

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