Arangold Corp. v. Zehnder

JUSTICE HEIPLE, dissenting:

The Illinois Constitution of 1970 provides:

“Bills, except bills for appropriations and for the codification, revision or rearrangement of laws, shall be confined to one subject.” Ill. Const. 1970, art. IV § 8(d).

With today’s opinion, this court’s brief flirtation with the enforcement of the single-subject clause is at an end. Because today’s majority opinion improperly renders the single-subject clause a dead letter, I respectfully dissent.

During the 27 years between the adoption of our Illinois Constitution of 1970 and this court’s decision in Johnson v. Edgar, 176 Ill. 2d 499 (1997), this court invalidated only one public act on single-subject grounds. See Feuhrmeyer v. City of Chicago, 57 Ill. 2d 193 (1974). Beginning with this court’s 1997 decision in Johnson, however, this court has, on two separate occasions, held that the General Assembly exceeded its constitutional authority by failing to confine a legislative enactment to a single subject. In Johnson, this court considered the constitutionality of Public Act 89—428, which was entitled “An Act in relation to public safety.” In its six articles, the Act contained numerous substantive provisions, including: the creation of the Child Sex Offender Community Notification Law; the creation of the offense of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child; an amendment to the Juvenile Court Act allowing the prosecution of certain juveniles as adults; the creation of the Environmental Impact Fee Law; an amendment to the Cannabis Control Act increasing the felony classifications for possession of certain amounts of cannabis; an amendment to the Unified Code of Corrections decreasing the frequency of prisoners’ parole hearings; and amendments to the statutory definition of the offense of eavesdropping, exempting certain kinds of monitoring by businesses engaged in quality control, educational training, and research purposes. Rebuffing attempts to justify the law in Johnson as related to the single subject of “public safety,” this court wisely reasoned that:

“Were we to conclude that the many obviously discordant provisions contained in Public Act 89—428 are nonetheless related because of a tortured connection to a vague notion of public safety, we would be essentially eliminating the single subject rule as a meaningful constitutional check on the legislature’s actions.” Johnson, 176 Ill. 2d at 517-18 .

Accordingly, we held that Public Act 89—428 was invalid because it violated the single-subject clause of the Illinois Constitution.

Similarly, in People v. Reedy, 186 Ill. 2d 1 (1999), this court considered a single-subject challenge to Public Act 89—404. That act amended several statutory sections, including provisions relating to: duties and jurisdiction of local law enforcement agents; the definition of insanity within the meaning of the Criminal Code; drug forfeiture procedures and the allocation of proceeds from the sale of forfeited assets; sentencing guidelines for convictions under the Controlled Substances Act; truth-in-sentencing legislation; and the treatment of government-operated hospitals under the Hospital Lien Act. Before this court, the State argued that each of the Act’s provisions was connected to the single subject of “ ‘governmental matters which are the responsibility of the various county State’s Attorneys.’” Reedy, 186 Ill. 2d at 12 . Nevertheless, noting that the Act dealt with as many as five separate legislative topics involving both civil and criminal matters, this court held that: “[t]o say that such a ‘connection’ satisfies the single subject rule strains credulity.” Reedy, 186 Ill. 2d at 12 . This court concluded, “As we cautioned in Johnson, the permitted use of such a sweeping and vague category to unite unrelated measures would render the single subject clause of our constitution meaningless. [Citation.]” Reedy, 186 Ill. 2d at 12 .

Turning to the facts of the instant case, Public Act 89—21 makes the acts struck down in Johnson and Reedy look like models of legislative simplicity. Public Act 89—21 began life as Senate Bill 465, entitled the “FY 1996 Budget Implementation Act.” When the bill reached the joint conference committee, it ballooned in size and was rechristened, “An Act concerning State services, amending named Acts.” In its ultimate form, Public Act 89—21 amended 21 separate acts, including: the State Employees Group Insurance Act of 1971; the Illinois Pension Code; the Illinois Act on the Aging; the Civil Administrative Code of Illinois; the Children and Family Services Act; the Disabled Persons Rehabilitation Act; the State Finance Act; the State Prompt Payment Act; the Illinois Income Tax Act; the State Mandates Act; the School Code; the Nursing Home Care Act; the Child Care Act of 1969; the Riverboat Gambling Act; the Illinois Administrative Procedure Act; the Illinois Public Aid Code; the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act; the Juvenile Court Act of 1987; the Adoption Act; the Probate Act of 1975; the Unemployment Insurance Act; and the Tobacco Products Tax Act of 1995. Nevertheless, despite the overwhelming breadth of subjects encompassed by Public Act 89—21, the majority today accepts defendants’ argument that the Act addresses but a single subject: “the state budget.”

Even accepting the majority’s holding that each of Public Act 89—21’s provisions might ultimately impact the state budget, however, that is not sufficient to vindicate the act. As the trial court held, “the single subject rule requires more, namely, that the provisions be related to each other.” The majority today rejects that analysis. According to the majority, our analysis under the single subject clause is strictly confined to the question of whether each provision in a legislative enactment can be said to relate to a single subject. The majority states further that “[t]his court has never held that the single subject rule imposes a second and additional requirement that the provisions within an enactment be related to each other.” 187 Ill. 2d at 356.

I submit that the majority’s misunderstanding of this court’s single-subject clause jurisprudence might be cured by a more careful reading of the majority’s own opinion. As the opinion correctly states:

“ 1 “The term ‘subject’ is comprehensive in its scope and may be as broad as the legislature chooses, so long as the matters included have a natural or logical connection. An act may include all matters germane to a general subject, including the means reasonably necessary or appropriate to the accomplishment of a legislative purpose. Nor is the constitutional provision a limitation on the comprehensiveness of the subject; rather, it prohibits the inclusion of ‘discordant provisions that by no fair intendment can be considered as having any legitimate relation to each other.’ [Citation.]” ’ ” (Emphasis added.) 187 Ill. 2d at 352, quoting People ex rel. Ogilvie v. Lewis, 49 Ill. 2d 476, 487 (1971), quoting People ex rel. Gutknecht v. City of Chicago, 414 Ill. 600, 607-08 (1953), quoting People ex rel. City of Chicago v. Board of County Commissioners, 355 Ill. 244, 247 (1934).

Indeed, this court has consistently required, as a check against over-broad legislative subjects, that the provisions of an act be both related to a single subject and related, in some fashion, to one another. Had the rule been otherwise, recent single-subject decisions of this court might have been resolved differently. For example, in Johnson, it would have been difficult to argue that any of the provisions of Public Act 89—428 had no connection to public safety. Nevertheless, this court invalidated that act on the ground that the single-subject rule “prohibits the inclusion of ‘ “discordant provisions that by no fair intendment can be considered as having any legitimate relation to each other.’’ ’ [Citation.]” (Emphasis added.) Johnson, 176 Ill. 2d at 515 . Likewise, in Reedy, each of the various provisions of Public Act 89—404 likely did concern governmental matters which were the responsibility of the various county State’s Attorneys. Even so, this court struck down the act, holding that “the General Assembly violates the single subject rule when it includes within one bill unrelated provisions that by no fair interpretation have any legitimate relation to one another.” (Emphasis added.) Reedy, 186 Ill. 2d at 9 . Similar formulations of the law appear in City of Chicago, 355 Ill. at 247 , Gutknecht, 414 Ill. at 607-08 , Cutinello v. Whitley, 161 Ill. 2d 409, 423 (1994), and People v. Dunigan, 165 Ill. 2d 235, 255 (1995). Thus, despite the majority’s inexplicable assertion to the contrary, this court has always required that the various provisions of a legislative enactment be related to each other. If, by its opinion, the majority means to overrule City of Chicago, Gutknecht, Cutinello, Dunigan, Johnson, and Reedy, it should do so explicitly. Instead, the majority effectively immunizes Public Act 89—21 from single-subject attack on the ground that each of its many provisions either increases or decreases state expenditures or revenues, or is tangentially related to a provision which does so. It is difficult to conceive of a legislative enactment which would fail to satisfy this empty test.

Applying the above-cited precedent to the provisions of Public Act 89—21, I conclude that there is no natural and logical connection which could justify the enactment of these various matters in one act. Because a majority of this court improperly retreats from its well-settled single-subject jurisprudence, and in so doing eviscerates the single-subject clause of the Illinois Constitution, I dissent.

JUSTICE HARRISON joins in this dissent.