financing scheme that involved “[a]t most . . . appropriation-risk or moral obligation bonds” did not create constitutional debt because there was “no legally enforceable contract between [the Legislature] and either [the Capitol Improvement Authority], the various agencies, etc. or the citizens of Oklahoma to make the anticipated appropriations necessary to retire the bonds”
How later courts described this case
- financing scheme that involved “[a]t most . . . appropriation-risk or moral obligation bonds” did not create constitutional debt because there was “no legally enforceable contract between [the Legislature] and either [the Capitol Improvement Authority], the various agencies, etc. or the citizens of Oklahoma to make the anticipated appropriations necessary to retire the bonds”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
WATT, J.
concurring specially:
¶ 1 I join Justice Kauger in her specially concurring opinion. I write, however, to make clear my conclusion that my dissent in In Re: Oklahoma Capitol Improvement Authority, 1998 OK 25 ¶¶ 1-2, 958 P.2d 759 , has nothing to do with the facts of the case at bar.
¶ 2 Although Justice Lavender has cited to my dissent in Oklahoma Capitol Improvement Authority at ¶ 10 of his opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, I do not believe that my analysis in my dissent applies here. I ‘ dissented there because the roads being financed by the bonds in that case produced no revenues with which the bonds could be repaid. Here, however, as Justice Kauger observed in her specially concurring opinion, at ¶ 2, “It is unnecessary to determine the character of the obligation created because these are traditional, self-liquidating proposals historically upheld by this Courts jurisprudence. Stare decisis demands their approval.” For this reason I believe there is ample authority other than Oklahoma Capitol Improvement Authority supporting the conclusion that the bonds at issue here are constitutional. Thus, I see no reason to dissent to the majority opinions approval of the bonds at issue here and decline to do so.