USA - International Encyclopaedia of Laws

The Legislature, Part II, Ch. 3 146–149146. Familiar examples of American state constitutional limitations on thelegislature include requirements that a bill contain a title disclosing its contentand include only matters on a ‘single subject’; that all bills be referred tocommittee; that the vote on a bill be reflected in the legislature’s journal; thatno bill be altered during its passage through either house so as to change itsoriginal purpose; and that appropriations bills contain provisions on no othersubject. These procedural restrictions must be distinguished from the commonsubstantive limits on state legislation, such as those prohibiting statutes limitingwrongful death recoveries or mandating a certain type of civil service system,and from the general limits contained in state bills of rights.147. The limitations on state legislative procedure survived the wave ofstate constitutional revision that occurred during the middle of the 20th century.Therefore, because these limits have, in effect, been readopted in contemporarystate constitutions, they reflect policies relating to the nature of the deliberativeprocess in state legislatures. Further, they represent an important limit onlegislative authority and illustrate the lasting result of earlier public disillusionmentwith legislative abuses.148. Although the procedural limits outlined above are usually discussedas if they were all of the same quality, there are important differences. Someprovisions require the legislature to act affirmatively, while others prohibitcertain acts. A violation of certain restrictions, such as title and single-subjectprovisions, can be seen from examining the text of the final legislative enactment.By contrast, a violation of other restrictions, such as the prohibition ofa bill being altered on its passage through either house so as to change itsoriginal purpose, will not be reflected on the face of the final legislativeenactment. Consequently, a search for this type of violation requires anexamination of the legislative steps leading up to the enactment.149. State courts have developed a surprisingly wide range of approachesto enforcing restrictions on legislative procedure under circumstances where anact on its face does not reflect a violation of procedural limitations. Some courtswill not ‘go behind’ an enrolled bill, duly signed by legislative officers, toconsider evidence of violation of legislative procedure provisions in stateconstitutions. Other courts will consider only the official legislative journals butnot other evidence. Still other courts will consider any relevant evidence of suchstate constitutional violations. Even within single jurisdictions, one can detectinconsistent doctrines and a lack of continuity over time. These widely varyingjudicial doctrines reflect what are essentially political decisions, made in thecontext of adjudicating actual controversies, concerning the extent of judicialenforcement of state constitutional norms. On rare occasions, these proceduralprovisions may result in court decisions invalidating a statute. More importantly,such restrictions make the state legislative process significantly different from,and more rigidly structured than, the federal congressional legislative process.Constitutional Law – Suppl. 34 (October 1999) USA (Sub-national) – 61