Montana Attorney General Opinion 15-74

Opinion No. 74 Constitutional Law-Titles. HEIJD: That Chapter 127, Laws of 11)31, creating a game preserve in Mus- selshell County, is unconstitutional by reason of its defective title in so far as any part of the metes Ilnd bounds description is within Fergus County. Februan' 13, 1933. I have your letter regarding the title to Chapter 127, Laws of 1931. Your question is whether this title violates the prm-isions of section 23 of article V of the Constitution. The title to this act specifically states tha t the pm-pose of the act is to create a game preserve in Musselshell County. Then it describes the boun- daries of the preserve in section 1 of the act, a large portion of which iR contained in Fergus County. :\"0 men- tion is made of Fergus Count~' either in the ,title of the act or in the bodY of the bill. .. Section 23 of Art. Y provides as fol- lows: "No bill, except general appropria- tion bills, and bills for the codifica- tion and genera 1 redsion of the laws. shall be passed containing more than one subject, which shall be clearly ex- pressed in its title; hut if any subject shaH be embraced in any act which shall not be expressed in the title, such nct shall be void only as to so much thereof as shall not be so ex·pressed." The case most nearly in point under the facts you have submitted is that of State ex reI. IhlOt y. Burr, et aI., 73 ~Iont. 586, in which the Court said : "* * * The purposes of this limHa- tion ha\-e been declared so often that any extended disscussion of the sub- ject at this time would be a work of supel·erogMion. Stated briefly, those purposes are to restrict the legislature to the enactment of laws the subjects of which are made known to the law· makers anel to the public, to the end that anyone interested may follow in- 'telligently the course of pending hills; to pre\·ent the lel,rislators and the peo- ple generally being misled by false or deceptive titles, and to guard against the fmud which might result from in- corporating in the hody of a bill pro- 62 OPINIO:\'S OF THE A'l'TOH~EY GE)iEHAL visions foreign to its general pUl1)()Se and concerning which no information is ),';,'en by the title, (Citing cases), "'l'he language of the Constitution is too plain to admit of doubt as to its meaning, It means just what it says: The title of a bill must express clearly the subject treated in the body of the bill. The title' to Chapter 93 is, 'an Act to amend Section 4318 and 4327 of the Revised Codes of the State of Montana 1921, relating to changing the boundaries of Fergus and Judith Basin counties.' As obsen'ed hereto- fore, Section 4X18 defines the bound- aries of Fergus county as they existed on March 5, 1921, but prior to the en- actment of Chapter !)3, Section 4318 had spent its force and was not in effect on March 10, 1925, for by the creation of Petroleum county out of the eastern portion of Fergus county, the boundaries of Fergus county as gh'en in that section had been changed completely. l!'urthermore, throughout Chapter 93 there is not a suggestion that Petroleum county was to be af- fected; no reference is made to the public property belonging to that coun- ty, nor to the obligations which it had incurred and were outstanding. In- deed, Petroleum county is not men- tioned in the entire Act, and a person, even though he be a skilled engineer, not personally familiar \\i>th the loca- tion of the lower Musselshell River and with the location of the township and range lines on the ground, must em- ploy a map and township plans and make a criticaL examination of the de- scription contained in Section 1 of Chapter 93 with reference to the map and plats, in ol'der to ascertain that Petroleum county has heen affected in the least. However, by the use of a map and the plats and by following critically the metes and bounds given in Section 1, it will be found that Petroleum county was completely swal- lowed up,-its entire area included within the boundaries of Fergus coun- ty. Can it be said, then, reasonably, that the title 'An Act to amend Sec- tions 4318 and 4327 of the Revised Codes of the State of Montana 1921, relating to changing the boundaries of Ferb'llS and Judith Basin counties, ex- presses clearly, or at all, a legislath'e llllrpose to abolish Petroleum county? To 8"k the question is to answer it in the negative." 'Vhat was said by the Court hel"e is clearly applicable to Chapter 127, Laws of 1931, and in my opinion the act would he unconstitutional insofar as any part of the metes and bounds description is within Fergus county.