Opinion
November 28, 1950.
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Volusia County, Don Register, J.
Curtis H. Gardiner, Melvin Orfinger, Daytona Beach, C. Winston Smith, New Smyrna Beach, John L. Graham, De Land, and Louis Ossinsky, Daytona Beach, for appellants.
Paul W. Harvey, Daytona Beach, for appellee.
The legislature of 1947 adopted Joint Resolution 885, proposing an amendment to Article VIII of the Constitution of Florida by adding Sections 16 and 17 thereto, F.S.A. Summarized, the proposed amendment requires the Tax Assessor of Volusia County to assess the property of the County for State, County, Municipal, school district, special tax school district or any other purpose for which taxes are imposed. It requires the Tax Collector to collect said taxes. It then requires the legislature at the 1949 session and thereafter to enact laws defining the powers, duties and compensation of the tax assessor and the tax collector with reference to the enforcement of the proposed amendment. It was submitted to and approved by the people at the General Election in 1948.
When the legislature convened in 1949, it enacted Chapter 26473, Special Acts to effectuate the purpose of the amendment, Section 14 of which is as follows: "Section 14. Effective date: referendum — This act shall take effect upon its being approved by a majority of the votes cast in a special election of the qualified electors residing in Volusia County in which said special election at least forty (40) per cent of the qualified electors residing in Volusia County shall participate; such election to be called by the Board of County Commissioners of Volusia County prior to December 1, 1949."
The respondent as complainant seasonably instituted this suit by bill for declaratory decree praying that Section 14 be decreed to be unconstitutional and void and that the other portions of said act be upheld and decreed to be workable. Numerous motions to dismiss, including answers, were filed by defendants, all of which raised substantially the same question. The motion to dismiss on the part of defendant, Town of South Daytona, was denied. This appeal was prosecuted. There was also an appeal by certiorari.
The point for determination is whether or not the legislature had the authority to enact Chapter 26473, Special Acts of 1949, conditioned on its approval at a referendum election as required by Section 14, quoted above.
The chancellor gave a negative answer to this question and we think he was correct. The very purpose of the amendment was to consolidate the various taxing agencies of Volusia County. That issue was squarely before the people when they voted on and approved the amendment. To hold otherwise would be tantamount to holding that the people of Volusia County must now come along and approve or disapprove what the people of the State have authorized. When the people of the State speak through a constitutional amendment, their voice is final and whether they like it or not the legislature, the courts and the executive are bound by it and none of them is authorized to give it the run around in the manner proposed. The voice of the people expressed in the constitution is the supreme law of the land and it rises above that of the legislature, the courts or the executive.
The constitutional amendment in question in clear and unequivocal terms defines the scope of legislative power in executing the amendment. It is limited to specifying the powers, functions, duties and compensation of the Tax Assessor and the Tax Collector with reference to assessing and collecting the taxes, including the care, custody, reporting and disbursing the same. Such was the extent of legislative power and when it attempted more, it transcended the power designated for it by the people. Coleman v. State ex rel. Race, 118 Fla. 201, 159 So. 504; State ex rel. Ellars v. Board of County Commissioners, 147 Fla. 278, 3 So.2d 360; Louis K. Liggett Co. v. Lee, 109 Fla. 477, 147 So. 463, 149 So. 8.
The chancellor also found and decreed that Chapter 26473, was reasonable, workable and binding on the Tax Assessor, the Tax Collector and all others whose duties and rights are affected by it, that Section 14 may be eliminated and the rest of the act be workable without it. We think he was right in so holding and being so, it becomes unnecessary to treat other questions proposed.
Affirmed.
ADAMS, C.J., and CHAPMAN, THOMAS, HOBSON and ROBERTS, JJ., concur.
SEBRING, J., not participating because of illness.