251 P. 207 | Cal. | 1926
Lead Opinion
The petitioners herein apply to this court for the issuance of a writ of mandate to be directed to the defendant Ray L. Riley, as Controller, and to Charles G. Johnson, as Treasurer, of the state of California, commanding each of these state officials to severally do and perform certain acts as set forth in said application. The official acts thus sought to be compelled are such, according to the averments of the petitioners, as have arisen in the course and as the result of a long and involved series of events which have attended the history and development of that vast project having for its purpose the reclamation and flood control of the region lying along the course of the Sacramento River and which has become known as “Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6.” The details of the legislative and judicial history of that project have been already several times set forth in recent decisions by this court and need not be again reviewed for the purposes of the instant case. (Sacramento & San Joaquin Drainage Dist. v. Johnson, 192 Cal. 211 [219 Pac. 442] ; Sacramento & San Joaquin Drainage Dist. v. Riley, 194 Cal. 624 [229 Pac. 957].) The petitioners here are “The Reclamation Board of the State of California,” and Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District, a state agency under the management and control of said Reclamation Board. The petitioners, after setting forth the progress of the plans for reclamation and flood, control
“That for purposes of co-operation in the construction of the public works included in and provided for by the Reclamation Board in said ‘ Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6,’ the state of California did by an act approved May 27th, 1919, and which became effective July 27th, 1919 (Stats. 1919, c. 556), appropriate out of any moneys in the state treasury not otherwise appropriated for the benefit of the Sacramento and San Jo an quin Drainage District in connection with said ‘Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6’ the sum of $3,000,000.00 ‘to bo applied as it is now or may hereafter be provided by law by the said Reclamation Board in connection with said Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6 of the said Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District. ’ ”
The appropriation of $3,000,000 provided for in the foregoing act was to be payable in certain annual installments of $300,000, extending over a period of ten years, commencing on July 1, 1921, and to be payable on the first day of July during said successive years down to and including the year 1930. The petitioners allege that there is at present in the state treasury the sum of $590,920.92 derived from such appropriation and from the last two installments which have become available therefrom in pursuance of said act, which said sum of money the petitioners assert the Reclamation Board is presently entitled to have deposited to its credit in the state treasury and in a certain special fund therein and to be thus made available to said Board for the purpose to which the successive installments of said appropriation were to he applied under the terms of the act making such appropriation. The act of 1919 above referred to expressly provided both by its title and by the terms of section 1 thereof that the purpose of the state in making said appropriation of $3,000,000 was that of “co-operation in the construction of the public
It would appear from the foregoing provisions of said appropriation act that it is the present duty of the state Controller to draw and deliver to the Reclamation Board his warrant in favor of said Board for such sums as have been made available for the uses of said Board by virtue of the fact that the installments of said total appropriation for the fiscal years 1925 and 1926 have become payable. It is not denied that the sum of $590,920.92, being approximately the aggregate of these two installments, is presently available in the state treasury. . We can, therefore, see no reason wh;r the state Controller should not be required to draw his warrant for such aggregate sum in
Thus far we can see no objection to granting this writ, but when we look to the further purposes for which the petitioners seek to have a writ of mandate issue herein we are confronted with a more serious situation. The petitioners in substance aver that as the result of operations carried on in the course of the work of reclamation and flood control by said Reclamation Board for the benefit of said Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District with special reference to Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6 prior to July 27, 1913, there were issued and are now outstanding and unpaid warrants drawn against Sutter-Butte By-Pass Assessment No. 6 in the sum of $1,390,509.59 principal, upon which the interest accrued prior to February 6, 1926, amounts to the sum of $716,747.91; that subsequent to July 27, 1919, in pursuance of the further prosecution of said work warrants against said Sutter-Butte By-Pass Assessment No. 6 have been issued by said Reclamation Board in the further sum of $7,475,375.22 principal, upon which sum interest up to February 4, 1926, had accrued in the sum of $1,921,607.62; that the authorized bonds of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District which are based upon and are secured by Sutter-Butte By-Pass Assessment No. 6 amount to the sum of $7,133,000 and that said bonds to the extent of said last named sum remain unsold; that the owners and holders of certain of the earliest registered unpaid warrants issued prior to July 27, 1919, are desirous of purchasing the said bonds of said Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District at par to an amount which would be redeemable through the use of the said sum of $590,920.92 available out of the installments which have become payable during the years 1925 and 1926 on account of said appropriation, provided said bonds so purchased by them to that amount are forthwith redeemed by such use of said moneys; that the petitioners herein have approved said plan and proposition on the part of said warrant-holders and have accordingly adopted a resolution
The foregoing averments of the petitioners suggest a number of interesting problems, but we seriously question whether they present an aspect of the situation with which this court is either required or permitted presently to deal. Section 4 of the Appropriation Act of 1919, after providing for the amounts and times of payment of the annual installments on account of said appropriation proceeds to state that “all of said sums shall be applied by the Reclamation Board in the manner as provided by section one of this act.” Section 1 provides that said appropriation is “to be applied as it is now or may hereafter be provided by law by the Reclamation Board in connection with said Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6 of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District.” The appropriation act of 1919 was adopted by the legislature of that year contemporaneously with two other acts having application to the affairs of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District. This béing so, these three acts are for purposes ' of interpretation to be read together. (Sacramento etc. Drainage Dist. v. Johnson, 192 Cal. 211-218 [219 Pac. 442].) The first of said acts to be considered is the act approved May 27, 1919 (Stats. 1919, p. 1122), purporting to
It will thus be apparent from a consideration of the foregoing provisions of these several acts as they existed prior to the year 1923 that a precise statutory mode of procedure had been designated for the provision of the funds required to pay the cost of the work done in the way of reclamation and flood control within said Drainage District. It requires no authority to sustain the proposition that the mode thus provided is the measure of the powers and duties of those state agencies and officials who are charged with the prosecution of said work and with the disposition of the funds derived from the fore- ' going several sources in payment of the cost of such work and of the outstanding warrants which evidence such cost. It is to be noted at this point in the discussion that section 34, which was added to the Beclamation Board Act in the year 1919, was amended in the year 1923 by the adoption, as an emergency measure, of an act (Stats. 1923, p. 640), which had for its purpose, as expressly set forth therein, the making available of certain moneys which had come into the state treasury since the year 1919 from the receipt of certain installments payable and paid under the provisions of the said appropriation act of that year, in order to carry forward the constructive work upon Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6, The provisions of said amendment to said section 34, as adopted in the year 1919, were the subject of comment and construction by this court in the two cases of Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage Dist. v. Johnson, 192 Cal. 211 [219 Pac. 442], and Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage Dist. v. Riley,
It follows from what has heretofore been stated in this opinion that the petitioners herein are entitled to the issuance of a writ of mandate directing the respondent herein Ray L. Riley, as state Controller, to forthwith draw his warrant or warrants in favor of the petitioner Reclamation Board in the sum of $590,920.92, and further directing the respondent Charles G. Johnson, as state Treasurer, upon the due presentation of said warrant or warrants to deposit said sum of $590,920.92 in the state treasury to be held as a special fund for the redemption of bonds based upon and secured by Sutter-Butte By-Pass Assessment No. 6; but that said petitioners are entitled to no other and further relief upon the facts as set forth in their petition herein.
Let a writ of mandate accordingly issue.
Shenk, J., Curtis, J., Seawell, J.s and Waste, C. J., concurred.
Rehearing
A rehearing was granted here upon the request and stipulation of the respective parties hereto in order that the court might consider and determine a further question not presented upon the former record, but which seems to be embraced in the additional considerations set forth in said stipulation. The question thus presented is this: Had the legislature the power by and under the several acts of 1919 to provide for an appropriation of public money to be -applied to the redemption of bonds issued or to be issued under said acts when the proceeds from the sale of such bonds had been or were to be devoted to the payment of outstanding warrants issued prior to July 27, 1919, the date of said enactments, and which warrants had been issued in the prosecution of the work of reclamation and flood control undertaken in pursuance of the Reclamation Act of 1911 and of the amendments thereto made prior to the year 1919? It is the contention of the respondents herein that any application which the Reclamation Board might make or attempt to make of the installment or installments which would come under its control by virtue of our decision herein, to the redemption of bonds the proceeds of the sale of which had been or were to be applied to the payment of warrants issued on account of construction work done by such Drainage District prior to the year 1919, and to the date of approval of said appropriation act, would be void as in violation of sections 31 and 32 of article IV of the Constitution relating to gifts of public money.
We are unable to agree with this contention. The work of reclamation and flood control in that important and extensive region which is embraced within the boundaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District is and from its earliest inception has been considered to be essentially a public project undertaken by the state of California in its interest and in the interest of its people at large. It was so regarded by the state in its action approving the report of the California Debris Commission in the year 1911 and by the act of its legislature of that year (Stats. 1911, Ex. Sess., p. 117). It was expressly declared to be such by the enactment of the legislature of the following year amending said former act (Stats. 1913, sec. 7, p. 252-266), wherein it was stated that, “The state of California
With the foregoing considerations in mind we shall briefly review the salient facts in relation to the progress and cost of the work of reclamation and flood control within the Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District between the years 1913 and 1919 inclusive. By the act of 1911 (Stats. 1911, Ex. Sess., p. 117), the Reclamation Board, conformably to the report of the California Debris Commission, approved by said act, was created and its powers in the way of control over all plans and work for the reclamation and flood control along or near the Sacramento River and its tributaries were generally declared and defined. By the act of 1913 amending and amplifying said former act the drainage district to be known as Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District was created, its boundaries defined and its potvers, and procedure under the direction and control of the Reclamation Board outlined. By the terms of said act the
This being so, and it having been already determined that in view of the essentially public nature of said project the state of California might properly have undertaken to pay the entire cost of its prosecution at the time of its inception, we are brought face to face with the proposition as to whether the state might not also at any stage in the prosecution of said public work undertake to assume and bear such portion of the burden as it might see fit through appropriate legislative action, notwithstanding the fact that it might for the time being have laid that burden upon others; that is to say, upon the land owners of said district, by whom it was reluctantly or indifferently being borne, with the .effect of delaying or endangering the success
The former opinion of this court is hereby reaffimed.
We do not deem it necessary to extend the compulsions of the writ of mandate, at this stage of the instant proceeding, any further than that already indicated in the main opinion.
Let a writ accordingly issue.
Lead Opinion
[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *670
[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *671
[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *672
The petitioners herein apply to this court for the issuance of a writ of mandate to be directed to the defendant Ray L. Riley, as Controller, and to Charles G. Johnson, as Treasurer, of the state of California, commanding each of these state officials to severally do and perform certain acts as set forth in said application. The official acts thus sought to be compelled are such, according to the averments of the petitioners, as have arisen in the course and as the result of a long and involved series of events which have attended the history and development of that vast project having for its purpose the reclamation and flood control of the region lying along the course of the Sacramento River and which has become known as "Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6." The details of the legislative and judicial history of that project have been already several times set forth in recent decisions by this court and need not be again reviewed for the purposes of the instant case. (Sacramento SanJoaquin Drainage Dist. v. Johnson,
"That for purposes of co-operation in the construction of the public works included in and provided for by the Reclamation Board in said `Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6,' the state of California did by an act approved May 27th, 1919, and which became effective July 27th, 1919 (Stats. 1919, c. 556), appropriate out of any moneys in the state treasury not otherwise appropriated for the benefit of the Sacramento and San Joanquin Drainage District in connection with said `Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6' the sum of $3,000,000.00 `to be applied as it is now or may hereafter be provided by law by the said Reclamation Board in connection with said Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6 of the said Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District.'"
The appropriation of $3,000,000 provided for in the foregoing act was to be payable in certain annual installments of $300,000, extending over a period of ten years, commencing on July 1, 1921, and to be payable on the first day of July during said successive years down to and including the year 1930. The petitioners allege that there is at present in the state treasury the sum of $590,920.92 derived from such appropriation and from the last two installments which have become available therefrom in pursuance of said act, which said sum of money the petitioners assert the Reclamation Board is presently entitled to have deposited to its credit in the state treasury and in a certain special fund therein and to be thus made available to said Board for the purpose to which the successive installments of said appropriation were to be applied under the terms of the act making such appropriation. The act of 1919 above referred to expressly provided both by its title and by the terms of section 1 thereof that the purpose of the state in making said appropriation of $3,000,000 was that of "co-operation in the construction of the public *674 works included in and provided for by that certain project heretofore adopted by the Reclamation Board known as `Sutter-Butte By-Pass No. 6 of Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District.'" The act further provided in section 4 thereof that, "The controller of the State of California shall . . . during the fiscal year commencing on the first day of July, 1925, draw his warrant in favor of said Reclamation Board for the sum of three hundred thousand dollars; and shall . . . during the fiscal year 1926, commencing on the 1st day of July, 1926, draw his warrant in favor of said Reclamation Board for the sum of three hundred thousand dollars." The act further and in the same section provides that, "The treasurer of the State of California is hereby directed to pay each of said warrants out of any moneys in the State treasury not otherwise appropriated. All of said sums shall be applied by the Reclamation Board in the manner as provided by section 1 of this act." Recurring to section 1 of said act we find that the closing clause thereof reads as follows: "There is hereby appropriated the sum hereinafter set forth out of any moneys in the State treasury, not otherwise appropriated, to be paid to the said Reclamation Board, for the benefit of the said Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District, in connection with the Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6, or any modifications or amendments thereof that may hereafter be made, in accordance with law, the same to be applied as it is now or may hereafter be provided by law by the said Reclamation Board, in connection with said Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6 of the said Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District."
It would appear from the foregoing provisions of said appropriation act that it is the present duty of the state Controller to draw and deliver to the Reclamation Board his warrant in favor of said Board for such sums as have been made available for the uses of said Board by virtue of the fact that the installments of said total appropriation for the fiscal years 1925 and 1926 have become payable. It is not denied that the sum of $590,920.92, being approximately the aggregate of these two installments, is presently available in the state treasury. We can, therefore, see no reason why the state Controller should not be required to draw his warrant for such aggregate sum in *675 favor of the Reclamation Board; nor can we discover any valid reason why the state Treasurer should not be directed to pay said warrant out of such available funds, the same to be applied by the Reclamation Board in the manner provided by the last above-quoted provision of section 1 of said appropriation act.
Thus far we can see no objection to granting this writ, but when we look to the further purposes for which the petitioners seek to have a writ of mandate issue herein we are confronted with a more serious situation. The petitioners in substance aver that as the result of operations carried on in the course of the work of reclamation and flood control by said Reclamation Board for the benefit of said Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District with special reference to Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6 prior to July 27, 1919, there were issued and are now outstanding and unpaid warrants drawn against Sutter-Butte By-Pass Assessment No. 6 in the sum of $1,390,509.59 principal, upon which the interest accrued prior to February 6, 1926, amounts to the sum of $716,747.91; that subsequent to July 27, 1919, in pursuance of the further prosecution of said work warrants against said Sutter-Butte By-Pass Assessment No. 6 have been issued by said Reclamation Board in the further sum of $7,475,375.22 principal, upon which sum interest up to February 4, 1926, had accrued in the sum of $1,921,607.62; that the authorized bonds of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District which are based upon and are secured by Sutter-Butte By-Pass Assessment No. 6 amount to the sum of $7,133,000 and that said bonds to the extent of said last named sum remain unsold; that the owners and holders of certain of the earliest registered unpaid warrants issued prior to July 27, 1919, are desirous of purchasing the said bonds of said Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District at par to an amount which would be redeemable through the use of the said sum of $590,920.92 available out of the installments which have become payable during the years 1925 and 1926 on account of said appropriation, provided said bonds so purchased by them to that amount are forthwith redeemed by such use of said moneys; that the petitioners herein have approved said plan and proposition on the part of said warrant-holders and have accordingly adopted a resolution *676 so providing, in which resolution it is further provided that the Controller of the state of California be and is hereby directed to immediately draw his warrant or warrants in favor of said Reclamation Board in the sum of $590,920.92, and that the Treasurer of the state of California be and he is thereby directed to pay said warrant or warrants out of any money in the state treasury not otherwise appropriated and that thereupon said money shall be deposited with the state Treasurer as a special fund for the redemption of such bonds; and that when said bonds have been sold as aforesaid that the state Controller be and he is thereby directed to authorize the state Treasurer, and the state Treasurer be and is thereby directed to place the money derived from the sale of said bonds, less certain expenses of sale, to the credit of the construction fund of said assessment as provided in section 40 of the Bonding Act (Stats. 1919, p. 1092), and that said state Treasurer be and he is thereby further directed to pay warrants payable out of said fund in the order of their registration.
The foregoing averments of the petitioners suggest a number of interesting problems, but we seriously question whether they present an aspect of the situation with which this court is either required or permitted presently to deal. Section 4 of the Appropriation Act of 1919, after providing for the amounts and times of payment of the annual installments on account of said appropriation proceeds to state that "all of said sums shall be applied by the Reclamation Board in the manner as provided by section one of this act." Section 1 provides that said appropriation is "to be applied as it is now or may hereafter be provided by law by the Reclamation Board in connection with said Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6 of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District." The appropriation act of 1919 was adopted by the legislature of that year contemporaneously with two other acts having application to the affairs of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District. This being so, these three acts are for purposes of interpretation to be read together. (Sacramento etc. Drainage Dist. v. Johnson,
It will thus be apparent from a consideration of the foregoing provisions of these several acts as they existed prior to the year 1923 that a precise statutory mode of procedure had been designated for the provision of the funds required to pay the cost of the work done in the way of reclamation and flood control within said Drainage District. It requires no authority to sustain the proposition that the mode thus provided is the measure of the powers and duties of those state agencies and officials who are charged with the prosecution of said work and with the disposition of the funds derived from the foregoing several sources in payment of the cost of such work and of the outstanding warrants which evidence such cost. It is to be noted at this point in the discussion that section 34, which was added to the Reclamation Board Act in the year 1919, was amended in the year 1923 by the adoption, as an emergency measure, of an act (Stats. 1923, p. 640), which had for its purpose, as expressly set forth therein, the making available of certain moneys which had come into the state treasury since the year 1919 from the receipt of certain installments payable and paid under the provisions of the said appropriation act of that year, in order to carry forward the constructive work upon Sutter-Butte By-Pass Project No. 6. The provisions of said amendment to said section 34, as adopted in the year 1919, were the subject of comment and construction by this court in the two cases of Sacramento andSan Joaquin Drainage Dist. v. Johnson,
It follows from what has heretofore been stated in this opinion that the petitioners herein are entitled to the issuance of a writ of mandate directing the respondent herein Ray L. Riley, as state Controller, to forthwith draw his warrant or warrants in favor of the petitioner Reclamation Board in the sum of $590,920.92, and further directing the respondent Charles G. Johnson, as state Treasurer, upon the due presentation of said warrant or warrants to deposit said sum of $590,920.92 in the state treasury to be held as a special fund for the redemption of bonds based upon and secured by Sutter-Butte By-Pass Assessment No. 6; but that said petitioners are entitled to no other and further relief upon the facts as set forth in their petition herein.
Let a writ of mandate accordingly issue.
Shenk, J., Curtis, J., Seawell, J., and Waste, C.J., concurred. *685
THE COURT.
A rehearing was granted here upon the request and stipulation of the respective parties hereto in order that the court might consider and determine a further question not presented upon the former record, but which seems to be embraced in the additional considerations set forth in said stipulation. The question thus presented is this: Had the legislature the power by and under the several acts of 1919 to provide for an appropriation of public money to be applied to the redemption of bonds issued or to be issued under said acts when the proceeds from the sale of such bonds had been or were to be devoted to the payment of outstanding warrants issued prior to July 27, 1919, the date of said enactments, and which warrants had been issued in the prosecution of the work of reclamation and flood control undertaken in pursuance of the Reclamation Act of 1911 and of the amendments thereto made prior to the year 1919? It is the contention of the respondents herein that any application which the Reclamation Board might make or attempt to make of the installment or installments which would come under its control by virtue of our decision herein, to the redemption of bonds the proceeds of the sale of which had been or were to be applied to the payment of warrants issued on account of construction work done by such Drainage District prior to the year 1919, and to the date of approval of said appropriation act, would be void as in violation of sections 31 and 32 of article IV of the Constitution relating to gifts of public money.
We are unable to agree with this contention. The work of reclamation and flood control in that important and extensive region which is embraced within the boundaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District is and from its earliest inception has been considered to be essentially a public project undertaken by the state of California in its interest and in the interest of its people at large. It was so regarded by the state in its action approving the report of the California Debris Commission in the year 1911 and by the act of its legislature of that year (Stats. 1911, Ex. Sess., p. 117). It was expressly declared to be such by the enactment of the legislature of the following year amending said former act (Stats. 1913, sec. 7, p. 252-266), wherein it was stated that, "The state of California *686
and the people thereof are hereby declared to have a primary and supreme interest in having erected, maintained and protected on the banks of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their tributaries and the by-passes and overflow channels mentioned herein, good and sufficient levees and embankments or other works of reclamation, adequately protecting the lands overflowed by said streams, and confining the waters of said rivers, tributaries, by-passes and overflow channels within their respective channels, and it shall be the duty of the Reclamation Board at all times to enforce on behalf of the state of California and the people thereof the erection, maintenance and protection of such levees, embankments and channel rectification as will, in their judgment, best serve the interests of the state of California." The foregoing declaration on the part of the legislature as to the public nature of the work of reclamation and flood control which had been and was to be undertaken and carried forward to completion was in entire harmony with the conclusion which had been already reached and declared by this court as to the essentially public nature of such work in that region in the case of People v. Sacramento Drainage District,
With the foregoing considerations in mind we shall briefly review the salient facts in relation to the progress and cost of the work of reclamation and flood control within the Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District between the years 1913 and 1919 inclusive. By the act of 1911 (Stats. 1911, Ex. Sess., p. 117), the Reclamation Board, conformably to the report of the California Debris Commission, approved by said act, was created and its powers in the way of control over all plans and work for the reclamation and flood control along or near the Sacramento River and its tributaries were generally declared and defined. By the act of 1913 amending and amplifying said former act the drainage district to be known as Sacramento and San Joaquin Drainage District was created, its boundaries defined and its powers, and procedure under the direction and control of the Reclamation Board outlined. By the terms of said act the *689
Reclamation Board was invested with large powers in the way of acquiring lands, levees, easements and all such other property or material requisite or necessary for by-passes, canals, overflow channels, embankments and such other purposes as would be needful in the execution of the general project of reclamation and flood control within said district. The board was also empowered to levy an assessment or assessments upon the lands within said district for the provision of money needed for the carrying out of the foregoing purposes; which money when collected by the methods provided for in said act, together with all other moneys received from any source, was to be deposited with the state Treasurer in a fund which was thereby created to be known as the "Sacramento and San Joaquin District Fund"; and was to be paid out upon warrants to be drawn by the state Controller upon said fund upon the presentation to him of drafts of the Reclamation Board for construction work. In case there was not sufficient funds on hand for the payment of such warrants the state Treasurer was to indorse thereon the date of presentation and register the same; and such warrants were to draw interest thereafter at the rate of seven per cent per annum and were eventually to be paid in the order of their registration. The sum of $100,000 was appropriated for the use of the Reclamation Board, one-half of which was to be repaid the state out of the moneys received from the assessment levied and collected; and, as we have seen, the responsibility of the state for the work done or the liabilities incurred by the district in excess of the amount of said appropriation was limited thereto. The work of reclamation and flood control went forward under the provisions of said act and also of the act of 1915 amendatory thereof, wherein in section 7 thereof (Stats. 1915, pp. 1338-1340) it was again expressly declared that the state of California and the people thereof "have a primary and supreme interest" in the work of reclamation and flood control conceived and being carried forward along the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and their tributaries and the lands subject to overflow by said streams. By the terms of section 20 of said act of 1915 the sum of $50,000, which by the terms of the act of 1913 was to be repaid into the state treasury, was reappropriated for the use of the Reclamation Board in the form of a continuing revolving fund, was to be *690
used by the Reclamation Board from time to time for any purpose for which the funds of said board or of said district, "whether raised by assessment or otherwise provided may be lawfully used." In the meantime the preliminary details for the levy and collection of an assessment for the purpose of providing the funds required for the prosecution of the work of reclamation and flood control were being worked out by the Reclamation Board under many difficulties arising out of the magnitude of the undertaking and the involved and often conflicting rights of those interested in and to be primarily burdened thereby. The resultant delays and impediments in the course of determining the amount of the assessment and the proper distribution of its burdens necessarily resulted in the present depletion of the meager funds which had already been provided during the initial stages of the project to such an extent that by the beginning of the year 1919 the registered and outstanding warrants drawn against said fund amounted to the sum of $1,340,358.47 with accrued interest. In the meantime the amount of the assessment, which had, after various amendments, been fixed at the sum of approximately $10,600,000, but which was subject to still further changes, remained uncollected except as to a small portion thereof, and was being impeded as to its levy and collection by litigation in various forms. Such was the condition of the project of reclamation and flood control within said district with which the legislature of 1919 was confronted. It was abundantly apparent that the state of California must provide remedial legislation of some sort in aid of its imperiled project of reclamation and flood control. The legislature of 1919 accordingly adopted the three contemporaneous acts of that year, the nature, object and interpretation of which have been set forth in detail by this court in the case of Sacramento SanJoaquin Drainage District, etc., v. Johnson,
This being so, and it having been already determined that in view of the essentially public nature of said project the state of California might properly have undertaken to pay the entire cost of its prosecution at the time of its inception, we are brought face to face with the proposition as to whether the state might not also at any stage in the prosecution of said public work undertake to assume and bear such portion of the burden as it might see fit through appropriate legislative action, notwithstanding the fact that it might for the time being have laid that burden upon others; that is to say, upon the land owners of said district, by whom it was reluctantly or indifferently being borne, with the effect of delaying or endangering the successful *693
consummation of the project itself. We entertain no doubt that the state in its sovereign capacity had power so to do and that in so doing to the extent of its appropriation of $3,000,000 made by the enactment of 1919, or of so much as may become available to the uses of the Reclamation Board, as the installments thereof fall due, unless otherwise diverted under the terms of said act, the state legislature would not be violating the constitutional inhibition against gifts of public money. In the case of City ofOakland v. Garrison,
The former opinion of this court is hereby reaffimed.
We do not deem it necessary to extend the compulsions of the writ of mandate, at this stage of the instant proceeding, any further than that already indicated in the main opinion.
Let a writ accordingly issue.
