Honorable Gifford Pinchot
AGO 30
Opinion No. 30
Pennsylvania Attorney General Opinions
Opinions of The Attorney General
October 27, 1931
Unemployed—Constitutionality of Legislative Enactment for Relief of—Appropriations—Art. III, 800. 18 of the Constitution.
The Legislature cannot make appropriations for the payment of money the furnishing of food, clothing and shelter to unemployed persons and their families either directly or through a State agency or to political subdivisions of the State.
The Legislature cannot, without violating the Constitution, make appropriations for unemployment relief to any charitable corporation or association. Art. III, Sec. 18 of the Constitution.
Honorable Gifford Pinchot, Governor of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Sir: You have asked to be advised what measures the Legislature of Pennsylvania may take under our Constitution to relieve the distress resulting from unemployment during the forthcoming winter. Specifically, you wish to know:
First: "Whether the Legislature can make appropriations for the payment of money or the furnishing of food, clothing and shelter to unemployed persons and their families;
Second: Whether the Legislature can make an appropriation to a State agency for these purposes;
Third: Whether the Legislature can appropriate money to political subdivisions of the State for these purposes; and,
Fourth: Whether the Legislature can make appropriations to incorporated or unincorporated welfare agencies, the money to be used for these purposes.
The constitutional provision which immediately comes to mind in considering the Legislature's ability to appropriate money for unemployment relief is Article III, Section 18, which reads as follows:
"No appropriations, except for pensions or gratuities for military services, shall be made for charitable, educational or benevolent purposes, to any person or community, nor to any denominational or sectarian institution, corporation or association."
In
Busser et al. Snyder, 282 Pa. 440 (1925) the Supreme Court held that this section had been violated in the passage of the "Old Age Pension Act" of May 10, 1923, P. L. 189.
The Act created an Old Age Assistance Commission and county old age assistance boards which were to administer its provisions. It provided that assistance might be granted only to persons seventy years of age or upwards who had been residents of the United States and of this Commonwealth for certain periods prior to their application for aid, who had no children or other persons responsible for their support and able to support them, who had property of the value of less than three thousand dollars ($3,000), and who had an income of less than one dollar ($1.00) per day. The amount of assistance was to be such that when added to the income of the applicant from all other sources it would not exceed a total of one dollar ($1.00) a day.
In attempting to sustain the Act, the Attorney General sought to have the Court take the view that the words "person" and "community" as used in Article III, Section 18, of the Constitution have a...
