School bus subsidy legality defended

It is still “the law of the land” that states may use public funds to transport students attending private as well as public schools, a 68-page memorandum set forth yesterday.

The memorandum was filed in Circuit Court by the State Attorney General’s office, in reply to contentions by six taxpayers that such subsidies are unconstitutional.

The State-wide bus subsidy plan took effect Wednesday.

“ … Only last month,” the attorney general pointed out, “the United States Supreme Court refused to review … a Pennsylvania case which upheld the constitutionality of a State statute provideing transportation to private school students.”

By declining to review the case, the attorney general said, the high court reaffirmed a stand taken in 1947 that it was not unconstitutional to spend public moneys to transport public and private school students.

The 1947 decision, in Everson v. United States, ahs never been overruled by the high court.

“Everson is still the law of the land and the theories expounded therin are applicable” to the Hawaii case, the attorney general said.

The lengthy memo was prepared by Atty. Gen. Bert T. Kobayashi and Deputy Atty. Gen. Kenneth K. Saruwatari and Roy Y. Takeyama.

The plaintiffs, represented by attorney Donald A. Beck, will have 10 days to answer yesterday’s memo.

After that, the attorney general will have 10 days to submit its answer to plaintiff’s reply brief.

A date will be set later when Circuit Judge Herman T.F. Lum, who presided over the non-jury trial of the case early last month, will hear oral arguments on the case.

The attorney general said in its memo that State laws and rules providing for the subsidy “are valid exercises of the police power of the State in furtherance of the health, safety and welfare of the children and facilitate compliance with the Compulsory Attendance Law.

“The plaintiffs, neither by their arguments and evidence in the record nor by citation of authorities, have demonstrated any violation whatsoever of the Federal and State Constitutions.”