## Facts

- The Illinois General Assembly passed three bills (later Public Acts 77-1656, 77-1657, and 77-1658) providing financial assistance related to nonpublic school education.
- The Governor returned each bill under the Illinois Constitution’s amendatory-veto provision with “specific recommendations for change,” recommending that each title be amended and that all text after the enacting clause be struck and replaced with entirely new text.
- The Senate and House each voted to accept the Governor’s recommendations, and the Governor certified that the acceptances conformed to his recommendations.
- Lawrence E. Klinger, on relation of the People of the State of Illinois, filed an original petition for mandamus in the Illinois Supreme Court to compel the Auditor of Public Accounts to process vouchers and issue warrants under the three acts.
- The Auditor refused, asserting that the acts were invalid and raising multiple constitutional objections.
- After briefing and argument, the court requested supplemental memoranda on a threshold question: whether the three acts were “presently in effect.”

## Issues

1. Whether mandamus could issue to compel the Auditor to process vouchers and issue warrants under the three acts if the acts were not yet effective law at the time relief was sought.
2. Whether the court should decide constitutional challenges (including the scope of the amendatory veto and religion-clause objections to nonpublic-school assistance) if the case could be resolved on non-constitutional grounds.

## Decision

- The Illinois Supreme Court denied the writ of mandamus.
- The court held the challenged enactments were not “presently in effect” when the petition was filed, so the Auditor had no present duty to issue warrants under them.
- Because the absence of an effective statute resolved the case, the court declined to reach the asserted constitutional questions.

## Legal Principles

- Mandamus will not lie unless the respondent has a clear, present, ministerial duty imposed by operative law.
- If legislation is not yet effective, it cannot supply the present legal duty necessary to support mandamus.
- Courts avoid deciding constitutional questions when the dispute can be decided on a threshold, non-constitutional ground (such as whether a statute is in force).

## Conclusion

The court denied mandamus because the statutes relied upon were not yet effective at the time relief was sought, leaving the Auditor with no clear present duty; accordingly, the court did not address challenges to the amendatory veto or the constitutionality of nonpublic-school financial assistance.


People ex rel. Klinger v. Howlett, 50 Ill. 2d 242, 278 N.E.2d 84 (Ill. 1972)