Opinion No. 66-137
December 15, 1966
TO: Mr. David McNeill, Registrar, Contractors' License Board, P. O. Box 580, Santa Fe, New Mexico
QUESTION
QUESTION
Did the 1965 Legislature repeal that portion of Section 67-16-5 (C), N.M.S.A., 1953 Compilation, which reads:
"Provided, however, that the board may issue a license at any regular or special meeting, to specialty contractors, without regard to residence qualifications, whenever a showing is made that there are less than ten (10) contractors operating in the state licensed to do the type of specialty contracting involved in a particular application."
CONCLUSION
This portion of the statute was amended out by the 1965 enactment and therefore the Contractors' License Board has no legal authority to grant specialty contractors' licenses.
OPINION
{*180} ANALYSIS
In 1965 the New Mexico Legislature Chapter 290, Section 4, Session Laws 1965, amended the above cited section of the Contractors' License Law. The amendment included the revision and rewriting of Subsection (C) of Section 67-16-5, supra, which is presented for your examination and quoted in its entirety as follows:
"Section 67-16-5 C. No license {*181} shall be issued to a corporation which has not complied with the laws of this state requiring qualifications to do business in New Mexico, nor to any corporation which has not been in existence in the state for at least ninety days preceding the making of an application for a license, and no license shall be issued to any person, corporation or business association that has not been resident in the state for ninety days, unless the person, corporation or business association has been located in the state for at least ninety days next preceding the filing of an application for license."
A reading of the above clearly discloses that the portion of the statute relating to specialty contractors, set forth in your question was left out of this 1965 amendment. Therefore this amendment operates to repeal all of the section not embraced in the amended form. 1 Southerland, Statutory Construction 442 (2d ed. 1904). Thus under the present law the Contractors' License Board has no authority to grant specialty contractors' licenses.