Sanders v. Sehorn

Garotjtte, J. This was an application for a writ of mandate brought by appellant, recorder of the county of Glenn, [228]against Sehorn, the auditor of said county, to compel said auditor to draw his warrant in appellant’s favor for the sum of $108.33, as salary for the month of January, 1892. The merits of the litigation are fully disposed of by a determination of the class of counties to which Glenn County belonged in January, 1892. The act of March 11, 1891, conditionally creating the county of Glenn, provided (sec. 14, Stats. 1891, p. 101): “ The officers elected and appointed under the provisions of this act shall each perform the ■ duties and receive the compensation now provided by general law .for the office to which he has been elected or appointed in counties of the class to which the said county of Glenn belongs, under the general classification of counties in this state; and until otherwise provided by law, said county shall be classified as a-county of the thirty-seventh class.”

The power of the legislature to classify counties for the purpose of regulating the compensation of county officers is limited by section 5 of article XI. of the constitution, which section requires such classification to be made according to the population of the various counties. It is apparent that the legislature has no power to arbitrarily place any particular county in any particular class. Classes of counties are arranged according to a graduated scale of population, and when the population of a county is determined by the legislature its classification is arrived at without trouble.

Upon March 11, 1891, when the legislature declared that Glenn County should be a county of the thirty-seventh class, it was but a declaration that Glenn County had a population over 6,500 and under 6,600, for at that time counties of the thirty-seventh class were counties having a population within those limits. According to the County Government Act, the population of the various counties for the purposes of the act were to be determined from the last preceding federal census; but in the case of newly organized counties, especially where the boundary lines of the new county do not follow township lines, such census would not furnish the data contemplated, and for that reason the legislature for' the purposes of classification could well declare the population of Glenn County to be over 6,500 and under 6,600, receiving its information for such declaration [229]