People ex rel. Scearce v. County of Glenn
Before: McFarland
Synopsis
Constitutional Law—Passage op Statutes—Third Reading—Dispensing Resolution.—Under section 15 of article IV of the state constitution, providing that no bill shall “become a law unless the same be read on three separate days in each house, unless, in case of urgency, two-thirds of the house where such bill may be pending shall, by a vote of yeas or nays, dispense with this provision,” a dispensing resolution adopted by a two-thirds vote of the senate, declaring that a number of specified bills “present cases of urgency”; and that the provision of the constitution “requiring that the bill be read on three separate days in each house is hereby dispensed with,” is not objectionable upon the ground that it includes other bills as well as the one brought in question.
Id.—Extent oe Legislative Power.—The constitution does not expressly or impliedly prohibit the senate from exercising its dispensing power with respect to two or more bills by one declaration of its purpose; and the legislature may exercise all legislative power not prohibited to it by the constitution.
Id.-—Consistency of Votes of Senators.—The fact that several of the senators who voted to declare a bill a case of urgency afterwards voted against the bill on its final passage is immaterial, and cannot be considered as indicating that such senators may have voted in the first instance through improper motives.
Id.—Motives of Legislators.—The motives which induce legislative action are not a subject of judicial inquiry, and the legislative act cannot be declared unconstitutional because, in the opinion of a court, it was or might have been the result of improper considerations.
Id.—Act Creating New County—Special Legislation.—An act creating and providing for the organization of a new county is not within the prohibition of the constitution against special and local legislation; and there is no limitation upon the means which may be employed for its preliminary organization.
Id.—Creation of Supervisor Districts.—It is not fatal to an act creating a new county, that it does not itself provide for the division of the proposed county into supervisor districts, but allows five supervisors to be, in the first instance, elected at large, who have power under the general law to divide the counties into districts.
Id.—Special Law Regulating Elections.—Under subdivision 11 of section 25 of article IV of the constitution there may be a special law for holding and conducting an election “on the organization of new counties.”
Id.—Fraud at Election—Pleading.—Attempted allegations of fraud at such an election, which state no facts sufficient to constitute such fraud, are only of conclusions of law, and a special demurrer to such allegations is properly sustained.
McFarland, J. On March 11, 1891, an act of the legislature was approved, entitled “An act to create the county of Glenn, to establish the boundaries thereof, and to provide for its organization” (Stats, of 1891, p. 96); and defendant claims that in pursuance of the [421]provisions of that act the county of Glenn became duly organized. For some time past defendant has been exercising the ordinary functions of a county government, and has been recognized as such by the political and executive departments of the state government. This present proceeding was brought in the superior court, in the name of the people, to have it judicially decreed that said county of Glenn “ is not legally organized and is not a separate county government ”; that it has usurped the franchise of a public corporation, and that it be precluded from exercising the same, etc. To the complaint defendant interposed a demurrer upon general as well as upon many special grounds. The demurrer was sustained; and plaintiffs declining to further amend, judgment was rendered for defendant. Plaintiffs appeal.
The only point presented by appellants at the oral argument, and the main one made in their brief, is that said act providing for the creation of Glenn county was not, before its passage by the state senate, “ read on three several days” in that branch of the legislature, in accordance with the provision of section 15 of article IV of the state constitution; that such provision was not dispensed with by a two-thirds vote of the senate, as may be done under that section; and that, therefore, said act is unconstitutional and void.
The complaint avers that said act—which had been regularly passed in the assembly, and was designated as Assembly Bill No. 185—was not read on three several days before its passage in that body. But the complaint also shows that before its passage in the senate, a resolution was there adopted by a two-thirds vote, by which it was resolved that said act—Assembly Bill No. 185—and also a number of other bills, “ present cases of urgency as that term is used in section 15 of article IV of the constitution, and the provision of that section requiring that the bills shall be read on three several days in each house is hereby dispensed with, and it is ordered,” etc.
[422]
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