Burritt v. Commissioners of State Contracts

Citations

• 120 Ill. 322
• 11 N.E. 180

Syllabus

<p>1. Joint resolution of the two houses of the General Assembly—as having the force of law—diverting appropriations from their appointed purpose. Under our constitution, the style of all laws must be, “Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly. ” And no act passed shall embrace more than one subject, and that must be expressed in the title.</p> <p>2. Every bill for an act must be read at large on three different days in each house, and printed before the final vote thereon, and can not become a law without the concurrence of a majority of the members elected to each house, and the vote must be taken by yeas and nays, on each bill separately, and after such passage every such bill must be signed by the Speaker of each house, and be presented to the Governor for his approval. These constitutional requirements are mandatory, and operate as limitations on the power of the legislature as to the mode in which laws shall be enacted.</p> <p>3. But a joint resolution passed and adopted by both branches of the legislature, which commences, “Besolved by the Senate, the House of Bepresentatives concurring herein, that, ” etc., providing for the purchase of books, etc., and has no title or enacting clause, and is not signed by the Speaker of either house, and is wanting in the, other essentials to a valid enactment as prescribed in the constitution, is not a law of the State, neither has it the force and effect of a law.</p> <p>4. The legislature is prohibited by the constitution from diverting to other uses, by joint resolution, appropriations made by law for specified purposes. Legislative appropriations for one purpose, or for two specific purposes, can not be applied to any other purpose whatever.</p> <p>5. Nor can the legislature, in the absence of an appropriation for that purl pose, provide by a joint resolution for the purchase of articles, whereby an indebtedness on the part of the State will be incurred, except when such