People ex rel. Scearce v. County of Glenn

Citations

• 100 Cal. 419
• 35 P. 302
• 1893 Cal. LEXIS 811

Syllabus

<p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p>