3. In what cases has the District Court jurisdiction? The Circuit Court? The Circuit Court of Appeals? The Supreme Court? 4. What is the effect of declaring a statute to be unconstitutional? 5. What four kinds of laws must be considered by every judge? 6. What are the reasons given by Marshall to sustain the power of the Supreme Court, to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional? 7. What has been the result of Marshall's decision? 8. In what relation does the Supreme Court stand to the people? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 1. Give an account of two famous decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. 2. If Congress should pass a law that the people wanted and the Supreme Court should set the law aside, what remedy have the people? 3. Explain each of the following checks and balances mentioned by John Adams: 1 (1) The House of Representatives is balanced against the Senate (5) The people are balanced against their representatives by bien- (6) The legislature of the several States are balanced against the Senate by sextennial elections. (7) The electors [presidential] are balanced against the people in the choice of president. (?) Topics for Special Work.-The Workings of the Courts: 2, 188–200. The Judicial Power of Declaring what has the Form of Law not to be Law: 10, 98-125; also 30, 250-255. 1 Works, Vol. VI, 407-408. XXII THE STATE LEGISLATURE Introductory. In this chapter and the two chapters that follow we shall discuss the organization of the State government. As we have already learned (p. 55), one State is quite like another in its political characteristics. No State, however, is precisely like another, and the organization of the government of any particular State can be learned in detail only from the constitution of that State. All that a text-book can do, therefore, is to treat the subject in a general way. The particular facts may be learned by answering the questions which refer to the State constitution. The Origin of State Legislatures. The first legislature that ever sat in America met in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. This was the Virginia House of Burgesses, in which eleven settlements, which the planters were pleased to call boroughs, were represented. Two years later Virginia had a governor, an advisory council, and a legislative assembly. This was the type of all succeeding colonial governments. At the time of the Revolution, in all the colonies the legislature was elected by the people, and in all but two (Pennsylvania and Georgia) it consisted of an upper and a lower house.1 When the colonies assumed the rank of States the new legislatures were modeled faithfully The federal Constitution assumes (4) but does not require that the State legislature shall consist of more than one branch. Georgia in 1789, Pennsylvania in 1790, and Vermont in 1836 changed to the bicameral system. after the old. The legislatures of the admitted States have invariably been fashioned after those already in existence. General Features of State Legislatures. In outward form, at least, the legislature of one State, although it may be widely separated by distance, and although it is created independently, is very much like that of another State. All legislatures meet at the State capital; the upper house is always called the Senate and is always about one third as large as the lower house, which is usually called the House of Representatives; in all the States members must reside in the district which they represent; in all but eight States the legislature meets every two years; in all the States the compensation of members is the same for both houses; in forty-five States a law passed by the legislature can be vetoed by the governor, and the veto can be overcome by a majority vote, or by a three-fifths or a two-thirds vote, of both houses; in every State each house is the judge of the qualifications and election of its own members; in nearly every State members of both houses are apportioned strictly according to population. The Passage of Bills. Upon assembling, each house of a newly elected legislature elects its presiding officer. In the lower house this officer is called the speaker; in the Senate he is called chairman or president. In some States there is a lieutenant-governor, who presides in the Senate but does not vote except when there is a tie. As soon as a clerk, a sergeant-at-arms, doorkeepers, messengers and other minor officers have been elected the presiding officer of each house announces the committees, which are as numerous as the interests and subjects that engage the attention of the legislature, the most important being those on finance, corporations, municipalities, the judiciary, appropriations, elections, education, labor, manufactures, agriculture, railroads. The committees are agencies of the utmost importance, for they are the channels through which all legislation must pass. Any proposed law, called a bill, immediately after it is introduced and read, is referred to its proper committee. The committee considers the bill in a private room where citizens may appear to defend or oppose it, and if it thinks the bill ought not to become a law it reports it unfavorably, and thus usually kills it. It is possible to pass a bill after it has been thus unfavorably reported, but this is rarely done. The judgment of the committee is practically final. If the bill is reported favorably its title is read and it is allowed to pass upon its second reading. In its regular order it comes up for its third and last reading. Now it is read in full, amended, perhaps, and voted upon. If it fails to get a majority of the votes that is probably the last of it. If it receives a majority of the votes it is sent to the other branch to be acted upon. Here it is referred by the presiding officer to its proper committee, is read three times upon three different days, is fully discussed upon its last reading, and is then voted upon. If it passes without amendments made in this second branch it goes to the governor to be signed by him. If it passes with amendment it must be returned to the house in which it originated to be voted upon in its amended form. If it passes in the house in that form it becomes, as far as the legislature is concerned, a law. If there is trouble over the amendment a joint committee, or conference committee, consisting of three members from each house, is appointed to see what can be done to settle the matter. The action of this committee, if it reaches an agreement, is usually accepted by both houses. A bill may originate in either house, but, as a rule, bills for raising revenue must originate in the lower house, because this branch is supposed to be closer to the taxpayers. After a bill has passed both houses it is sent to the governor for his approval. In order to guard against hasty and unwise legislation, and especially against encroach ments of the legislature upon the other two departments, the governor, like the President of the United States, can (in all but one State) forbid the passage of a bill by his veto. When he does this he sends the bill back, with his objections stated in writing, to that branch of the legislature that sent it to him. The bill may be voted upon again, and if it can secure the number of votes required by the constitution in such cases it becomes a law in spite of the governor's veto. The Importance of State Legislation. We have seen how wide is the range of power reserved to the State government (p. 56). The State legislature determines how these powers are to be exercised. The only limitations of its power are those imposed by the constitution of the State, and by the Constitution, laws and treaties of the United States (127). Within these limits it is at liberty to enact laws upon any subject that may come within the scope of governmental authority. The powers of Congress are enumerated; the powers of a State legislature are innumerable. When we say that a State legislature grants charters to cities, boroughs, towns, villages, railroads, banks, colleges, seminaries, and other institutions public and private; that it defines the boundaries of counties and towns; that it regulates taxes, licenses, fees; that it enacts punishment for treason, murder, arson, theft, kidnapping, bribery, forgery, fraud, perjury, and other crimes; that it makes laws concerning the sale of land, the giving of mortgages, the granting of deeds, the making of wills, the settlement of the estates of bankrupts, the management of the estates of the dead; concerning education, charity, health, marriage, divorce; concerning voting and elections; concerning steamboats, canals, telegraph, and telephone companies; concerning farming, fishing, mining, manufacturing, trading,-when we say this much of the legislature, we may make it plain that its authority is very great, but we by no means exhaust the list of things it does. |