147 A. 527 | Pa. | 1929
On this petition for the allowance of an appeal from the Superior Court, defendant avers that there are two constitutional questions involved which bring the case into this court as a matter of right under section 7, paragraph (e), of the Act of June 24, 1895, P. L. 212, providing that there may be an appeal from the Superior Court to the Supreme Court "if the case involves the construction or application of the Constitution of Pennsylvania." *500
When passing on an application such as the one now before us, we do not consider the merits of constitutional questions alleged to be involved, but we do look to see whether (1) that which is asserted to be a constitutional question is such, and (2), if it is, whether the point raised is really involved in the case. If either of these questions is resolved against the petitioner, the appeal must be refused.
The first constitutional contention stated by defendant is that the Act of March 27, 1923, P. L. 34, contravenes article III, section 3, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania. Petitioner argues that the real subject-matter of the Act of 1923 is an attempted exercise of power conferred on the State by section 2 of the Eighteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution, and that there is no notice in the statute's title of this subject-matter. Defendant is initially in error in his conception of the source of the State's power so to legislate. "Such [local] laws derive their force __________ not from this amendment, but from power originally belonging to the states, preserved to them by the 10th Amendment, and now relieved from the restriction heretofore arising out of the federal Constitution": U.S. v. Lanza,
In the second place, petitioner argues that the act in question violates article II, section 1, of the state Constitution, in that it delegates to the congress of the United States, by allowing it to define intoxicating liquors, power to legislate for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This point has not been ruled by us specifically in connection with the Act of 1925, but the identical statutory phrase was ruled on in Com. v. Alderman,
The prayer of the petition is refused. *502