85 P. 903 | Idaho | 1906
This is an application for a writ of mandate to the auditor of the state to compel him to issue certain state warrants to the plaintiff on account of his salary as state veterinary surgeon, and for certain expenses connected with said office. The defendant answered the petition for the writ and put in issue the constitutionality of the act creating the office of veterinary surgeon, which was approved March 6, 1905, and is entitled, “An act to suppress contagious and infectious diseases among livestock; creating a livestock sanitary board and providing for its appointment; to create the office of state veterinary surgeon, providing for his appointment and fixing his compensation, providing for the appointment of assistant veterinary surgeons and livestock inspectors and fixing their compensation; prescribing penalties for the failure to comply with the provisions of this act; creating a livestock sanitary fund and providing for the levying of a tax therefor.” (Sess. Laws 1905, p. 39.) Said act was evidently passed pursuant to the provisions of section 1 of article 16 of our state constitution. This act belongs to that class of legislation known as police regulations and is under the head of police powers, which powers embrace the powers of the government to preserve and promote the public welfare, the safety, the health, good order and happiness of the people, and authorize the establishment
The act referred to by title in said section 39 above quoted is found on page 142, Session Laws of 1901, approved March
The rule is well established in this country that a legislative act is presumed to be constitutional until it is shown beyond all reasonable doubt that it is not so, and that presumption has been followed since the days of the great Chief Justice Marshall, when he declared that the question whether a law be void from its repugnancy to the constitution is at all times a question of much delicacy which ought seldom, if ever, to be decided in the affirmative in a doubtful case. And he stated in Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 128, 3 L. ed. 162, that ‘‘the opposition between the constitution and the law should be such that the judge feels a clear and strong conviction of their incompatibility with each other” before a court would hold a law unconstitutional. In Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 270, 6 L. ed. 606, the supreme court of the United States said: “It is but a decent respect due the wisdom, the integrity and,the patriotism of the legislative
Prior to the adoption of such a constitutional provision as that contained in said section 18, the practice was very common to amend an act or section thereof by merely stating that certain words should be inserted at a certain place or places therein or certain words be stricken therefrom, and after several such amendments had been made, it naturally created great confusion in the law or the section so amended, and the provisions of said section of the constitution were for the purpose of preventing that evil and putting an end to that method of amendment.
With those observations we will proceed to examine the act under consideration. Said act does not purport to amend
In Gilbert v. Moody, 3 Idaho, 3, 25 Pac. 1092, which involved the constitutionality of an act substituting the word “state” for the word “territory” wherever it appeared in the Revised Statutes, and the word “auditor” for the word “comptroller,” and imposing the duties of the comptroller on the auditor, such act was held not in conflict with said provisions of the constitution. The leading case on the construction of the provisions of a constitution similar to those under consideration here is that of People v. Mahaney, 13 Mich. 496 That decision was written by Judge Cooley, one of the most eminent authorities on constitutional law that this country has ever produced, and which decision is quoted with approval wherever the particular question here presented has been raised. Justice Cooley there said: “It is next objected that the law is invalid because in conflict with section 29 of article 4 of the constitution, which provides that ‘no law shall be revised, altered or amended by reference to its title only; but the act revised and the section or sections of the act altered or amended, shall be re-enacted and republished at length.’ The act before us does not assume, in terms, to revise, alter or amend any prior act, or section of any act, but by various transfers of duties it has an amendatory effect by implication, and by its last section it repeals all inconsistent acts. We are unable to see how this conflicts with the provision referred to. If, whenever a new statute is passed, it -is necessary that all prior statutes modified by it by implication should be reenacted and published at length as modified, then a large portion of the whole code of laws of the state would require to be republished at every session, and parts of it several times over, until, from mere immensity of matter, it would be impossible to’ tell what the law was. If, because an act establishing a police • government modifies the powers and duties of sheriffs, constables, water and sewer commissioners, marshals, mayors and justices, and imposed new duties upon the ex
It is there said that the constitutional provision under consideration must receive a reasonable construction with a view to give it effect, and the mischief desired to be remedied was the enactment of amendatory statutes in terms so blind that legislators themselves are sometimes deceived in regard'to their effect. There can be no doubt in regard to the effect of the act under consideration, and it simply imposes on the state veterinary surgeon all of the duties that were imposed by the act of 1903 on the state sheep inspector and his deputies. The first three sections of that act do not refer to the duties of the sheep inspector, and are repealed by the act of 1905. Beginning with section 4 of the act of 1901, to and including section 28 of said act, we find the authority and duties of the sheep inspector and his deputies prescribed therein. Said
In Evernham v. Hulit, 45 N. J. L. 53, which is a ease involving a provision of the New Jersey constitution somewhat broader than that of our own, the court said: “A construction of this constitutional provision which would sustain'the contention of the plaintiff on certiorari would lead to the most embarrassing results. It would be equivalent to holding that the legislature can pass no act changing any part of the statute law in force in this state without re-enacting at length every section in the whole body of existing statutes that might be affected by the new legislation. Since the constitutional amendments went into effect, a considerable number of acts have been passed designed to simplify and make most efficacious the mode of making and collecting assessments for local improvements in the municipalities of this state. These were subjects specially provided for in sections contained in their several acts of incorporation. General acts have always been passed providing for the assessment, collection and lien of taxes — subjects specially provided for in sections incorporating cities, towns and townships, as well as in several parts of the general tax law of this state. In many instances, provisions of this kind are contained in long sections, in which it is usual to express and define the general powers of corporations. Sometimes they are distributed in appropriate places in different sections of the acts. If this constitutional provision has made it necessary to the validity of a new statute on the subject that every prior statute on the same subject which may be altered or modified should be inserted in it at length, it would be quite impossible to legislate at all on the subject mentioned, or on kindred subjects; for a statute which would comply with such a requirement would probably be obnoxious to that other provision of the constitution, that every law should embrace but one object, and that object should be embraced in its title. ’ ’
Said act of 1905 is valid and constitutional, and the peremptory writ of mandate must be issued as prayed for, and it is so ordered.