delivered the opinion of the court:
The plaintiff in error was sentenced for a term in the penitentiary for bribing one of the county commissioners of Weld county. The information was based upon section 1720, Rev. Stat., which, so far as is material to this review, is as follows:
“If any person shall directly or indirectly give any sum or sums of money * * * to any judge, justice of the peace, sheriff, coroner, clerk, constable, jailer, attorney general or prosecuting attorney, mayor, alderman or member of city council, member of the legislative assembly, or other officer, ministerial or judicial (but such fees as are allowed by law), with intent to induce or influence such officer to' * * * the person so giving and the officer so receiving any money, * * * with intent or for the purpose of consideration aforesaid, shall be deemed guilty of bribery, and on conviction, * *
It is the contention of the plaintiff in error that a county commissioner is not included within the section, and that, therefore, the information did not charge an offense against any law of this state. To determine the question presented it is necessary, as it is in the case of any statute, to ascertain the intention of the legislature in enacting the law. For this purpose, such rules of construction as are favored by the courts
The first two of the rules mentioned are closely related. This is one: 'Where a particular class is spoken of, and general words follow, the class first mentioned is to be taken as the most comprehensive, and the general words treated as referring- to matters ejusdem generis with such class.” — State v. Krueger, 134 Mo. 262. The second is that the meaning of a doubtful word may be ascertained by reference to the meaning- of words associated with it. That is, “by considering whether the word in question and the surrounding words are in fact ejusdem generis and referable to the same subject matter.” — Brooms’ Leg. Max. (7th Ed.), p. 439.
It is plain the statement of these rules that before they can be of any aid it must clearly appear that the legislature was thinking of a particular class of persons or objects. Now it does not appear that the legislature had in mind any particular class of officers when we read the section under consideration. The words are, “any judge, justice of the peace, sheriff,
In Merwin v. Boulder Co., 29 Colo. 169, this court held that passing on claims against the county, which is one of the duties of a county commissioner, is not a judicial act. Yet such an act requires the exercise of discretion and the ascertainment of facts. So in many- other matters the county commissioners are vested with large discretionary powers. Some of them may approximate judicial powers, may be called quasi-judicial powers, but most of them are not really judicial. The commissioners are the agents of the county. When they act it is the county acting through them. Whatever they do is in the management and administration of the affairs of the county. They do not sit like a disinterested judge to hear and determine controversies between two parties, but they hear and determine the case of the county that they represent. They, in effect, ascertain facts and employ their discretion largely in their own cases and determine them similar to the the way any business man will do in the management of his
County commissioner's represent their county and have charge of its property and the management of its business concerns. Their duties are to administer the affairs of their county, and in that behalf to exercise such power as is expressly conferred upon them by the constitution and the statutes of the state, and such implied power as is reasonably necessary to the proper execution of the express power.— Roberts v. People, 9 Colo. 458; Merwin v. Boulder Co., supra.
The general scope of their duties being the administration of the affairs of the county, they must be administrative officers, and though vested with a large amount of discretion, which this court has many times said cannot be controlled by the courts, yet it is administrative discretion rather than judicial. Nor are they legislative officers. They do- not make law, but are themselves wholly subject to the constitution and the statutes, and are concerned only in the administration of the business of the county as therein directed. If they are neither judicial nor legislative officers they must fall within the executive department, the administrative branch, and are to be classed'as executive or administrative officers, as these terms are used interchangeably.- — State v. Loechner, 65 Neb. 814.
So we come to the real question in the case. Did the legislature intend to cover county commissioners by including them within the designation of other ministerial officers? A primary rule of construction is that the intention of the legislature is to be found in the ordinary meaning of the words of a statute in the connection in which they are used and in the light of the mischief to be remedied. While there is a rule requiring the strict construction o-f a penal statute that rule is not violated by giving to the words their full meaning in connection in which they are employed. — Woodworth v. State, 26 O. St. 196.
The mischief sought to be’ remedied by the statute is the bribery-of public officers. Everyone must admit that it is just
“Ministration” in Webster’s Dictionary is said to be “the .act of ministering,” and “minister” is defined to mean “administer.” And in the same dictionary, one of the synonyms, of “administer” is “minister,” and “administerial” is defined as “pertaining to administration or to the executive part, of the government.” Now the fact that these executive, administrative or ministerial officers may and do exercise discretion and judgment in varying degree in the discharge of their administrative duties does not make them the less ministerial,, for if it did there would be few administrative or ministerial' officers. Most of them would be excluded and would have to be placed in a class that has not yet been defined by the authorities. The administration of government often requires, in a large degree, the exercise of discretion and judgment.
In People v. Walter, 68 N. Y. 403, the court, at page 410, uses the word “ministerial” in opposition to “judicial” and speaks of ministerial officers as exercising- judgment and discretion and treats town commissioners as being in that class, notwithstanding that they were given discretion and judgment in the discharge of their duties. It follows from all this that county commissioners who are charged with the administration of tire county government and the management of its affairs naturally fall into the class designated as ministerial, in the classification made in the statute under consideration. It is only by giving- to the word the very narrowest meaning with which it is ever used — a meaning designated often in the authorities as purely ministerial' — -that an officer can be excluded from the ministerial class because he may ex-
“The character of! the act does not depend on the amount ■of discretion confided to the officer. There is much reason for saying that under our constitution all administrative- or ministerial duties are executive in character, as they not only can be nothing else under the constitution, but they are all acts in the conduct of the government, i. e.; the administration of public affairs through and under the regulations prescribed by law.”
In State v. Loechner, supra, the statute under consideration provided that “any clerk, sheriff, coroner, constable, county commissioner, justice of the peace, recorder, county surveyor, prosecuting or district attorney, or any ministerial officer,” who was guilty of certain acts should be fined, etc. A member of a board of education of a school district in a city was held to come under the provisions of the statute as being a.ministerial officer. The duties of a.member of the school board, as related to his district, were analogous to tire duties of a county commissioner in this state, as related to his county, as is shown by the following quotation from the opinion:
“The members of the school board are unquestionably regarded by statute as the servants or agents of the corporation, selected for the purpose of1 conducting and managing its affairs in the manner and under the restrictions pointed out by ■statute. They are -an administrative body charged with the duty of administering the law governing the public schools within the city composing the school district of which they are officers. It is their duty to'-administer the affairs of the corporation as directed by statute in the exercise of such pow*144 ers and authority as are vested in them. Doubtless in many instances in the performance of their duties they may exercise a discretion or judgment quasi-judicial in character, but this fact alone can not determine the class to which they belong, or bring them in the category of judicial officers.”
From this the court held that the member was an administrative officer and proceeded to show that the word “ministerial” in the statute meant the same thing as “administrative,” and that, therefore, the defendant belonged to the class of officers designated as “ministerial,” and came within the statute.
Enough has been said to demonstrate that a county commissioner is not only fairly but plainly a ministerial officer in the sense intended by the statute in question, and, therefore, the judgment is affirmed. Judgment affirmed.
Decision en banc.