delivered the opinion of the court:
The appellant, Louis G. Spies, filed his bill in the circuit court of Sangamon county on July 31, ig"i8, alleging that he was a citizen and tax-payer of Kankakee county engaged in the business of conducting a private bank in the village of Chebanse, and praying for an injunction restraining Charles W. Byers, comity clerk of Sangamon county, and each county clerk of the remaining 101 counties, from causing to be printed on the ballots at the ensuing election the proposition to vote for or against an act approved by the Governor on June 22, 1917, amending the title and certain sections of an act concerning corporations with banking powers, and from incurring any expense with reference to said proposition, which had been certified to the county clerks by Louis L. Emmerson, Secretary of State, as required by the act, and in accordance with a general statute providing for the publication of propositions required by law to be submitted to the electors. A temporary injunction was ordered and issued as prayed for. The appellees, Charles W. Byers, county clerk, and Louis L. Emmerson, Secretary of State, entered their appearances and moved the chancellor to dissolve the injunction for want of equity on the face of the bill. The motion was sustained, and the appellant having elected to abide by his bill, the injunction was dissolved and the bill dismissed at his cost, and he appealed from the decree.
The motion to dissolve the injunction for want of equity on the face of the bill operated as a demurrer and all matters of fact well pleaded in the bill were thereby admitted, and an injunction being the only relief sought by the bill, if the facts did not justify the relief it was proper to dismiss it. Titus v. Mabee,
These facts were alleged in the bill and admitted by the motion: The bill for the act was introduced in the senate and passed and was thereupon presented to the house of representatives' for its action. As passed by the senate, section 8 provided for a charge by the Auditor for each examination of a bank of a minimum fee of $25. In the house that section was amended by striking out the word “minimum,” leaving a fixed fee of $25. Section 11 as passed by the senate contained a scale of required capital stock ranging from $15,000 to $100,000, based upon the population of the city, town or village where a bank was to be located. That section was amended in the house so as to permit a bank with a capital stock of $10,000 to be organized in cities, towns and villages not exceeding 500 inhabitants. The bill went back to the senate for its action with respect to the amendments, and the senate refused to concur and the house refused to recede. As a result a joint committee of conference was appointed, which made a report recommending the adoption of the amendments proposed by the house, and the measure was passed by both houses as amended. The bill was sent to the Governor with sections 8 and 11 reading as they originally stood when the bill first passed the senate and in that form it was approved by him. ' The bill as signed by the Governor and as finally filed and enrolled in the office of the Secretary Of State and as it appears in the printed statutes is not the same as the act finally passed by both houses of the General Assembly.
As a general, well established and recognized rule, the jurisdiction of a court of equity pertains only to the maintenance of civil, personal and property rights, and it has no jurisdiction over matters or questions of a political nature unless civil property rights are involved. (Walton v. Develing,
Under the general delegation of legislative power the proceeding for the enactment of laws prescribed is that bills may originate in either house but may be altered, rejected or amended by the other, and no bill shall become a law without the concurrence of a majority of the members elected to each house. When so adopted every bill, before it becomes a law, must be presented to the Governor, and if he approves he shall sign it, and thereupon it shall become a law. In the case of any law authorizing or creating corporations or associations with banking powers further action is required, and the necessary legislative steps are the concurrence of a majority of the members of the senate and house of representatives, the approval by the Governor and an affirmative vote by a majority of the votes cast at an election for or against the law. Courts are endowed by the constitution with judicial power, only, and are prohibited from interfering with other branches of the government in the exercise of their powers. They cannot obstruct the exercise of legislative functions, and have no more right to interfere in the process of legislation where the final act is the exercise of legislative power at an election than there would be at any other stage of the process. No one would contend that a court could enjoin either branch of the General Assembly from passing a bill, or the Governor from acting upon it, on the ground that the completed legislative act would be invalid, and the same rule necessarily applies to any interference with the electors in the final act of legislation. Courts have no general power to consider proposed and uncompleted legislation to determine whether an act will be valid or invalid if enacted into law. After legislation has been completed, the courts, in determining the rights of .litigants respecting personal, civil or property rights, may, and it is their duty to, refuse to enforce a statute which is invalid, but their jurisdiction is limited to the determination of such'rights. They can neither direct the enactment of a law nor prevent its enactment on any ground whatever, and that being so, a court of equity would have no power to entertain a bill of a tax-payer on account of the expense of the legislation. The trifling cost of putting the proposition on the ballots would be in the same category with any other expense of the legislative branch of the government. These principles have been declared in various cases with respect to the submission of amendments to constitutions, elections under the initiative and referendum, elections under ordinances alleged to be invalid, and other like proceedings, with the reasoning of which we agree. (Scott v. James,
The decree is affirmed.
Decree affirmed.