State ex rel. Davis v. Cox

178 N.W. 913, 105 Neb. 75, 1920 Neb. LEXIS 11
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 21, 1920
DocketNo. 21611
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 178 N.W. 913 (State ex rel. Davis v. Cox) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State ex rel. Davis v. Cox, 178 N.W. 913, 105 Neb. 75, 1920 Neb. LEXIS 11 (Neb. 1920).

Opinion

Flansbtjbg, J.

Action in quo warranto, commenced in this court, to try the right of the members of the board of education of Consolidated School District No. 2 of Harlan county to hold office. The school district referred to and offices now held by respondents were created under and by virtue of chapter 243, Laws 1919. Relator contends that this act is unconstitutional.

The first objection'made is that the bill was amended in one house of the legislature, that these amendments were not concurred in by the other house, and that, therefore, the two branches of the legislature did not pass the bill in the same and final form,.

[77]*77The legislative journals show that the hill was introduced in the senate as Senate Pile No. 261. After being passed by that body and transmitted to the house, it was referred to the committee on education, and on April 10, 1919, reported out of that committee, with recommendation that the bill be amended in two specific particulars. The report was adopted. On April 12 the sifting committee recommended that the bill be placed on the sifting file with “no amendments.” The committee of the whole reported the bill, with recommendation that the “house amendments” be engrossed, and that the bill be placed on the calendar for third reading. No report of the committee on engrossed and enrolled bills is shown, nor is there any further record of any action taken on this bill .until on April 14, when it appears that the bill was read the third time and put upon its passage. At that time the speaker, in the usual form, declared: “This bill having been read at large on three different days, and the same with all of its amendments having been printed, the question is, shall the bill pass?” The record further shows the vote taken and, “a constitutional majority having voted in the affirmative, the speaker declared the bill was passed and the title agreed to.” The house then reported to the senate that it had passed Senate Pile No. 261. In this report there was no mention that any amendments had been made. The bill was enrolled without any house amendments, and the presiding officers of each house and the governor signed the bill in that form.

The bill was not duly enacted unless it was voted upon and passed by both houses in its final form. Moore v. Neece, 80 Neb. 600; Cleland v. Anderson, 66 Neb. 252, 262.

Does it affirmatively and unequivocally appear from the record that the bill was not so passed?

In the majority of jurisdictions a bill is conclusively presumed to have been regularly enacted when the en[78]*78rolled bill, properly authenticated and approved, is filed with the secretary of staté, and the courts in those states have no power to look to the legislative records to see whether the' constitutional requirements have been complied with. 36 Cyc. 973. We have a more liberal rule in this state. An enrolled bill is only prima facie evidence of a compliance with the constitutional requirements in its passage, and this presumption is rebuttable. If the legislative journals clearly and explicitly contradict the evidence furnished by the enrolled bill, the journals will control. Webster v. City of Hastings, 59 Neb. 563; State v. Burlington & M. R. R. Co., 60 Neb. 741; State v. Abbott, 59 Neb. 106; State v. Frank, 61 Neb. 679; Stratton v. State, 79 Neb. 118.

The Constitution does not expressly require that all steps in the passage of a bill shall be spread upon the journals, and, though the legislature is required to keep journals of its proceedings, an omission to show a step in the procedure in the course of enactment raises no presumption that such step was not taken, except as to those acts which the Constitution. explicitly requires shall be shown upon the journal, such, for instance, as yeas and nays on final passage. People v. Illinois State Board of Dental Examiners, 278 Ill. 144; Perry v. State, 214 S. W. (Ark.) 2. Where the journal is silent, therefore, as to such steps not expressly required to be shown, the enrollment, authentication and approval of the bill will suffice to supply the proof that the step was taken. As said in State v. Frank, 60 Neb. 327, 333: “The enrolled bill has its own credentials; it bears about it legal evidence that it is valid law; and this evidence is so cogent and convincing that it „ cannot be overthrown by the production of a legislative journal that does not speak, but is silent. Such seems to be the conclusion reached by a majority of the courts; and such, certainly, is the trend of modern authority. To hold otherwise would be to permit a mute witness to prevail over evidence [79]*79which is not oilly positive, but of- so satisfactory a character that all English and most American courts regard it as ultimate and indisputable.”

Upon examining the history of the statute in controversy, we find that the journal does not explicitly show that the house, on final passage, voted .amendments to the bill. It is true that the report of the committee on education proposing amendments was adopted, and that the committee of the whole ordered the “house amendments” engrossed. The proceedings in committee of the whole are not set forth; neither is it shown what the “house amendments” were when the bill emerged from that committee. The journal does not show any report of the committee on engrossed and enrolled bills after this bill had been referred to it, nor does the record set out the bill or what it contained when it was finally voted upon. When reported to the senate, the record does not show that the bill was transmitted with amendments. So far as the record goes, the house may have receded from the proposed amendments before final passage, and passed the bill in its original form — the form in which it was Signed and authenticated by the presiding officers of the two houses. There is some indication, at least, that this was done, from the fact that, in transmitting the bill to the senate, no amendments were noted. No significance can be attached to the words of the speaker, at the time of third reading, to the effect that, “this bill having been read at large on three different days, and the same with all of its amendments having been printed, the question is, shall the bill pass?” for that stereotyped phrase, as the journal shows, is used for all bills put on final passage, whether they carry amendments or not.

The journal record is not clear and complete. It does not affirmatively show that the bill was ever engrossed with amendments, nor that the house did not recede from proposed amendments prior to the final passage. On the other hand, there is evidence tending to the inference [80]*80that the amendments were, in fact, withdrawn. There being no clear and unequivocal proof that the house adopted amendments which are not shown in the' enrolled bill, the journal record is insufficient to impeach the evidence arising* from the enrollment of the bill and the authentication by the presiding officers of the two houses that the bill was duly passed.

Such is the holding in the case of Perry v. State, supra, in a case almost identical with this, and similar rulings are found in State v. Dean, 84 Neb. 344, and In re Appraisement of Omaha Gas Plant, 102 Neb. 782. In the case of Perry v. State, supra, the senate amended the bill 'and ordered it engrossed for third reading*. These amendments were not found in the bill as signed by the governor.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
178 N.W. 913, 105 Neb. 75, 1920 Neb. LEXIS 11, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-davis-v-cox-neb-1920.