by virtue of the treaty of Queretaro, and every male naturalized citizen thereof, who shall have become such ninety days prior to any election, of the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of the State one year next preceding the election, and of the county in which he claims his vote ninety days, and in the election precinct thirty days, shall be entitled to vote at all elections which are now or may hereafter be authorized by law; provided, no native of China, no idiot, insane person, or person convicted of any infamous crime, and no person hereafter convicted of the embezzlement or misappropriation of public money, shall ever exercise the privilege of an elector in this State. SEC. 2. Electors shall in all cases, except treason, felony, or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest on the days of election, during their attendance at such election, going to and returning therefrom. SEC. 3. No elector shall be obliged to perform militia duty on the day of election, except in time of war or public danger. SEC. 4. For the purpose of voting, no person shall be deemed to have gained or lost a residence by reason of his presence or absence while employed in the service of the United States, nor while engaged in the navigation of the waters of this State or of the United States, or of the high seas; nor while a student at any seminary of learning; nor while kept in any almshouse or other asylum, at public expense; nor while confined in any public prison. SEC. 5. All elections by the people shall be by ballot. ARTICLE III DISTRIBUTION OF POWERS SECTION 1. The powers of the Government of the State of California shall be divided into three separate departments—the legislative, executive, and judicial; and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any functions appertaining to either of the others, except as in this Constitution expressly directed or permitted. ARTICLE IV LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT SECTION 1. The legislative power of this State shall be vested in a Senate and Assembly, which shall be designated the Legislature of the State of California, and the enacting clause of every law shall be as follows:-"The People of the State of California, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows." SEC. 2. The sessions of the Legislature shall commence at twelve o'clock M. on the first Monday after the first day of January next succeeding the election of its members, and, after the election held in the year eighteen hundred and eighty, shall be biennial, unless the Governor shall, in the interim, convene the Legislature by proclamation. No pay shall be allowed to members for a longer time than sixty days,1 except for the first session after the adoption of this Constitution, for which they may be allowed pay for one hundred days. And no bill shall be introduced in either house after the expiration of ninety days from the commencement of the first session, nor after fifty days after the commencement of each succeeding session, without the consent of two-thirds of the members thereof. SEC. 3. Members of the Assembly shall be elected in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, at the time and in the manner now provided by law. The second election of members of the Assembly, after the adoption of this Constitution, shall be on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, eighteen hundred and eighty. Thereafter members of the Assembly shall be chosen biennially, and their term of office shall be two years; and each election shall be on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, unless otherwise ordered by the Legislature. SEC. 4. Senators shall be chosen for the term of four years, at the same time and places as members of the Assembly, and no person shall be a member of the Senate or Assembly who has not been a citizen and inhabitant of the State three years, and of the district for which he shall be chosen one year, next before his election. SEC. 5. The Senate shall consist of forty members, and the Assembly of eighty members, to be elected by districts, numbered as hereinafter provided. The seats of the twenty Senators elected in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-two from the odd numbered districts shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year, so that one-half of the Senators shall be elected every two years; provided, that all the Senators elected at the first election under this Constitution shall hold office for the term of three years. SEC. 6. For the purpose of choosing members of the Legislature, the State shall be divided into forty senatorial and eighty assembly districts, as nearly equal in population as may be, and composed of contiguous territory, to be called senatorial and assembly districts. Each senatorial district shall choose one Senator, and each assembly district shall choose one member of Assembly. The senatorial districts shall be numbered from one to forty, inclusive, in numerical order, and the assembly districts shall be numbered from one to eighty, in the same order, commencing at the northern boundary of the State, and ending at the southern boundary thereof. In the formation of such districts no county, or city and county, shall be divided, unless it contains sufficient population within itself to form two or more districts, nor shall a part of any county, or of any city and county, be united with any other county, or city and county, in forming any district. The census taken under the direction of the Congress of the United States in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty, and every ten years thereafter, shall be the basis of fixing and adjusting the legislative districts; and the Legislature shall, at its first session after each census, adjust such districts and reapportion the representation so as to preserve them as near equal in population as 1 I am informed that this period has by a very recent amendment been extended to 100 days. may be. But in making such adjustment no persons who are not eligible to become citizens of the United States, under the naturalization laws, shall be counted as forming a part of the population of any district. Until such districting as herein provided for shall be made, Senators and Assemblymen shall be elected by the districts according to the apportionment now provided for by law. SEC. 7. Each house shall choose its officers, and judge of the qualifications, elections, and returns of its members. SEC. 8. A majority of each house shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may compel the attendance of absent members in such manner and under such penalties as each house may provide. SEC. 9. Each house shall determine the rule of its proceeding, and may, with the concurrence of two-thirds of all its members elected, expel a member. SEC. 10. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and publish the same, and the yeas and nays of the members of either house, on any question, shall, at the desire of any three members present, be entered on the Journal. SEC. 11. Members of the Legislature shall, in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest, and shall not be subject to any civil process during the session of the Legislature, nor for fifteen days next before the commencement and after the termination of each session. SEC. 12. When vacancies occur in either house, the Governor, or the person exercising the functions of the Governor, shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies. SEC. 13. The doors of each house shall be open, except on such occasion as, in the opinion of the house, may require secrecy. SEC. 14. Neither house shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any place other than that in which they may be sitting. Nor shall the members of either house draw pay for any recess or adjournment for a longer time than three days. SEC. 15. No law shall be passed except by bill. Nor shall any bill be put upon its final passage until the same, with the amendments thereto, shall have been printed for the use of the members; nor shall any bill become a law unless the same be read on three several days in each house, unless, in a case of urgency, two-thirds of the house where such bill may be pending shall, by a vote of yeas and nays, dispense with this provision. Any bill may originate in either house, but may be amended or rejected by the other; and on the final passage of all bills they shall be read at length, and the vote shall be by yeas and nays upon each bill separately, and shall be entered on the Journal, and no bill shall become a law without the concurrence of a majority of the members elected to each house. SEC. 16. Every bill which may have passed the Legislature shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the Governor. If he approve it, he shall sign it; but if not, he shall return it, with his objections, to the house in which it originated, which shall enter such objections upon the Journal and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, it again pass both houses, by yeas and nays, two-thirds of the members elected to each house voting therefor, it shall become a law, notwithstanding the Governor's objections. If any bill shall not be returned within ten days after it shall have been presented to him (Sundays excepted), the same shall become a law in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Legislature, by adjournment, prevents such return, in which case it shall not become a law, unless the Governor, within ten days after such adjournment (Sundays excepted), shall sign and deposit the same in the office of the Secretary of State, in which case it shall become a law in like manner as if it had been signed by him before adjournment. If any bill presented to the Governor contains several items of appropriation of money, he may object to one or more items, while approving other portions of the bill. In such case he shall append to the bill, at the time of signing it, a statement of the items to which he objects, and the reasons therefor, and the appropriations so objected to shall not take effect unless passed over the Governor's veto, as hereinbefore provided. If the Legislature be in session, the Governor shall transmit to the house in which the bill originated, a copy of such statement, and the items so objected to shall be separately reconsidered in the same manner as bills which have been disapproved by the Governor. SEC. 17. The Assembly shall have the sole power of impeachment, and all impeachments shall be tried by the Senate. When sitting for that purpose, the Senators shall be upon oath or affirmation, and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members elected. SEC. 18. The Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Secretary of State, Controller, Treasurer, Attorney-General, Surveyor-General, Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, and Judges of the Superior Courts, shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanour in office; but judgment in such cases shall extend only to removal from office, and disqualification to hold any office of honour, trust, or profit under the State; but the party convicted or acquitted shall nevertheless be liable to indictment, trial, and punishment, according to law. All other civil officers shall be tried for misdemeanour in office in such manner as the Legislature may provide. SEC. 19. No Senator or member of Assembly shall, during the term for which he shall have been elected, be appointed to any civil office of profit under this State which shall have been created, or the emoluments of which have been increased, during such term, except such offices as may be filled by election by the people. SEC. 20. No person holding any lucrative office under the United States, or any other power, shall be eligible to any civil office of profit under this State; provided, that officers in the militia, who receive no annual salary, local officers, or Postmasters whose compensation does not exceed five hundred dollars per annum, shall not be deemed to hold lucrative offices. SEC. 21. No person convicted of the embezzlement or defalcation of the public funds of the United States, or of any State, or of any county or municipality therein, shall ever be eligible to any office of honour, trust, or profit under this State, and the Legislature shall provide, by law, for the punishment of embezzlement or defalcation as a felony. SEC. 22. No money shall be drawn from the treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law, and upon warrants duly drawn thereon by the Controller; and no money shall ever be appropriated or drawn from the State Treasury for the use and benefit of any corporation, association, asylum, hospital, or any other institution not under the exclusive management and control of the State as a State institution, nor shall any grant or donation of property ever be made thereto by the State; provided, that notwithstanding anything contained in this or any other section of this Constitution, the Legislature shall have the power to grant aid to institutions conducted for the support and maintenance of minor orphans or half orphans, or abandoned children, or aged persons in indigent circumstances such aid to be granted by a uniform rule, and proportioned to the number of inmates of such respective institutions; provided further, that the State shall have, at any time, the right to inquire into the management of such institution; provided further, that whenever any county, or city and county, or city, or town, shall provide for the support of minor orphans, or half orphans, or abandoned children, or aged persons in indigent circumstances, such county, city and county, city, or town, shall be entitled to receive the same pro rata appropriations as may be granted to such institutions under church or other control. An accurate statement of the receipts and expenditures of public moneys shall be attached and published with the laws at every regular session of the Legislature. SEC. 23. The members of the Legislature shall receive for their services a per diem and mileage, to be fixed by law and paid out of the public treasury; such per diem shall not exceed eight dollars, and such mileage shall not exceed ten cents per mile, and for contingent expenses not exceeding twenty-five dollars for each session. No increase in com pensation or mileage shall take effect during the term for which the members of either house shall have been elected, and the pay of no attaché shall be increased after he is elected or appointed. SEC. 24. Every Act shall embrace but one subject, which subject shall be expressed in its title. But if any subject shall be embraced in an Act which shall not be expressed in its title, such Act shall be void only as to so much thereof as shall not be expressed in its title. No law shall be revised or amended by reference to its title; but in such case the Act revised or section amended shall be re-enacted and published at length as revised or amended; and all laws of the State of California, and all official writings, and the executive, legislative, and judicial proceedings shall be conducted, preserved, and published in no other than the English language. SEC. 25. The Legislature shall not pass local or special laws in the following enumerated cases, that is to say :— any of First-Regulating the jurisdiction and duties of Justices of the Peace, Police Judges, and of Constables. Second-For the punishment of crimes and misdemeanours. |