Johnson v. Luers

Boyd, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellants filed a bill of complaint, bv which they sought to enjoin the appellees from holding an election under the provisions of Chapter 426 of the Acts, of 1916. The title of that Act is: “An Act for the incorporation of the town of Bowie, in Prince George’s County, and for the submission of this charter to the qualified voters of said town for their adoption or rejection and for the repeal of all acts or parts of acts inconsistent therewith.” A number of grounds for attaching the act are set out in the bill of complaint, and we will for the most part consider them in the order in which they are there presented. First.

The1 General Assembly adjourned on the 3rd of April, 1916, and the Act was signed on the 18th of that month. Tt is contended that the Governor did not sign the bill within six days after it was presented to him, and hence it did not become a valid law. Section 30 of Article 3 of the Constitution provides that: “Every bill, when passed by the General Assembly, and sealed with the Great Seal, shall be presented to the Governor, who, if he approves it, shall sign the same in the presence of the presiding officers, and chief clerks of the'Senate and House of Delegates.” Section If of Article 2, after providing that “every bill which shall have passed the House of Delegates and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the Governor of the State; if ⁵²⁴ he approve he shall sign it, hut if not he shall return it with his objections to the House in which it originated,” etc., and after directing what shall be done in the event of a veto, then provides, “If any bill shall not be returned by the Governor within six days (Sundays excepted), after it shall have been presented to' him, the same shall be a law in like'manner as if he signed it, unless the General Assembly shall, by adjournment, prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law.” In Lankford et al. v. County Commissioners, 73 Md. 105 , this Court held that a bill regularly passed by the Legislature, and sealed as directed, could be constitutionally presented to the Governor,, and signed by him, after the end of the session of the Legislature, provided he signed it within six days from the time the bill was actually presented to him. The bill of complaint alleges that this bill was in the Executive Chamber under the control of the officials connected therewith more than the prescribed limit of time, and that, ‘while it may not have been presented directly to the Governor, it wa.s in his custody, or his representatives,’ a much longer period than that prescribed by the Constitution, and hence, that the signing of the same was contrary to law and that the said law is a nullity.” The evidence is all to the effect that the bill was not presented to the Governor before April 14th.

The Governor testified that there were about 500 bills which were passed within the last two or three days of the session, and, seeing that it would be impossible for him to examine them, either by himself or with the aid of the Attorney General, or attorneys he might call upon, he asked the Chief Clerks of the House and Senate if it could be arranged not to present all of them at one time, and to have the Attorney General see them while they remained in their control, which they arranged to do. There are three rooms in the Executive Chamber, used by the Executive Officials of the State, one is the reception room and the office of the Secretary of State, ⁵²⁵ the second is occupied by Mr. Hardy, who is the chief clerk in the Governor’s office, and the third is the Governor’s private office. The bill in question was a bouse bill, and hence was in charge of Mr. Almoney, Chief Olerk of the- House. The Attorney General had a desk next to Mr. Hardy, and he teslified that the bills “were brought for me to examine them, otherwise I would have to go down to Mr. Almoney’s office in the bottom of the State House, where 1 did not have any conveniences, such as law books, stenographic help and so on, and where I had no desk.” He said: “What Mr. Almoney did do was to permit me to have possession of the bills for a period long enough for me to examine them.

The bills would come into Mr. Hardy’s office in instalments, sometimes 30 or 40, sometimes more. I had established a desk right next to Mr. Hardy, and I was there all the time. When Mr. Almoney would bring bills up in instalments he would hand them to Mr. Hardy and Mr. Hardy would at once pass them over to me at the next desk. I would then keep them and make any notes of them that occurred to me, and when I got through I would say, Mr. Hardy, this batch of bills is ready for the Governor: * * * and then Mr. Almoney, who had been responsible for the bills all-the time, would for the first time present them to the Governor on the days shown in his record, so that Mr. Almoney never presented the bills to anybody except the Governor.” The Attorney General said he was there three weeks, that sometimes Mr. Almoney would hand him the bills in Mr. Hardy’s presence, and stated: “Then let me add, that after Mr. Almoney got back the bills Horn me and presented them to the Governor on the dates shown in his Record, the Governor always acted on them within six days after their presentation to him.” He said be remembered this particular bill, as Mr. Owens, the attorney for appellants, had written to him about it before it came into his possession, and he was on the lookout for it, that he did not know the date Mr. Hardy presented it to him, that it might have been the fourteenth of April and it might ⁵²⁶ have been earlier, but he remembered that Mr. 'Hai’dy, in tho presence of Mr. Almoney, gave him a.batch of bills, including the Bowie bill, and he started to look over them at once.

The testimony of Mr. Almoney, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State and the Governor shows that it was distinctly understood that Mr. Hardy was not to represent the Governor in the reception of the bills at those times, but Mr. Almoney simply left them with him for the Attorney General to examine, and when the latter was through with them they were returned to Mr. Almoney, who afterwards presented them to the Governor at the times named in the official record. The plan adopted was to enable the Attorney General to more carefully examine the bills than would have been possible if they had been presented to the Governor at once, and while unnecessary delay in presenting bills to the Governor should be avoided, the provision in the statute (now sect. 1-of Article 41 of the Annotated Code), that “every bill, when passed by the General Assembly, shall be returned to the House in which the same originated, and shall, as soon thereafter as practicable, be sealed with the Great Seal by the Secretary of the (Senate, or Chief Clerk of the House of Delegates, as the case may be, and presented to the Governor for his approval” was considered in Lankford v. County Com missioners, supra, and on page 113, Judge Ai/vey said: “But these terms ‘as soon thereafter as practicable,’ are of a ■relative and dependent character, to be controlled more or less by the circumstances of the case, and by no means furnish a definite and fixed rule.” As long as the legislature postpones the passage of so many bills to the concluding days, and, as to many, the concluding hours of the session, it will be impossible for the Governor to give proper consideration to them within six days> if they must be presented to him as fast as the Secretary of the Senate or the Chief Clerk of the House can prepare them for presentation. The evidence is conclusive to the effect that the delivery of the ⁵²⁷ bills to Mr. Hardy after the adjournment of the Legislature was not intended to be a presentation of them to him as a representative of the Governor, or for the purpose of having him then deliver them to the Governor, but, on the contrary, it was simply to enable the Attorney General to examine them, and, after that was done, to have them returned to Air. Almoney, Chief Clerk of the House, or to Mr. Webb, Secretary of the Senate'—depending upon which house the hill originated in, and Mr. Almoney or Mr. Webb, as the case might be, then presented them to the Governor for his action.

It was said in Berry v. Balt. Drum Point R. R. Co., 41 Md. 446, 462 , and repeated in other cases, “where an Act has been duly authenticated and published as law by authority, the presumption is, that all the constitutional solemnities and prerequisites necessary to its valid enactment have been complied with; and this presumption exists until the contrary is clearly made to appear.” We might well leave this branch of the case here, but there is nothing in the evidence to show that the Great Seal had been attached to the Act before the 14th of April, the day the Record shows the bill was presented to the Governor. It is rather to be inferred from Mr. Almoney’s evidence that it was not affixed before that date, at least that it had not been when the bill was first left with Mr. Hardy. In Hamilton v. State, 61 Md. 14 , it was said by Judge Stone, in speaking for the Court, that there are three things required by section 30 of Article 3 of the Constitution before the duty of the General Assembly ends and that of the Governor begins. “They must pass thei bill; they must seal the bill with the Great Seal of the State, and they must present the bill to the Governor, and when all this is done, and not till then, the duty of the Governor begins.

All these are conditions precedent to be performed by the Legislature before his constitutional duties imperatively require the Governor to act.” The Act therefore can not be declared invalid by reason of the first ground relied on. ⁵²⁸ Second. It is contended that Thomas B. Littlepage, one of the three commissioners named in the Act to serve until the first Monday in June, 1911, and until their successors are elected and qualified, did not reside within the limits of Bowie as prescribed in section 2 of the Act, and was not a property holder, and therefore was ineligible. Section 3 of the Act provides: “That all persons who have resided within the said town for six months next preceding the day of election, or who shall be assessed with three hundred dollars of real or personal property within said town, and who are qualified to vote for delegates to the General Assembly of Maryland, shall elect on the first Monday in June, 1917, and annually thereafter on the first Monday of June, three persons to act as commissioners of said town, all of whom shall have been qualified to vote in a town election in said town for at least one year next preceding their election.” Sections 19 and 20 are as follows: “Section 19. That this Act shall not become effective until it shall be submitted to the qualified voters living within the prescribed limits of said town, and accepted by a majority of the ballots east, at an election, to be held for that purpose on the third Monday in June, 1916.

The polls to be open from three P. M. until seven P. M. Sec. 20. That William Luers, B. P. Watts and Thomas B. Littlepage are hereby appointed judges of election for the ratification of this charter, and they are hereby authorized to prepare ballots, provide such place, and to do other things necessary for the holding of an election for the ratification of this charter. They shall give at least ten days’ notice of the time and place of the election by hand-bills posted in at least five places within the limits of said town. After the polls have been closed they shall proceed immediately to canvass the votes cast, and if a majority cf them are in favor of incorporation, then this charter shall go into effect, and all Acts or parts of Acts inconsistent herewith are hereby repealed, and the said William Luers, B. P. Watts and Thomas B. Littlepage