New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-03-18
THE INSURANCE BILL.

THE INSURANCE BILL.
We have been at some pains to inquir
into the history of act No. 81, which wa
published last Sunday, for the purpose o
ascertaining whether or not it passed boil
Houses. 1t has been affirmed on on,
hand, and as stoutly denied on the other
that it was indefinitely postponed in tht
House on the last day Of the session.
In the House proceedings of March 3
published on the fifth, the following notice
is made of this bill:
| Under suspension of the rules the fol
| lowing bills were taken up:
| Mr.. Souer, of Avoyelles, called up Senate
bill No. 3l2, entitled an act explanatory o.
| che fifteenth paragraph of the first section
of act No. IA, approved March 5, 1872.
Mr. Hahn, of st. Charles called up Senate
| bill No APO, entitled an act making claims
of each year payable only from the reve
nues Of that year.
Both bills passed their several readings
| under suspension of the constitutional
rules, and finally passed, titles adopted, and
notice of same ordered to be sent to the
Senate.
The Senate proceedings show that the
bill was duly reported to the Senate as
having been concurred in. This report is
dated March S, and appears early in the
Senate journal Of that day.
The REPUBLICANS House reporter, in
his report Of the proceedings of the fifth,
which was the last day Of the session,
makes the following note:
On Mr.. Montaldos motion the bill ex.
planning that $1,000 was all the tax that
could be imposed on insurance comp anies,
was reconsidered and indefinitely post
poned.
The official journal of the same day,
however, which was not published until
Saturday morning, the fourteenth instant,
makes quite another disposition of the
bill:
Mr.. Montaldo, of Orleans, moved to re-
consider the vote by which Senate bill No.
3l2, entitled an act explanatory Of the
act No. Ia, approved March 5, 1872, was
passed.
Lost.
Ills, VI COulSC, COIltdtilClo lue SIhlG-
ment that the bill was reconsidered and
indefinitely postponed. The position
assumed by the friends of the bill, that
Mr.. Montaldo's motion to reconsider was
out Of order, seems to be tenable. The
bill had, on the third, passed through the
usual parliamentary stages and been con-
CURED in, or passed, and notice ordered
to be sent to the Senate. 1t was thus, by
the showing of the record, not in posses
sion of the House, having been sent to the
Senate with the approval of the House.
A resolution asking the Senate to return
it would have been in order, but we do
not understand that parliamentary rules
permit either house to consider bill
which has by its own order been sent out
Of its possession. We take it, therefore,
that the action of the House on the third
Of March was final in the matter, and
that the officers Of the Senate acted cor
rectly in forwarding it to the enrolling
clerks as law. So much for the forms of
its passage.
On its merits, it does not seem to us to
materially change the law Of 1872, to
which it refers We quote the paragraph
which act No 81 endeavors to explain:
From each agent or representative of an
insurance company, by or under the laws
OF this Sta.e, and transacting an insurance
business therein, one thousand dollars;
from each insurance company or agency
not chartered by this State, but transacting
an insurance business therein, one thousand
dollars; provided, that no insurance com.
pany whose license tax shall be one thousand
dollars shall be liable to any assessment,
State, parish or municipal, throughout the
State, other than that imposed by this
article and by section six of this act.
Section six of the act quoted from
does not impose any tax of any kind.
This law was approved by Governor
Warmoth on the fifth Of March, 1872. 1t
was doubtless passed in the interest of
insurance companies, and was, in our
judgment bad law. 1t relieved wealthy
corporations, who make vast sums from
property holders, from their obligations
to pay their proportion of the public
burdens. But there is an ambiguity in
the language which the parties in interest
wished to have cured. The new law re-
quires the insurance companies to pay
taxes on the real estate, but exempts their
capital, while the old one reads to us
as though it was the intent to
relieve them from both. It provides that
they shall not be liable to any assessment
except the one thousand dollars paid for
license. The mistake our Legislature
made was in not including capital as well
as real estate in the objects Of taxation.
We have not forgotten the part our in:
surance officers took in the late Fusion
rebellion, nor that it was their credit and
their money which rented Odd Fellows
Hall, obtained credit for arms of willing
gunsmith, and staked the committees that
went to Washington merely to discover