Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-01-08
THREE READINGS
1t is Held that Full Reading Upon Final
Passage of Bill is Sufficient

The Judiciary Committee of the Assembly
met last evening, Assemblyman Charles n
Fox presiding The Chair called up the mat
ter relating to. recent debate upon the CUES
ton whether every bill must be read al
length on three several days before fna
passage. He presented the draft of an opin
ion, which, with but moments discussion,
was unanimously adopted as the report of the
committee. The report is as follows, after
due words of introduction
The provision of the Constitution on the subject
is found in Article w., follows: "Section 10
No law shall be passed except by bill. Nor shall
any bill be put upol 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 law unless the same be read on three
several days in each house unless in case OF great
urgency, two-thirds of the house where such bill
may be pending shall, by 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 bill shall become
a law without the concurrence OF majority Of the
members elected to each house..
1t is long and well established rule OF judicial
decision that words must be taken in their common
acceptation when not used in a technical sense.
This has many times been held by ablest jurists
when the language of constitutions. the subject
OF consideration and construction. The converse of
the proposition is equally well established, that
words where used in technical sense, are to be
construed according to their technical meaning, no
matter what may be their common acceptation. 1t
is also well established that in constituting the provi
sions OF Constitution the terms used to be
strued in the light OF and in the sense in which the
same terms were used and understood before and at
Of flaa lg,Tafffa In tatatta
Long before the adoption of the Constitution OF
this or any other State in this nation the rule re-
quiring three readings of BILL or that bill
should be read three several times before its passage
had come TO have well defined and uniyer-
sally accepted technical parliamentary meaning, and
our Constitution adopted in the light of that
understanding. The rule was established before the
art OF printing invented, at least before it
was generally practiced, and then required three
readings at length, as being the only means by
which the members of Parliament could be informed
to the subject-matter and the form of the pro-
posed law. But after printing came into general
practice, legislators came to rely upon their own
reading and not upon that of the Clerk and the
"three readings came to be merely nominal, mark
ing the stages of progress in the passage of the bill
the Clerk combining himself to merely reading the
title and the first few words.
This has been the accepted Interpretation of the
term and the practice under it for more than one
hundred years. In the light of this Interpretation
and practice our Constitution formed and
rule of construction that has been established by
the Courts of the land, to hold that provision
which required that bill seould be read three
times before it passed "a provision found in
majority of State Constitutions required that
each reading should be at length unless so ex.
pressly stated. The fact that it must be read on
three several days does not change the mode of
reading, but simply prohibits the three readings
any two of them, being on one day, except in case
of urgency, when the provision may be dispensed
with.
Prior to the adoption OF the present Constitution
there was no provision in the fundamental law on
the subject of either the reading or printing of
bills and yet the Legislature has acted under
the rule requiring =" three readings" of a
bill before it was passed Under the prac-
tice however, it has not unfrequently happened
that bills, some of which were never printed, have
never been read at leugth the title simply being
read and the house accepting the statement of the
author as to the character and scope OF the bill At
other times, when a bill was read at length on the
second reading, and passed to engrossment, it was
not read after engrossment, on its final passage
Under the first of these practices bills have been
passed which, when they came to be published as
laws of the State, have been found to contain pro-
visions very different from those which the mem
bers supposed were in them when passed I; and I'M
der the second it has been charged that words have
been surreptitousy inserted into bills which the
house had not agreed 1t was to prevent these evils
that the trainers OF the Constitution wisely provided
that no bill can be passed until it has been printed
for the use of the members, and that every
bill shall be read at length its final passage But
it has not compelled either house to cause the bill
to be read at length on any other occasion. This is
also apparent from the application of the familiar
rule that the expression of the one excludes the
other.
The term "three readings" having wellknown
parliamentary meaning, which did not OF itself re
ouire any reading at length when the trainers OF
the Constitution required that every bill should
have ''three readings" and in express terms re-
quired that one OF those readings should be Eat
length" they fairly excluded the idea of compelling
either OF the others to be of the character and
left the other readings to be according to plrlia
mentary meaning and practice.
Your committee therefore of opinion that the
Constitution requires that every bill shall be read at
length upon its final passage in each house. but
that neither house is required to have it read at
length at any other stage of its progress 1t may
do so its pleasure, but is not compelled to do