Rogue River courier. (Grants Pass, Or.) 1886-1927, 1906-10-12

provides as follows: 'It shall he the
duty Of the County Court at the regu-
lar term in November preceding the
general election to set off and estab-
lisb precincts within the county, and
the lines thereof shall conform to es-
tablished road and district bound
aries" He says. 81 do rot believe
that a member of a political party
can be deprived of his right to present
a petition because it is difficult to
ascertain the true vote. He might if
he chose take the vote cast for con-
gresham in the precinct Of the county
of which the city ward is part and
If candidate for ward Office base his
petition upon the vote of the ward
found If he so choose by deducting
from the total vote cast for congress-
man in the district the entire number
of voters outside the ward precinct,
and still obtain two per cent of the
total number"
The substance of the opinion thus
far is that primary elections must be
held to give members of the demo-
cratic and republican parties in this
city chance to nominate candidates.
II no petitions are filed and even If
they are filed other candidates Can be
nominated by an affiliation of voters,
or by independent petition; that the
City of Grants Pass can nominate &C.
cording to its charter provisions, and
that il no nominating petitions are
filed under the state act big expense
will be saved the city.
Inasmuch as there is charter being
drafted by a committee Of the common
council, the question has arisen as to
whether or not the charter to be pro-
posed could totally ignore the state
primary act in the future and provide
a method of it's own for the nomina-
tion of candidates. The city attorney
has held that "The charter proposed
could not ignore the state primary
act and under these constitutional
amendments fix its own procedure.
The fact that the legal voters of every
city and town are granted power to
enact and amend their municipal
charter does not mean that we can
ignore constitutional laws passed by
the general assembly or enacted by
the people. There are many limita-
tions to the number of subjects upon
which a municipality may legislate
and the doing away with the state
primary law is one upon which this
city in my Judgment cannot legislate.
1t is not probable that the supreme
court of this state would hold that
under these amendments
could legislate upon any subject that
they saw fit So it must follow that
until the legislature or the people
change the state primary law, its
provisions are and will be applicable
to nominations by political parties and
the auditor and police Judge must
post notices of such election and give
to such parties an opportunity to
nominate candidates and this cannot
be changed by the electors Of
m unicipality. In other words the
city attorney holds that municipal.
ity under the amendments to the con-
stitution has no right TO adopt a
charter in contravention OF the state
primary law and he suggests that the
submission of the charter be post
poned until next year when he thinks
The state law will have been changed
BY the next session of the legislature
10 as to exempt cities of the size of
Grants Pass from the operation of
he state primary law and in this
1iew he is sustained by W. S. U'Ren,
me of the authors of the state primary
aw, who suggests that cities have a
light to change their charters In con-
of the state law, but says:
Lawyers are not generally agreed
N this point, and it seems to me it
would he much better to wait for
ction by the legislature than to at
empt municipal legislation which
would result in litigation. From
have heard, | think
here is no doubt that the legislature
will amend the nominating election
aw to that end.
1t would seem that IT the charter as
proposed is submitted to the people
md the experse of publishing in the
ewspapers and printing in book form,
'as to be increased next year by
lew charter because of the proposed
ction of the legislature, this would
" matter which should be defer ed
Until after the meeting of the legisla.
ure.
At special meeting of the council
'eld on Tuesday evening, October .,
0O6. the proposed charter was handed
o the city attorney for examination.