Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1907-01-03
Madison, Dec. 81.

Madison, Dec. 81.
Patronage has ceased to exist in
the Wisconsin legislature if an opin-
ion of Attorney General Sturdevant,
announced by the civil service com
mission last night, prevails.
The attorney general holds that
every last one of the employees of the
Legislature, below the officers cleo
tive by the senate and assembly,
shall be appointed il accordance with
the competitive merit system as ad-
ministered by the civil service com
mission. The only salaried employees
exempted are those directly elected
by the senate and assembly-the
chief clerk and sergeant-at-arms of
each house. All the committee clerks,
all the journal clerks, assistant jour
nal clerks, general clerks, watchmen,
postmasters, custodians, messengers,
bookkeepers and other employees must
be chosen by the competitive system,
according to the opinion of the states
legal advisor.
Will Work a Great Change.
The effect of this determination by
the attorney general is not readily
throughout the state nor by many
residents of Madison but those who
have watched the eager seekers
after jobs" hang around the capitC
at the beginning of each session, So
Letting members until lawmakers are
wearied almost unto death, will have
some conception of the great change
which the attorney general holds was
contemplated and brought about by
the civil service law. In times past
members of the legislature were wont
to bring from their districts follow
ers who had worked faithfully for
them in the primaries and election,
and to demand that they be given
places on the legislative pay roll In
this manner political debts were paid
Never were there places enough for
all the faithful, and the consequence
was a great and unseemly scramble.
The civil service law puts a stop to
this is the effect of the opinion of
the attorney general.
ReVerses Former Opinion.
The question of the event of appli-
cation of the merit system to legis-
lative positions provided for by the
civil service law was examined by
the attorney general at the request
of the commission soon after the law
was enacted in 1905, and in Septem-
Der of that year an opinion was rem
dered to the effect that the merit
system of appointment applied only
to expert stenographers and type
writer's; that is, that the merit sys-
TEN was to be applied only to such
employees as were mentioned spe-
cifCally TO that effect in the new leg
islatiye employee act of 1905, being
chapter 515.
However, the attorney general has
made another opinion to the effect
that all the appointive employees
must be chosen by the competitive
merit system. This opinion was rem
dered in a letter to Secretary and
Chief Examiner F. e. Doty recently
and was announced by the commits
sion last night
Not Repealed by Implication.
The attorney general says that he
has had occasion to examine his pre-
yious opinion and to give the matter
further consideration, and concludes
that his former opinion was wrong.
His first view was that as stenOgraph-
ic and typewriting clerks were spe-
officially mentioned in the employee
statute as to be chosen from the eli
gible lists furnished by the civil sery-
ice commission, all other employees
were by implication excepted from
the provisions of the civil service law
If this be true, he now holds, the en-
ploye act was meant to repeal by I'M
plication the provisions of the civil
service law. The attorney general in
his present opinion discusses at
length the subject of "repeals by i'm
plication" and concludes that there is
in the new employe act "an entire alb
sence Of any provision indicating an
intention to repeal any part OF the
civil service act. The fact that clerks
doing typewriting are specifically
mentioned in the employee act may be
accounted for on an entirely different
theory than the supposition that the
legislature intended that only such
clerks should be subject to civil
service rules.
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