Arizona republican., 1913-08-30
WHO MONKEyED
 WITH S.S.B. 25
Hiatus Found in General County Removal Bill, and No Authorization Can Be Found for Elimination of Certain Provision

Senator Harry Austin Davis has been Investigating the condition of substi tute senate bill 25 of the last session of the legislature and finds an authorized hiatus in the law, the whereof he can- not understand. Yesterday he and Con- P. Cronin. secretary of the senate spent
 the day among the records of the legis- lature trying to find where the hiatus was authorized and they failed in their quest
 An investigation of the bill. which 1 is the county division bill. after the referendum was filed against it shows l that one of the percentages in the bill l in it's original form is not in the en- crossed and enrolled copy. All this may be little obtuse and misleading 1 but the facts of the case are these. | When the legislature was in session | there were many attempts from certain l sections of the state to secure the pass age of bills erecting new counties. These bills were uniformly defeated in one house or the other until c. E Wood. senator from Maricopa arrived a the idea of a general county division bill, which was in the main similar to the one finally adopted
 This bill in it's final shape, provided that counties could be divided providing that 60 per cent of the voters in that section sought to be cut off and made into new county were willing and thirty per cent of the voters in the re- maining portion of the county were also willing. The same end could be obtained if seventy five per cent of the voters in the proposed new county Were willing to have new county and fifteen per cent in the old portion were
 also willing. The same result could be
 obtained if the percentages were ninety
 and ten.
 The house. however. did not see mat
 ters just in that light and made sev-
 eral amendments to the bill, which
 were not concurred in by the senate,
 and conference committee was ap-
 pointed. The outcome of the confer
 ence committee was the changing
 somewhat of the percentages from the
 original bill so that they stood 60 and
 20 and ninety per cent in favor with
 none against it. To the best of the knowledge of Senator Davis, the under
 standing in the conference was that the two mentioned percentages were all
 that were changed. The seventv-five fifteen percentage was left in the bill
 But here comes the mystery A look ing at the bill yesterday failed to find the seVenty-five and fifteen clause, neither Were there any committee re- ports authorizing taking that clause from the bill. What has come of it? Who left it out? Who authorized leav- ing it out? These were the three propo- sittons that faced the senator yesterday morning when he started to work, and these same three propositions remained unanswered when the search was fin ished
 The probable explanation of the rnys- tery is that in the rush of the closing hours, the provision was unwittingIy left out and the hiatus was not dis covered by either of the enrolling and expressing committees of the two houses. However, the bill has been referred. Sufficient voters of the state have expressed their disapproval of the measure to have it placed upon the bal lot at the election to come one year this fall.