The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-06-18
BONUS LAW DECISION
TO GO TO HIGHER COURT
REASONS FOR UNCoNSTI.
TUTTONALITY OF ACT.
Chancellor Lellyet Sets Forth
in Clear Manner It's
Invalidness.

The members OF the legislature
were thrown into the low grounds of
sorrow yesterday when they read in
The News that Chancellor Lellyett at
Nashville had denied their right to
collect $3.50 bonus as part of their
service for serving the state as So
Ions. News comes from Nashville
that Judge Joseph G. Higgins, coun-
sci for the solons, has appealed the
case to the supreme court.
In his opinion Chancellor Lellyett.
in declaring the law which under
took to appropriate $3.50 bonus to
members of the legislature unconsti-
tutional. said:
II am bound to construe the con-
stitution as I see it written, and
must leave the question of adoption
to the times to the voice of the peo-
pie in whose control constitutions
and their amendments exclusively
exist.
"The sum of 81 per day and 81 for
every twenty-five miles travelling to
and from the seat of government is
quite plain and certainly does not
need technical, strained or unnatural
construction.
This is followed by shall be allowed
| to the members of each general assem-
constitution, as compensation for
| their services 1t is very clear that
these intelligent men wished to say
that 81 per day was enough for every
man living at the seat of government
and that if he had to travel twenty-five
miles of travelling to and from the seat
of government. Is 1t not clear that
these intelligent men understood that
these provisions were intended to in
clude the pay of each legislator for his
services and his expenses? For it is
very certain that if the member lived
100 miles, his mileage was and under
stood by them TO be far in excess of his
actual needs for this purpose alone;
and these things are allowed to each
member per diem, which meant by the
day, and could not have meant anything
else but that was all they were to get
But 1T is said that the Legislature is
its own judge OF expenses of its own
body, and that having declared them,
it is a usurpation for any other body
to curtail their estimates or construe
that their judgment is not correct In
their own matter.
This would certainly be true in all
matters of their body expenses, in all
matters concerning the administration
Of their committees of the body or their
arms necessary to carry out their public
duties and functions, always providing
that such things have not been limited
by either the state or federal consti-
tuition. But in my opinion this argu-
ment is not good, as to their individual
expenditures or allowances, voted under
the power given to them by the con-
stitution for their own individual use
and compensation. and as seen from our
constitution and others read with it,
that it is this particularly which the
people, by their representatives, through
their foresight intended to limit.
II am not, IN this opinion, taking the
position that this appropriation was a
vicious one, or intended to be so, or
violation of any moral right by the
members of the legislatures I do not
think that hey so conceived it; / am
sure they did not
And l am satisfied that their serv-
ices were more valuable and expenses
greater than they have covered in the
appropriation in question in the instant
case, and | frankly state that 1t would
be very different with me if 1t was only
the question of my individual opinion
as to the value of their services and the
costs to which they have been put"