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There are certain matters which each house determines for itself, and in respect to which its decision is conclusive. It chooses its own officers, except where, by constitution or statute, it is otherwise provided; it determines its own rules of proceeding, it decides upon the election and qualification of its own members.1 These powers it is obviously proper should rest with the body immediately interested, as essential to enable it to enter upon and proceed with its legislative functions, without liability to interruption and confusion. In determining questions concerning contested seats, the house will exercise judicial power, but generally in accordance with a course of practice which has sprung from precedents in similar cases, and no other authority is at liberty to interfere.

Each house has also the power to punish members for disorderly behavior, and other contempts of its authority, and also to expel a member for any cause which seems to the body to render it unfit that he continue to occupy one of its seats. This power is sometimes conferred by the constitution, but it exists whether expressly conferred or not. It is "a necessary and incidental power, to enable the house to perform its high functions, and is necessary to the safety of the State. It is a power of protection. A member may be physically, mentally, or morally wholly unfit; he may be affected with a contagious disease, or insane, or noisy, violent, and disorderly, or in the habit of using profane, obscene, and abusive language." And, "independently of parliamentary customs and usages, our legislative houses have the power to protect themselves by the punishment and expulsion of a member "; and the courts cannot inquire into the justice of the decision, or look into the proceedings to see whether opportunity for defence was furnished or not.2

bers had no power to re-convene on their own motion, as had been attempted. The case is a very full and valuable one on several points pertaining to legislative proceedings and authority.

1 In People v. Mahaney, 13 Mich. 481, it was held that the correctness of a decision by one of the houses, that certain persons had been chosen members, could not be inquired into by the courts. In that case a law was assailed as void, on the ground that a portion of the members who voted for it, and without whose votes it would not have had the requisite majority, had been given their seats in the House in defiance of law, and to the exclusion of others who had a majority of legal votes. See the same principle in State v. Jarrett, 17 Md. 309. See also Lamb v. Lynd, 44 Penn. St. 336.

Hiss v. Bartlett, 3 Gray, 468. And see Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204.

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Each house may also punish contempts of its authority by other persons, whether express authority is conferred by the constitution or not; but where imprisonment is imposed as a punishment, it must terminate with the final adjournment of the house, and if the prisoner be not then discharged by its order, he may be released on habeas corpus.2

By common parliamentary law, the members of the legislature are privileged from arrest on civil process during the session of that body, and for a reasonable time before and after to enable them to go to and return from the same. By the constitutions of some of the States this privilege has been enlarged, so as to exempt the persons of legislators from any service of civil process,3 and in others their estates are exempt from attachment for some prescribed period. For any arrest contrary to the parliamentary law or to these provisions, the house of which the person arrested is a member may give summary relief by ordering his discharge, and if the order is not complied with, by punishing the persons concerned in the arrest as for a contempt of its authority. The remedy of the party, however, is not confined to this mode of relief. His privilege is not the privilege of the house merely, but of the people, and to enable him to discharge the trust confided to him by his constituents; and if the house neglected to interfere, the court from which the process issued should set it aside on the facts being represented, and any court or officer having authority to issue writs of habeas corpus might also in

1 Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204; Burdett v. Abbott, 14 East, 1; Stockdale v. Hansard, 9 Ad. & El. 231; Burnham v. Morrissey, 14 Gray, 226; State . Matthews, 37 N. II. 450.

Jefferson's Manual, § 18; Prichard's case, 1 Lev. 165.

"Senators and representatives shall, in all cases except treason, felony, or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest. They shall not be subject to any civil process during the session of the legislature, or for fifteen days next before the commencement and after the termination of each session." Const. of Mich. art. 4, § 7. The same exemption from civil process is found in the constitution of Kansas, art. 2, § 22, and in that of Nebraska, art. 2, § 15.

The constitution of Rhode Island provides that "the person of every member of the General Assembly shall be exempt from arrest, and his estate from attachment, in any civil action, during the session of the General Assembly, and two days before the commencement and two days after the termination thereof, and all process served contrary hereto shall be void." Art. 4, § 5.

5 Coffin v. Coffin, 4 Mass. 27.

quire into the case, and release the party from the unlawful imprisonment.1

Each house must also be allowed to proceed in its own way in the collection of such information as may seem important to a proper discharge of its functions; and whenever it is deemed desirable that witnesses should be examined, the power and authority to do so is very properly referred to a committee, with any such powers short of final legislative or judicial action as may seem necessary or expedient in the particular case. Such a committee has no authority to sit during a recess of the house which has appointed it, without its permission to that effect; but the house is at liberty to confer such authority if it see fit.2 A refusal to appear or to testify before such committee, or to produce books or papers, would be a contempt of the house; but the committee cannot punish for contempts; it can only report the conduct of the offending party to the house for its action. The power of the committee will terminate with the final dissolution of the house appointing it.

Each house keeps a journal of its proceedings, which is a public record, and of which the courts are at liberty to take judicial notice. If it should appear from these journals that any act did not receive the requisite majority, or that in respect to it the legislature did not follow any requirement of the constitution, or that in any other respect the act was not constitutionally adopted, the courts may act upon this evidence, and adjudge the statute void. But whenever it is acting in the apparent performance of legal functions, every reasonable presumption is to be made in favor of the action of a legislative body; it will not be presumed in any case, from the mere silence of the journals, that either house has exceeded its authority, or disregarded a consti

1 On this subject, Cushing on Law and Practice of Parliamentary Assemblies, $$ 546-597, will be consulted with profit.

* Branham v. Lange, 16 Ind. 497; Marshall v. Harwood, 7 Md. 466. See also parliamentary cases, 5 Grey, 374; 9 Grey, 350; 1 Chandler, 50.

3 Burnham v. Morrissey, 14 Grey, 226.

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Spangler v. Jacoby, 14 Ill. 297; Miller v. State, 8 Ohio, N. S. 475; People v. Mahaney, 13 Mich. 481; Southwark Bank v. Commonwealth, 2 Penn. St. 446; McCulloch v. State, 11 Ind. 430; State v. Moffitt, 5 Ohio, 358; Turley v. Logan Co., 17 Ill. 151; People v. Supervisors of Chenango, 8 N. Y. 317.

5 See cases cited in preceding note. Also Prescott v. Trustees of Ill. & Mich. Canal, 19 Ill. 324.

tutional requirement in the passage of legislative acts, unless where the constitution has expressly required the journals to show the action taken, as, for instance, where it requires the yeas and nays to be entered.1

The law also seeks to cast its protection around legislative sessions, and to shield them against corrupt and improper influences, by making void all contracts which have for their object to influence legislation in any other manner than by such open and public presentation of facts and arguments and appeals to reason as are recognized as proper and legitimate with all public bodies. While counsel may be properly employed to present the reasons in favor of any public measure to the body authorized to pass upon it, or to any of its committees empowered to collect facts. and hear arguments, and parties interested may lawfully contract to pay for this service, yet the secret approach of members of such a body with a view to influence their action, at a time and in a manner that do not allow the presentation of opposite views, is improper and unfair to the opposing interest; and a contract to pay for this irregular and improper service would not be enforced by the law.2

1 Miller v. State, 3 Ohio, N. S. 475; McCulloch v. State, 11 Ind. 424; Supervisors v. People, 25 Ill. 181.

This whole subject was very fully considered in the case of Frost v. Inhabitants of Belmont, 6 Allen, 152, which was a bill filed to restrain the payment by the town of demands to the amount of nearly $ 9,000, which the town had voted to pay as expenses in obtaining their act of incorporation. By the court, Chapman, J.: "It is to be regretted that any persons should have attempted to procure an act of legislation in this commonwealth by such means as some of these items indicate. By the regular course of legislation, organs are provided through which any parties may fairly and openly approach the legislature, and be heard with proofs and arguments respecting any legislative acts which they may be interested in, whether public or private. These organs are the various committees appointed to consider and report upon the matters to be acted upon by the whole body. When private interests are to be affected, notice is given of the hearings before these committees; and thus opportunity is given to adverse parties to meet face to face and obtain a fair and open hearing. And though these committees properly dispense with many of the rules which regulate hearings before judicial tribunals, yet common fairness requires that neither party shall be permitted to have secret consultations, and exercise secret influences that are kept from the knowledge of the other party. The business of lobby members' is not to go fairly and openly before the committees, and present statements, proofs, and arguments that the other side has an opportunity to meet and refute, if they are wrong, but to go secretly to the members and ply them with statements and argu

The Introduction and Passage of Bills..

Any member may introduce a bill in the house to which he belongs, in accordance with its rules; and this he may do at any

ments that the other side cannot openly meet, however erroneous they may be, and to bring illegitimate influences to bear upon them. If the lobby member' is selected because of his political or personal influence, it aggravates the wrong. If his business is to unite various interests by means of projects that are called log rolling,' it is still worse. The practice of procuring members of the legislature to act under the influence of what they have eaten and drank at houses of entertainment tends to render those who yield to such influences wholly unfit to act in such cases. They are disqualified from acting fairly towards interested parties or towards the public. The tendency and object of these influences are to obtain by corruption what it is supposed cannot be obtained fairly.

"It is a well-established principle, that all contracts which are opposed to public policy, and to open, upright, and fair dealing, are illegal and void. The principle was fully discussed in Fuller v. Dame, 18 Pick. 472. In several other States it has been applied to cases quite analogous to the present case.

"In Pingrey v. Washburn, 1 Aiken, 264, it was held in Vermont that an agreement, on the part of a corporation, to grant to individuals certain privileges in consideration that they would withdraw their opposition to the passage of a legislative act touching the interests of the corporation, is against sound policy, prejudicial to just and correct legislation, and void. In Gulick v. Ward, 5 Halst. 87, it was decided in New Jersey that a contract which contravenes an act of Congress, and tends to defraud the United States, is void. A had agreed to give B $ 100, on condition that B would forbear to propose or offer himself to the Postmaster-General to carry the mail on a certain mail route, and it was held that the contract was against public policy and void. The general principle as to contracts contravening public policy was discussed in that case at much length. In Wood v. McCann, 6 Dana, 366, the defendant had employed the plaintiff to assist him in obtaining a legislative act in Kentucky legalizing his divorce from a former wife, and his marriage with his present wife. The court say: 'A lawyer may be entitled to compensation for writing a petition, or even for making a public argument before the legislature or a committee thereof; but the law should not hold him or any other person to a recompense for exercising any personal influence in any way, in any act of legislation. It is certainly important to just and wise legislation, and therefore to the most essential interest of the public, that the legis lature should be perfectly free from any extraneous influence which may either corrupt or deceive the members, or any of them.'

"In Clippinger v. Hepbaugh, 5 Watts & S. 315, it was decided in Pennsylvania that a contract to procure or endeavor to procure the passage of an act of the legislature, by using personal influence with the members, or by any sinister means, was void, as being inconsistent with public policy and the integrity of our political institutions. And an agreement for a contingent fee to be paid on the passage of a legislative act was held to be illegal and void, because it would be

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