The Legislature is prohibited from enacting any private or special laws in the following cases: 1. For changing the names of persons, or constituting one person the heir at law of another. 2. For laying out, opening or altering highways, except in cases of State roads extending into more than one county, and military roads to aid in the construction of which lands shall have been or may be granted by Congress. 3. For authorizing persons to keep ferries wholly within this State. 4. For authorizing the sale or mortgage of real or personal property of minors, or others under disability. 5. For assessment or collection of taxes or for extending the time for the collection thereof. 6. For granting corporate powers or privileges. 7. For authorizing the apportionment of any part of the school fund. 8. For incorporating any town or village or to amend the charter thereof. 9. For giving effect to invalid deeds, wills or other instruments. 10. Releasing or extinguishing in whole, or in part, the indebtedness, liability or other obligation of any person or corporation to this State, or to any municipal corporation therein. 11. Declaring any person of age or authorizing any minor to sell, lease, or incumber his or her property. 12. Legalizing, except as against the State, the unauthorized or invalid act of any officer. 13. Regulating the rates of interest on money. 14. Remitting fines, penalties or forfeitures. 15. Providing for the management of common schools. 16. Authorizing the adoption of children. 17. For limitation of civil or criminal actions. 18. Changing county lines, locating or changing county seats: Provided. This shall not be construed to apply to the creation of new counties. Sec. 29. After the first day of January, eighteen hundred and ninety, the labor of convicts of this State shall not be let out by contract to any person, co-partnership, company or corpo ration, and the Legislature shall by law provide for the working of convicts for the benefit of the State. Sec. 30. The offense of corrupt solicitation of members of the Legislature, or of public officers of the State or any municipal division thereof, and any occupation or practice of solicitation of such members or officers to influence their official action, shall be defined by law, and shall be punished by fine and imprisonment. Any person may be compelled to testify in any lawful investigation or judicial proceeding against any person who may be charged with having committed the offense of bribery or corrupt solicitation, or practice of solicitation, and shall not be per mitted to withhold his testimony on the ground that it may criminate himself or subject him to public infamy, but such testimony shall not afterwards be used against him in any judicial proceeding except for perjury in giving such testimony-and any person convicted of either of the offenses aforesaid, shall, as part of the punishment therefor, be disqualified from ever holding any position of honor, trust or profit in this State. A member who has a private interest in any bill or measure proposed or pending before the Legislature shall disclose the fact to the house of which he is a member, and shall not vote thereon. Sec. 31. No law, except appropriation bills, shall take effect until ninety days after the adjournment of the session at which it was enacted, unless in case of an emergency (which emergency must be expressed in the preamble or in the body of the act) the Legislature shall otherwise direct by a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house; said vote to be taken by yeas and nays and entered on the journals. Sec. 32. No bill shall become a law until the same shall have been signed by the presiding officer of each of the two houses in open session, and under such rules as the Legislature shall prescribe. Sec. 33. The ownership of lands by aliens, other than those who in good faith have declared their intention to become citizens of the United States, is prohibited in this State, except where acquired by inheritance, under mortgage or in good faith in the ordinary course of justice in the collection of debts; and all conveyances of lands hereafter made to any alien directly or in trust for such alien shall be void: Provided, That the provisions of this section shall not apply to lands containing valuable deposits of minerals, metals, iron, coal, or fire-clay, and the nec essary land for mills and machinery to be used in the development thereof and the manufacture of the products therefrom. Every corporation, the majority of the capital stock of which is owned by aliens, shall be considered an alien for the purposes of this prohibition. Sec. 34. There shall be established in the office of the Secretary of State, a bureau of statistics, agriculture and immigration, under such regulations as the Legislature may provide. Sec. 35. The Legislature shall pass necessary laws for the protection of persons working in mines, factories and other employments dangerous to life or deleterious to health; and fix pains and penalties for the enforcement of same. Sec. 36. No bill shall be considered in either house unless the time of its introduction shall have been at least ten days before the final adjournment of the Legislature, unless the Legislature shall otherwise direct by a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house, said vote to be taken by yeas and nays and entered upon the journal, or unless the same be at a special session. Sec. 37. No act shall ever be revised or amended by mere reference to its title, but the act revised or the section amended shall be set forth at full length. Sec. 38. No amendment to any bill shall be allowed which shall change the scope and object of the bill. Sec. 39. It shall not be lawful for any person holding public office in this State to accept or use a pass or to purchase transportation from any railroad or other corporation, other than as the same may be purchased by the general public, and the Legis lature shall pass laws to enforce this provision. ARTICLE III. The Executive. Section 1. The executive department shall consist of a Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Auditor, Attorney-General, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and a Commissioner of Public Lands, who shall be severally chosen by the qualified electors of the State at the time and place of voting as for the members of the Legislature. Sec. 2. The supreme executive power of this State shall be vested in a Governor, who shall hold his office for the term of four years, and until his successor is elected and qualified. Sec. 3. The Lieutenant-Governor, Secretary of State, Treas urer, Auditor, Attorney-General, Superintendent of Public Instruction and Commisioner of Public Lands, shall hold their office for four years respectively, and until their successors are elected and qualified. Sec. 4. The returns of every election for the officers named in the first section of this article shall be sealed up and transmitted to the seat of government by the returning officer, directed to the Secretary of State, who shall deliver the same to the speaker of the House of Representatives at the first meeting of the house thereafter, who shall open, publish and declare the result thereof in the presence of a majority of the members of both houses. The person having the highest number of votes shall be declared duly elected, and a certificate thereof shall be given to such person, signed by the presiding officers of both houses; but if any two or more shall be highest and equal in votes for the same office, one of them shall be chosen by a joint vote of both houses. Contested elections for such officers shall be decided by the Legislature in such manner as shall be determined by law. The terms of all officers named in section one of this article shall commence on the second Monday in January after their election, until otherwise provided by law. Sec. 5. The Governor may require information in writing from the officers of the State upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and shall see that the laws are faithfully executed. Sec. 6. He shall communicate at every session by message to the Legislature the condition of the affairs of the State, and recommend such measures as he shall deem expedient for their action. Sec. 7. He may, on extraordinary occasions, convene the Legislature by proclamation, in which shall be stated the purpose for which the Legislature is convened. Sec. 8. He shall be commander-in-chief of the military in the State, except when they shall be called into the service of the United States. Sec. 9. The pardoning power shall be vested in the Governor, under such regulations and restrictions as may be prescribed by law. Sec. 10. In case of the removal, resignation, death or disability of the Governor, the duties of the office shall devolve upon the Lieutenant-Governor, and in case of a vacancy in both the offices of Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, the duties of Governor shall devolve upon the Secretary of State, who shall act as Governor, until the disability be removed or a Governor be elected Sec. 11. The Governor shall have power to remit fines and for feitures, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law, and shall report to the Legislature at its next meeting each case of reprieve, commutation or pardon granted, and the reasons for granting the same, and also the names of all persons in whose favor remissions of fines and forfeitures shall have been made, and the several amounts remitted and the reasons for the remission. Sec. 12. Every act which shall have passed the Legislature shall be, before it becomes a law, presented to the Governor. If he approves, he shall sign it; but if not, he shall return it, with his objections, to that house in which it shall have originated, which house shall enter the objection at large upon the journal and proceed to reconsider. If, after such reconsideration, twothirds of the members present shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objection, to the other house, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of the members present, it shall become a law; but in all such cases the vote of both houses shall be determined by the yeas and nays, and the names of the members voting for or against the bill shall be entered upon the journal of each house respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the Governor within five days, Sunday excepted, after it shall be presented to him, it shall become a law without his signature, unless the general adjournment shall prevent its return, in which case it shall become a law unless the Governor, within ten days next after the adjournment, Sundays excepted, shall file such bill with his objections thereto in the office of Secretary of State, who shall lay the same before the Legislature at its next session in like manner as if it had been returned by the Governor. If any bill presented to the Governor contain several sections or items, he may object to one or more sections or items while approving other portions of the bill. In such case he shall append to the bill, at the time of signing it, a statement of the section or sections, item or items, to which he objects, and the reasons therefor, and the section or sections, item or items so objected to shall not take effect |
