election of two associate justices of said court, to hold their offices for terms ending two and four years respectively, after the end of the term of the justice of the said court then last to expire. And thereafter the chief justice and associate justices of the said court shall be elected and hold their offices respectively for the term of ten years. Sec. 12. There shall be a clerk of the Circuit Court chosen in each county organized for judicial purposes by the qualified electors thereof, who shall hold his office for two years, subject to removal as shall be provided by law; in case of a vacancy the judge of the Circuit Court shall have power to appoint a clerk until the vacancy shall be filled by an election; the clerk thus elected or appointed shall give such security as the Legislature may require. The Supreme Court shall appoint its own clerk and a clerk of the Circuit Court may be appointed a clerk of the Supreme Court. ARTICLE VIII. Sec. 2. No money shall be paid out of the treasury, except in pursuance of an appropriation by law. No appropriation shall be made for the payment of any claim against the State, except claims of the United States and judgments, unless filed within six years after the claim accrued. ARTICLE XI. Sec. 3. It shall be the duty of the Legislature, and they are hereby empowered to provide for the organization of cities and incorporated villages, and to restrict their power of taxation, assessment, borrowing money, contracting debts, and loaning their credit, so as to prevent abuses in assessments and taxation, and in contracting debts by such municipal corporations. No county, city, town, village, school district, or other municipal corporation, shall be allowed to become indebted in any manner or for any purpose, to any amount, including existing indebtedness, in the aggregate exceeding five per centum on the value of the taxable property therein, to be ascertained by the last assessment for State and county taxes, previous to the incurring of such indebtedness. Any county, city, town, village, school district, or other municipal corporation, incurring any indebtedness as aforesaid, shall before or at the time of doing so, provide for the collection of a direct annual tax sufficient to pay the interest on said debt as it falls due, and also to pay and discharge the principal thereof within twenty years from the time of contracting the same. ARTICLE XIII. Section 1. The political year for the State of Wisconsin shall commence on the first Monday in January in each year, and the general elections shall be holden on the Tuesday next succeeding the first Monday in November. The first general election for all State and county officers, except judicial officers, after the adoption of this amendment, shall be holden in the year A. D. eighteen hundred and eighty-four, and thereafter the general election shall be held biennially. All State, county or other officers elected at the general election in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-one, and whose term of office would otherwise expire on the first Monday of January in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-four, shall hold and continue in such office respectively, until the first Monday in January in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-five. ARTICLE VII. Sec. 4. The chief justice and associate justices of the Supreme Court shall be severally known as justices of said court with the same terms terms of office, respectively, as now provided. The Supreme Court shall consist of five justices (any three of whom shall be a quorum), to be elected as now provided. The justice having been longest a continuous member of the court (or in case of two or more of such senior justices having served for the same length of time, then the one whose commission first expires), shall be ex-officio the chief justice. |
