Judicial Decisions on Public Law

Abstract

Amendment of State Constitution-Majority Necessary for Adoption. People v. Stevenson (Illinois, December 7, 1917, 117 N. E. 747). The constitution of Illinois provides that when amendments to that instrument are proposed by the legislature of the state they shall be submitted to the voters of the states the next election of members of the General Assembly, in such manner as may be prescribed by law and if a majority of the electors voting at said election shall vote for the proposed they shall become a part of the constitution. A constitutional amendment relating to taxation was submitted to the people of Illinois at the general election in November, 1916. The vote upon it was 656,298 for, and 295,782 against. The number of male voters voting in the election was 1,343,381, while the highest vote cast for members of the general assembly aggregated 1,269,331. In other words the amendment received a majority of the vote cast for members of the general assembly but not a majority of the total male vote cast in the election for other officers. In this case the supreme court of Illinois was called upon to decide whether or not the amendment had received the majority which the constitution required. It decided that it had not. It based its decision upon the following grounds: A constitution gets its binding force, not from the convention which framed it, but from the people who ratified it. Accordingly its clauses must be construed in the natural, ordinary sense most obvious to the common understanding. The obvious meaning of the clause in question is that a majority of the highest vote cast at the general election shall be required to pass an amendment. This has been the interpretation which has been placed upon that clause in counting the votes upon all of the seven previous amendments adopted under the present state constitution, although in none of those cases did the amendment fail to get a favorable majority of the highest vote cast in the election. This interpretation is rendered all the more reasonable by the fact that under the system of minority representation used in Illinois it is