State of Ohio On Relation of David Davis v. Charles Hildebrant

• Decision Date: 12 June 1916
• Docket Number: No. 987,987
• Citation: 36 S.Ct. 708,241 U.S. 565,60 L.Ed. 1172
• Parties: STATE OF OHIO ON RELATION OF DAVID DAVIS, Plff. in Err., v. CHARLES Q. HILDEBRANT, Secretary of State of Ohio, State Supervisor and Inspector of Elections, and State Supervisor of Elections, et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

241 U.S. 565

36 S.Ct. 708

60 L.Ed. 1172

STATE OF OHIO ON RELATION OF DAVID DAVIS, Plff. in Err.,

v CHARLES Q. HILDEBRANT, Secretary of State of Ohio, State Supervisor and Inspector of Elections, and State Supervisor of Elections, et al.

No. 987.

Submitted May 22, 1916.

Decided June 12, 1916.

Messrs. Sherman T. McPherson and J. Warren Keifer for plaintiff in error.

Mr. Edward C. Turner, Attorney General of Ohio, and Messrs. Edmond H. Moore and Timothy S. Hogan for defendants in error.

Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

By an amendment to the Constitution of Ohio, adopted September 3d, 1912, the legislative power was expressly declared to be vested not only in the senate and house of representatives of the state, constituting the general assembly, but in the people, in whom a right was reserved by way of referendum to approve or disapprove by popular vote any law enacted by the general assembly. And by other constitutional provisions the machinery to carry out the referendum was created. Briefly they were this: Within a certain time after the enactment of a law by the senate and house of representatives, and its approval by the governor, upon petition of 6 per centum of the voters, the question of whether the law should become operative was to be submitted to a vote of the people, and, if approved, the law should be operative; and, if not approved, it should have no effect whatever.

In May, 1915, the general assembly of Ohio passed an act redistricting the state for the purpose of congressional elections, by which act twenty-two congressional districts were created, in some respects differing from the previously established districts, and this act, after approval by the governor, was filed in the office of the secretary of state. The requisite number of electors under the referendum provision having petitioned for a submission of the law to a popular vote, such vote was taken and the law was disapproved. Thereupon, in the supreme court of the state, the suit before us was begun against state election officers for the purpose of procuring a mandamus, directing them to disregard the vote of the people on the referendum, disapproving the law, and to proceed to discharge their duties as such officers in the next congressional election, upon the assumption that the action by way of referendum was void, and that the law which was disapproved was subsisting and valid. The right to this relief was based upon the charge that the referendum vote was not and could not be a part of the legislative authority of the state, and therefore could have no influence on the subject of the law creating congressional districts for the purpose of representation in Congress. Indeed, it was in substance charged that both from the point of view of the state Constitution and laws and from that of the Constitution of the United States, especially § 4 of article 1, providing that 'the times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators;' and also from that of the provisions of the controlling act of Congress of August 8, 1911 (chap. 5, 37 Stat. at L. 13, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 15), apportioning representation among the states, the attempt to make the referendum a component part of the legislative authority empowered to deal with the election of members of Congress was absolutely void. The court below adversely disposed of these contentions, and held that the provisions as to referendum were a part of the legislative power of the state, made so by the Constitution, and that nothing in the act of Congress of 1911, or in the constitutional provision, operated to the contrary, and that therefore the disapproved law had no existence and was not entitled to be enforced by mandamus.

Without going into the many irrelevant points which are pressed in the argument, and the various inapposite authorities cited, although we have considered them all, we think it is apparent that the whole case and every real question in it will be disposed of by looking at it from three points of view,—...