Bowe v. Sec'y of the Commonwealth

Citation320 Mass. 230,69 N.E.2d 115
PartiesBOWE et al. v. SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH and five other cases.
Decision Date20 September 1946
CourtUnited States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Reports from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Hanify, Judge.

Separate actions by Thomas W. Bowe and others against the Secretary of the Commonwealth for mandamus forbidding submission of proposed initiative law forbidding political contributions by labor unions; by Thomas W. Bowe and others against the Secretary of the Commonwealth for mandamus forbidding submission of proposed initiative law requiring reports by labor unions; by Thomas W. Bowe and others against the Attorney General for certiorari to quash the ‘summary’ and certificate of the Attorney General as to proposed initiative law forbidding political contributions by labor unions; by Thomas W. Bowe and others against the Attorney General for certiorari to quash the ‘summary’ and certificate as to proposed initiative law requiring reports by labor unions; by Thomas W. Bowe and others against the registrars of voters of Everett, to attack by mandamus the registrars' certificate to the name of a signer of the initiative petition; and by Thomas W. Bowe and others against the registrars of voters of Everett, to attack by certiorari the registrars' certificate to the name of original signer of the initiative petition. All cases reported from the Superior Court without decision.

Mandamus issued in the action against the Secretary of the Commonwealth relating to the initiative law forbidding political contributions by labor unions, and petition dismissed in the other five cases.

Before FIELD, C. J., and LUMMUS, QUA, RONAN, and WILKINS, JJ.

J. H. Morris, of Baston, for petitioners.

R. Clapp, Asst. Atty. Gen., for Secretary of Commonwealth and another.

M. T. Silverstein, City Sol., of Everett, for Registrars of voters of Everett.

LUMMUS, Justice.

Under the Forty-eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the Commonwealth, which provides for enactment by vote of the people of a proposed law initiated by ten qualified voters of the Commonwealth, two proposed laws were initiated by ten such voters, and are about to be placed on the ballot and submitted to popular vote at the coming State election.

One of those proposed laws is entitled ‘An Act relative to contributions by labor unions or persons acting in behalf thereof for political purposes or to campaign funds,’ and purports to amend G.L. c. 55, § 7, ‘as amended by’ St. 1938, c. 75, by ‘striking out the first sentence and inserting in place thereof’ the following: ‘No corporation carrying on the business of a bank, trust, surety, indemnity, safe deposit, insurance, railroad, street railway, telegraph, telephone, gas, electric light, heat, power, canal, aqueduct, or water company, or any company having the right to take land by eminent domain or to exercise franchises in public ways, granted by the commonwealth or by any county, city or town, no trustee or trustees owning or holding the majority of the stock of such a corporation, no business corporation incorporation under the laws of or doing business in the commonwealth, no officer or agent acting in behalf of any corporation mentioned in this section, and no labor union or any person acting in behalf thereof shall directly or indirectly give, pay, expend or contribute, any money or other valuable thing in order to aid, promote or prevent the nomination or election of any person to public office, or to aid, promote or antagonize the interests of any political party or to influence or affect the vote on any question submitted to the voters.’

The effect of the proposed law is to include a ‘labor union or any person acting in behalf thereof’ within the prohibition of political contributions, equally with the corporations and persons previously specified in the statute. The reference to the amendment made by St.1938, c. 75, was a mistake, for the amendment thereby made changed only the second sentence of that section and left the first sentence unchanged. This erroneous reference was struck out by the ten persons who initiated the proposed law, with a proper certificate by the Attorney General, under the authority to amend a proposed law given them by art. 48 of the Amendments, The Initiative, V, § 2. Plainly this amendment was ‘perfecting in its nature’ and did not ‘materially change the substance of the measure.’ We think that the proposed law must be dealt with as changed by the amendment. See Opinion of the Justices, 318 Mass. 793, 798, 61 N.E.2d 825.

But that perfecting amendment does not remove all difficulty. The fact is that G.L. c. 55, § 7, had been redrafted by St.1943, c. 273, § 1. That redraft-for the most part-made only unimportant verbal changes in the first sentence of G.L. c. 55, § 7, as it appears in the Tercentenary Edition. But it did make one change of substance. Prior to St.1943, c. 273, § 1, the statutory permission to a corporation to make political contributions with respect to a question submitted to the voters materially affecting its property, business or assets, was contained in the second sentence of § 7, and constituted an exception to the broad prohibition declared by the first sentence. In St.1943, c. 273, § 1, that statutory permission was brought up into the first sentence, so that the broad prohibition of corporate political contributions for the purpose of ‘influencing or affecting the vote on any question submitted to the voters,’ was followed immediately by the exception created by the words ‘other than one materially affecting any of the property, business or assets of the corporation.’

The proposed law would substitute the sentence already quoted therefrom for the first sentence of G.L. c. 55, § 7. If enacted by the people, we think it would substitute the sentence already quoted from the proposed law for the first sentence of G.L. c. 55, § 7, in the form in which that first sentence now appears in St.1943, c. 273, § 1. One result would be that a corporation described in that sentence would no longer have a right to make any political contribution for the purpose of influencing or affecting the popular vote on any question submitted to the voters even though that question might materially affect the property, business or assets of the corporation.

The ‘summary’ of that proposed law as determined by the Attorney General under Amendment 74, St.1943, p. 842, is as follows: ‘This measure amends Section 7 of Chapter 55 of the General Laws (Ter.Ed.) which prohibits business corporations, banks, public utility companies and certain others from making political contributions, so that labor unions and any person acting in behalf of a labor union are also prohibited from making political contributions.’

The other proposed law is wholly new. It requires from labor unions reports to the commissioner of labor and industries as to the names and addresses of the officers, their salaries, the scale of dues, initiation fees, fines and assessments, and the amounts collected therefor, and all expenditures, which reports are to be open to public inspection. The full text of the proposed law appears in a footnote.1 The summary of that proposed law as determined by the Attorney General under Amendment 74, § 4, is as follows: ‘No labor union may be operated or maintained unless there is filed with the Commissioner of Labor and Industries a statement signed by the President and Treasurer setting forth the union's officers, aims, scale of dues, fees, fines, assessments and the salaries of the officers. The President and Treasurer of a labor union is required to file annually with the Commissioner of Labor and Industries a detailed statement in writing setting forth all receipts and expenditures of the union which shall be open to the public, and the said Commissioner is given the power to summons witnesses and records; and there is a penalty of not less than $50.00 nor more than $500.00 for whoever fails to file a statement or whoever knowingly makes a false statement.’

The two initiative petitions for the proposed laws in question were filed in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth on September 5, 1945. Both petitions had been signed by the same ten qualified voters of the Commonwealth. All ten signers were residents of the voters in Everett, and each initiative petition was accompanied (a) by a certificate signed by the registrars of voters of Everett that all ten signers were qualified voters of Everett, (b) by a certificate signed by the Attorney General in the form prescribed by section 1 of Amendment 74 to the Constitution, amending Amendment 48, The Initiative, II, Initiative Petitions, § 3, and (c) by what purported to be a ‘fair, concise summary, as determined by the attorney general,’ of the proposed law, required by Amendment 74 to the Constitution, which amends parts of the original Amendment 48.

The required number of additional qualified voters having signed the initiative petitions (Amendment 48, The Initiative, V, Legislative Action on Proposed Laws, § 1), they were duly transmitted to the clerk of the House of Representatives on January 2, 1946, as required by Amendment 48, The Initiative, II, Initiative Petitions, § 4. The General Court having failed to enact either proposed law before the first Wednesday of June last, or at any other time, and the required number of additional signatures of qualified voters having been duly obtained the Secretary of the Commonwealth intends to submit both proposed laws to the people at the coming State election. The successive steps in the process of legislation by the initiative are recited in Compton v. State Ballot Law Commission, 311 Mass. 643, 645, 646, 42 N.E.2d 288.

Thomas W. Bowe, described as president of the Massachusetts State Federation of Labor, and a number of other petitioners described as officers of different labor unions, all being citizens and qualifiedvoters of the Commonwealth, on August...

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51 cases
  • Opinion of the Justices to the Senate
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
    • April 27, 1978
    ...by initiative petition when suit was brought to prevent the measure from appearing on the ballot. Bowe v. Secretary of the Commonwealth, 320 Mass. 230, 243-247, 69 N.E.2d 115 (1946). 1 But when we are asked to discharge our constitutional duty to advise a branch of the Legislature regarding......
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