Ex Parte Mitchell
| Decision Date | 23 June 1915 |
| Docket Number | (No. 2633.) |
| Citation | 177 S.W. 953 |
| Parties | Ex parte MITCHELL. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Williams & Williams, of Waco, for relator.
The case presents the question of the constitutionality of the referendum act of the Thirty-Third Legislature, authorizing the qualified voters of any county, or certain political subdivisions of a county, to determine by an election whether pool rooms or pool halls should be prohibited therein, and making it an offense to there operate or maintain them if the result of the election be in favor of their prohibition.
The constitutionality of the act is assailed upon two grounds: (1) That it amounts to a delegation by the Legislature of its own legislative power, imposed upon it by the Constitution, which it, alone, must exercise, and which it may not commit to any other agency; (2) that it authorizes the suspension of a general law of the state by the voters of a county, or subdivision of a county, namely, the statute licensing the operation of pool halls generally within the state, in violation of article 1, § 28, of the Constitution, which is, "No power of suspending laws in this state shall be exercised, except by the Legislature," an amendment of previous Constitutions which permitted such suspension under "the authority" of the Legislature.
The act is plainly unconstitutional, in our opinion, for both of these reasons. We largely rest our decision as to the first question upon State v. Swisher, 17 Tex. 441, where an act of the Legislature, in no way dissimilar in its effect from this one, was, upon this ground, held unconstitutional by the first Supreme Court of the state. That decision has never been overturned, and is the law upon the question. The second question is equally well settled, according to our view, by Brown Cracker & Candy Co. v. City of Dallas, 104 Tex. 290, 137 S. W. 342, Ann. Cas. 1914B, 504.
A full opinion in the case will be later filed, the preparation of which has been prevented by the approaching close of the term. This, however, indicates the ground of the decision.
The relator is discharged from custody.
State v. Swisher, 17 Tex. 441, was decided after the statute there in question had been repealed. The judgment therein merely dismissed the appeal because the record was defective. This court...
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Ex Parte Mode
...of the law, Judge Davidson, however, entering a dissent. Since the rendition of that opinion our Supreme Court, in the case of Ex parte Mitchell, 177 S. W. 953, has held the law invalid. Judge Hawkins entering his dissent to such holding. The opinion of the majority of the Supreme Court bas......
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State v. Clark
...rented the building, nor obtained the state, county, and city licenses until after the Supreme Court had rendered the opinion in Ex parte Mitchell, 177 S. W. 953, in which that court held the law The first inquiry to be made is whether or not under the above state of facts it was within the......
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State ex rel. Holmes v. Honorable Court of Appeals for Third Dist.
...Sayles' Ann. Civ. Stat.1914, arts. 6319(a)-6319(n). Because the Supreme Court had previously held the statute invalid, Ex parte Mitchell, 109 Tex. 11, 177 S.W. 953 (1915), the trial judge in the civil case entered a writ of injunction against the county attorney precluding the county attorn......
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Trimmier v. Carlton
...under all conditions in this state. Ex parte Farnsworth, 61 Tex. Cr. R. 353, 135 S. W. 535, 33 L. R. A. (N. S.) 968; Ex parte Mitchell, 109 Tex. 11, 177 S. W. 953; State v. Swisher, 17 Tex. 441. Generally it applies to matters of local concern. 6 Ruling Case Law, pp. 166, 167. Under the Con......