Reaves v. Jones, 74--238

• Decision Date: 12 November 1974
• Docket Number: No. 74--238,74--238
• Citation: 515 S.W.2d 201,257 Ark. 210
• Parties: Lee REAVES et al., Appellants, v. Guy Hamilton JONES, Sr., Appellee.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 201

515 S.W.2d 201

257 Ark. 210

Lee REAVES et al., Appellants, v. Guy Hamilton JONES, Sr., Appellee.

No. 74--238.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Nov. 12, 1974.

Jim Guy Tucker, Atty. Gen. by Lonnie A. Powers, Deputy Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellants.

John T. Harmon, North Little Rock, Phil Stratton, Conway, for appellee.

BROWN, Justice.

On August 1, 1974, the Arkansas Senate voted to 'expel and/or disqualify' Senator Guy Hamilton Jones, Sr., from that body. Jones brought this suit against Lee Reaves, Secretary of the Senate, and various other state officials, to prohibit those officials from acting on the assumption that the expulsion was valid. For example, Jones sought to compel the State Auditor to continue paying Jones' salary, and sought to prohibit the governor from calling a special election to fill a vacancy. The trial court held void the attempted expulsion of Jones. The principal findings of the trial court were that the senate did not follow the procedures outlined in House Concurrent Resolution 14; that Jones had no notice of the session at which he was expelled; and that his right to due process was in other respects violated. We are of the unanimous opinion that the trial court was in error and that the expulsion of Jones must be sustained.

Jones, a legislative veteran, was elected to the Senate in November 1972. In December 1972, he was found guilty in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas of filing fraudulent income tax returns and making and subscribing to false returns. In January 1973, before being sentenced, Jones was seated in the senate. On April 3, 1973, he was fined $5,000 and placed on probation for a period of three years. In May of that year the Arkansas Attorney General issued an opinion that Jones had been convicted of an infamous crime under Ark.Const., art. 5, § 9 and was no longer qualified to serve as a senator.

On July 9, 1974, Jones was given notice that his qualifications to serve had been challenged as a result of the recited conviction, and that the senate would conduct a hearing. The senate adopted rules of procedure for the hearing and the same was conducted. The motion to expel failed of adoption. The senate thereupon recessed under the provisions of House Concurrent Resolution 14 to reconvene on August 1, 1974. More will be said later about that resolution but suffice it for the present to say that at the meeting held on August 1, a motion was made to expunge the record by which the expulsion motion of July 12 failed to carry. That motion carried. A motion was then made and carried by more than two-thirds vote that Senator Jones be expelled and/or excluded from the senate. This suit for mandamus and declaratory judgment followed.

The fundamental privileges and immunities possessed by the two houses of the legislature are imbedded in two provisions of our constitution. Our principal reason for rejection of Senator Jones' contentions is founded on those provisions. Ark.Const., art. 5, § 11 provides:

Each house shall appoint its own officers, and shall be the sole judge of the qualifications, returns and elections of its own members.

In Evans v. Wheatley, 197 Ark. 997, 125 S.W.2d 101 (1939), Evans appeared before the Arkansas Senate in 1937 and challenged the right of Walter Wheatley to serve in that body. The basis of the challenge was that Wheatley had previously been convicted of violating the State's 'bone dry' law and sentenced to one year in the penitentiary. The senate seated Wheatley. Then in 1938 Wheatley was again elected to the senate and the latter body again seated him. Appellant brought suit in the Pulaski Circuit Court to have Wheatley ousted and to restrain the auditor and treasurer from issuing and cashing warrants for Wheatley's services. We held that 'qualifications' in art. 5, § 11, include 'eligibility', and that the court was without jurisdiction because the senate is the sole judge of the eligibility or qualifications of its members:

By the above provision, Article 5, Section 11 of the Constitution, a clear mandate is given to each house of the General Assembly to be the sole judge of the qualifications of its members and the courts of this state have no authority or jurisdiction to question the wisdom of their actions in seating or refusing to seat one elected to membership.

Then we have the case of Irby v. Barrett, 204 Ark. 682, 163 S.W.2d 512 (1942). There the chairman and the secretary of the state democratic committee refused to certify Irby as a candidate for senator, on the ground that he had been convicted of embezzlement. We held such action to be without authority; that notwithstanding Irby had been held by this court ineligible to hold the office of county judge, the senate would not be bound to follow that opinion as respects election to the senate. That is, of course, because the senate is the sole judge of the qualifications of its members.

The Constitution, art. 5, § 12, provides, among other things, that each house has the power to determine its own rules of proceedings. In that connection we have two landmark cases, St. Louis & S.F.R. Co. v. Gill, 54 Ark. 101, 15 S.W. 18 (1891); Bradley Lumber Co. v. Cheney, 226 Ark. 857, 295 S.W.2d 765 (1956).

In Gill it was alleged that certain legislation affecting railroads was not passed in accordance with the joint rules of the general assembly. We said: 'The joint rules of the general assembly were creatures of its own, to be maintained and enforced, rescinded, suspended, or amended, as it might deem proper. Their observance was a matter entirely subject to legislative control and discretion, not subject to be reviewed by the courts.'

The decision in Bradley Lumber Co. reiterates the holding in Gill. Under the house rules, action in receding from an amendment was required by its own rules to be recorded in the journal. The action of the house on an amendment was not so recorded and that raised the contention that the act was invalid. We said: 'Subject to the restrictions imposed by the constitution each branch of the legislature is free to adopt any rules it thinks desirable. It follows, both as a matter of logic and as a matter of law, that each house is equally free to determine the extent to which it will adhere to its self-imposed...