State ex rel. Hahn v. Gorton
| Decision Date | 08 May 1885 |
| Citation | 23 N.W. 529,33 Minn. 345 |
| Parties | State of Minnesota ex rel. W. J. Hahn, Attorney General, and another v. Ella Gorton |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Quo warranto. Upon the information of the attorney general representing that certain so-called votes were improperly cast, at the annual election, in 1883, in the county of Pine for the respondent as county superintendent of schools for that county, and that she has entered upon and usurped that office and claims and pretends to act as such officer, this writ was issued from this court requiring the respondent to appear and show by what warrant or alleged right she claims to hold such office of county superintendent of schools. The respondent having answered, the parties in interest stipulated as a fact that if a woman was eligible to and could hold the office in question, the respondent was duly elected at the annual election in 1883, and duly qualified and the matter was argued and submitted upon such stipulation.
C. H Benton, for relators.
L. H. McKusick, for respondent.
The question in this case is whether a woman is eligible to the office of county superintendent of schools. Sections 1, 2, article 7, of the constitution of the state, limit the elective franchise to males of the age of 21 years or upwards belonging to certain specified classes. Section 7 of the same article provides that "every person who, by the provisions of this article, shall be entitled to vote at any election, shall be eligible to any office which now is, or hereafter shall be, elective by the people in the district wherein he shall have resided thirty days previous to such election, except as otherwise provided in this constitution or the constitution and laws of the United States." Where a constitution thus defines the conditions of eligibility to office, it is undoubtedly true that it is not in the power of the legislature to add to or take from them. It may therefore be conceded that this section, by implication, prohibits the legislature from making a person eligible to an elective office who is not a qualified voter. But in 1875 the people adopted the following amendment (section 8) to this article: "The legislature may, notwithstanding anything in this article, provide by law that any woman, at the age of twenty-one years and upward, may vote at any election held for the purpose of choosing any officers of schools, or upon any measure relating to schools, and may also provide that any such woman shall be eligible to hold any office pertaining solely to the management of schools."
This section, which is in the nature of an enabling act, we think takes the whole matter of allowing women to vote for or hold school offices from under all the prohibitions and limitations contained in the preceding sections, and leaves it entirely within the control of the legislature, subject only to such limitations and restrictions as are contained in section 8 itself. Hence the authority granted by it is not subject to the provisions of section 7, which, as we have seen, limits eligibility to office to qualified voters. Therefore, under this amendment, the legislature has the power to enact a law giving to women both the right to vote for and the right to hold school...
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