State v. Schragg
| Decision Date | 04 August 1930 |
| Docket Number | 22661. |
| Citation | 158 Wash. 74,291 P. 321 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. WESTON v. SCHRAGG, County Auditor. |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
Appeal from Superior Court, Adams County; Chas. H. Leavy, Judge.
Application by the State, on the relation of L. G. Weston, for a writ of mandate against Laura Schragg, to compel respondent, as County Auditor of Adams County, to accept and file relator's declaration of candidacy for office of County Treasurer. From an order of dismissal, relator appeals.
Writ granted.
W. O Lewis, of Ritzville, for appellant.
Richard B. Ott, of Ritzville, for respondent.
On July 11, 1930, the relator, Weston, duly tendered to the county auditor of Adams county his declaration of candidacy for the nomination, on the Democratic Party ticket, to the office of county treasurer of the county named to be made at the next ensuing primary election. The county auditor refused to accept or file the declaration, and thereafter the relator applied to the superior court of the county for a writ of mandate directing her so to do. At the hearing on the application the superior court refused to grant the writ and entered an order dismissing the proceedings. The appeal before us is by the relator from the order of dismissal.
The controversy involves the construction of certain provisions of the state Constitution, and certain provisions of the state statutes and it may be well to notice these primarily.
The Constitution provides (article 11, § 7):
'No county officer shall be eligible to hold his office more than two terms in succession.'
It also provides (article 11, § 5, as amended in 1924 by the Twelfth Amendment to that instrument):
The statutes enacted prior to the legislative assembly of 1925 divided the counties of the state into classes in accordance with population. They also provided for the election of county officers in addition to those especially enumerated in article 11, § 5, among which is a county assessor. At the Extraordinary Session of 1925 (page 411), the legislative assembly reclassified the counties, subdividing the counties classified under the earlier classification as belonging to the sixth class into classes designated as sixth class, sixth-B class, and sixty-C class, and it was therein provided that all 'counties containing a population of 5,000 and less than 8,000 shall belong to and be known as counties of the sixth-B class.' The act contained this further provision, namely:
The facts disclose that Adams county, when tested by the federal census of 1920, had a population sufficient to bring it within the classification of a county of the sixth class. It was thus entitled to elect both a county treasurer and a county assessor, and the facts further disclose that at the quadrenial election of 1926, it did elect officers to each of these offices and that they have since been administered as separate offices. By the federal census of 1930 it is shown that the population of the county is over 5,000, but less than 8,000, and that it is now, according to the legislative classification, a county of the sixth-B class. Under the provisions of section 4, above quoted from the act of 1925 there will be no county assessor elected at the coming...
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Gerberding v. Munro
...state constitutional offices. Our cases have expressed a strong presumption in favor of eligibility for office. In State v. Schragg, 158 Wash. 74, 78, 291 P. 321 (1930), we Since the right to participate in the government is the common right of all, it is the unqualified right of any eligib......
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...to hold an office must be resolved against the doubt.’ ” Gerberding, 134 Wash.2d at 202, 949 P.2d 1366 (quoting State v. Schragg, 158 Wash. 74, 78, 291 P. 321 (1930)); see also Dubuque, 68 Wash.2d at 566, 413 P.2d 972 (strong policy in favor of eligibility for public office, “and the consti......
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