214 



CONNECTICUT. 



by a vote of 11 to 7. In the House of Repre- 

 sentatives, Charles H. Briscoe, Republican, was 

 elected Speaker over James Gallagher, Demo- 

 crat; by a vote of 138 to 98. Upon the meet- 

 ing of the Senate, the seat from the First Dis- 

 trict was given to George G. Sumner, Democrat, 

 on the certificate of election given to him by 

 the Board of Canvassers ; but it was contested 

 by John R. Hills, Republican, on the ground 

 that there had been no choice. The manner 

 in which this contest was settled at the first 

 morning's session seems worthy of notice. 

 After the roll had been called, the Secretary 

 of State, as chairman, invited the Senators 

 elected from the odd districts to come forward 

 and be sworn into office ; when one of the 

 Senators read a protest signed by himself and 

 eight other Senators, " objecting to the ad- 

 ministering of the oath of office to George G. 

 Sumner as a member of the Senate from the 

 First District, for these reasons : that at the 

 election held November 7, 1877", both Mr. 

 Sumner and Mr. Hills received an equality of 

 votes; that Mr. Sumner was not elected for 

 the said district ; and that it becomes the duty 

 of the House of Representatives to designate 

 by ballot which of the said candidates shall be 

 declared to be elected." The Chairman ruled 

 '* that he could not receive the paper until the 

 Senate was organized." On the same ground, 

 he refused to entertain the motion offered by 

 another Senator, " that all the Senators be 

 sworn, except the Senator from the First Dis- 

 trict." Mr. Sumner was therefore sworn in 

 and seated. As soon as the Senate was or- 

 ganized, the Select Committee on the Canvass 

 of Votes, consisting of two Republicans and 

 one Democrat, presented a report on the First 

 District, signed by the two Republican mem- 

 bers, finding a tie in the votes for John R. 

 Hills and George G. Sumner, and recommend- 

 ing the adoption of a resolution referring the 

 choice to the House of Representatives. The 

 Democratic member of the Committee dis- 

 sented, on the ground that, Mr. Sumner hav- 

 ing been seated already, the matter was too 

 far advanced to be dealt with in so summary 

 a manner. He submitted a minority report, 

 referring the matter to a joint select committee 

 to be raised. In the debate which ensued Mr. 

 Sumner took part, and spoke at some length, 

 maintaining his right to occupy his seat until 

 the question should be decided on the result of 

 a regular examination of the facts bearing on 

 the case, and not of a ballot taken by the 

 members of the Lower House on the mere 

 assumption that there was a tie in the vote, 

 without ascertaining from the investigation of 

 facts whether there had really been a tie or 

 not; as he was sure there had not been, hav- 

 ing proofs in his hand that he had received 

 more votes than Mr. Hills. A motion to re- 

 fer the whole matter to a joint committee was 

 lost by a standing vote of 7 to 10 ; and the 

 majority report was then adopted. The House 

 of Representatives took immediate action on 



the matter, and chose Mr. Hills by a vote of 

 131 to 104. 



On the opening day of the session Governor 

 Hubbard personally delivered his annual mes- 

 sage to the Legislature on the affairs of the 

 State. Among other matters of public inter- 

 est, he calls attention to serious evils in the 

 working of the legislative and judicial depart- 

 ments of the State as follows : 



There seems to be a radical vice in our present 

 methods of enacting laws. The first half of each 

 session, owing, I must think, to unnecessary and 

 voluntary delays, is substantially wasted, and its 

 real work crowded into the last two or three weeks, 

 often into the last two or three days, or, still worse, 

 forced into the last two or three hours, under a total 

 suspension of rules at the very time when the rigor 

 of the rules is most needed. For example : The last 

 Assembly and I select that body, not because it is 

 a sinner above all its fellows, but because the in- 

 stance is recent was in session for three months, 

 having passed 313 acts. Of these, one only, ana 

 that of inconsiderable importance, was passed in 

 the first three weeks ; twenty-nine in the first six; 

 sixty-five in the last, and fifty-three in the last three 

 days. Of this latter number, several were drafted 

 and passed through both Houses on the same day, 

 without reference~or printing, and some in the same 

 hour. The number of bills the present Executive 

 was obliged to pass upon in the last three, or prac- 

 tically the last two days, under the pressure of a 

 multitude of other duties, was nfty-iiine, and by far 

 the greater part of them the most important and, 

 I add also, the most imperfect bills pt the session. 

 I do not need to say that anything like scrutiny or 

 deliberate judgment upon such a mass of matter is, 

 under such circumstances, utterly impossible. It 

 has been the custom of the Legislature to fix in ad- 

 vance a positive day of adjournment, and of the 

 Executive to accommodate himself to this custom, 

 by taking action upon all the bills thus thrown upon 

 him before the day so fixed. I shall hereafter re- 

 gard the custom as more honored in the breach than 

 in the observance. 



But this is not the only evil. A public statute 

 of the State requires, or rather until the last session 

 of the Legislature did require, that all bills as soon 

 as passed should be engrossed without erasure or 

 interlineation, be examined by the joint standing 

 Committee on Engrossed Bills, and, if found cor- 

 rect, be presented to the presiding officers of the 

 two Houses to be signed in the presence of their re- 

 spective Houses, and then to the Governor for ap- 

 proval. This statute was enacted in 1859. It has 

 not been observed by a single Legislature since its 

 passage. The earlier bills of the session have usu- 

 ally been engrossed ; the later, and by far the 

 larger part, have been passed, under annual resolu- 

 tions dispensing with the statute just when the 

 statute was most necessary, and presented to _the 

 Governor, not only without engrossment, but with- 

 out the inspection of any examining committee, 

 sometimes in pencil, often disfigured by erasures 

 and interlineations in different handwritings, loaded 

 with amending tags and riders not identified by the 

 signatures of the clerks nor attached to the file, and 

 endorsed with clerical entries, sometimes erroneous, 

 and sometimes difficult to decipher, and, when de- 

 ciphered, impossible to comprehend. This prac- 

 tice is dangerous to the last degree. As the result 

 of it, in one instance, at least, a bill bearing the 

 entries of having passed both Houses, and the attes- 

 tation of the presiding officer of each, was presented 

 to the Governor on the last day of the session, ap- 

 proved by him, and is published by the Secretary 

 of State among the laws of the State, when, in fact, 

 the bill never passed the Assembly. 



A public statute was enacted by the Ittst Assembly 



