Opinion
No. 32,851.
March 7, 1941.
Statute — validity — act establishing municipal court — constitutional requirements.
A bill for an act to establish a municipal court is required, by Minn. Const. art. 6, § 1, to have a favorable two-thirds vote of the legislature. Where it had less in either house, it is a nullity.Quo warranto by this court upon the relation of J.A.A. Burnquist as attorney general to test the right of William L. Welter and A.M. Stoll to hold respectively the offices of judge and clerk of the municipal court for the village of Perham. Writ of ouster to issue.
J.A.A. Burnquist, Attorney General, and Edward J. Devitt, Assistant Attorney General, for relator.
M.J. Daly, Jr., for respondents.
This matter is before us upon our alternative writ, in the nature of quo warranto, to test the right of respondents to hold respectively the offices of judge and clerk of the municipal court for the village of Perham.
The attempt to establish that court was made by Ex. Sess. L. 1933-1934, c. 35. Minn. Const. art. 6, § 1, requires a two-thirds vote of the legislature to establish such a court. It appears from the journal of the senate, Senate Journal, Ex. Sess. 1933-1934, page 291, that the bill in question did not have on its supposed passage the favorable vote of two-thirds of the senate. (It had the affirmative vote of only 40 out of 67 members of the senate.) Therefore it never became law and is a nullity. State ex rel. Eastland v. Gould, 31 Minn. 189, 17 N.W. 276.
Therefore a writ of ouster must issue.
So ordered.