Salt Lake Tribune | 1911-03-02 | Page 4 | To Conserve Legislation

TO CONSERVE LEGISLATION. Iu all legislative bodies there is a considerable, waste of effort by reason of the fact that one House will pass a measure arid the othor House will defeat or neglect it. In this way both Houses are working from time to time at cross purposes, and their labor is made vain. ICfforts have been made from time to time to cure this trouble, without any nieasiirablo success thus far, It has been proposed, but never legally provided, pro-vided, that when ono house has passed a measure it shall be obligatory upon the other house to consider it iu preference pref-erence to any othor business before it. Thus, if tho House has a bill that tho Senate has passed, no other business In the House shall be in ordor until that bill is considered. In like manner, if the lower House has passed a bill, which is in the .hands of the Senate, the Senate shall waive all other business busi-ness and consider that measure. This has never been put into effect, nnd perhaps per-haps if enforced too drastically would bo impracticable. Evidently, however, something by the way of relief ought to be had. And now n new proposition devoted to the same purpose is before tho people peo-ple of Connecticut. .Representative Whiton, a legislator from New London, proposes an amendment to the Connecticut Connec-ticut Constitution to tho effect that when measures that havo passed on. House arc hung up in tho other, there shall be a joint meeting of both houses and a voto taken on the measure in the joint assembly. His proposition even goes further than that. It contemplates contem-plates that if one house passes a bill, and tho other rejects it, that the house which has passed it can demand a joint Session ;u,d, a. vote in thut joint session upon tho measure. Thus, if the bill passed one house by a largo majority, say in tho lower house, and was rejected re-jected by the Senate, comprising a much smaller membership, the lower house would have decidedly the advantage advan-tage in such a. case, and would forc-tho forc-tho passago of tho bill in the joint assembly. as-sembly. Whether a proposition of this kind could or should be added to the Con-stition, Con-stition, is a serious question. But tho fact that such an amendment is gravely proposed shows tho extent of the evil involved in the waste of effort that results re-sults from the neglect in one house or tho other of measures that, perhaps per-haps have occupied a long time ami had large attention, only to be defeated or neglected in the other house. It proves that there is a wu't demand for a cure for this growing evil; and the American people will be forced before very long to lake notice of the trouble and provide a remedy for it.