Page:California State Constitution of 1879.djvu/3

Rh 3. No elector shall be obliged to perform militia duty on the day of election, except in time of war or public danger.

4. For the purpose of voting, no person shall be deemed to have gained or lost a residence by reason of his presence or absence while employed in the service of the United States, nor while engaged in the navigation of the waters of this State, or of the United States, or of the high seas; nor while a student at any seminary of learning; nor while kept at any alms-house or other asylum, at public expense; nor while confined in any public prison.

All elections by the people shall be by ballot.

The powers of the Government of the State of California shall be divided into three separate departments – the legislative, executive, and judicial; and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these department shall exercise any functions appertaining to either of the others, except as in this Constitution expressly directed or permitted.

The legislative power of this State shall be vested in a Senate and Assembly, which shall be designated The Legislature of the State of California, and the enacting clause of every law shall be as follows: "The People of the State of California, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows."

The sessions of the Legislature shall commence at twelve o'clock it. on the first Monday after the first day of January next succeeding the election of its members, and after the election held in the year eighteen hundred and eighty, shall be biennial, unless the Governor shall, in the interim, convene the Legislature by proclamation. No pay shall be allowed to members for a longer time than sixty days, except for the first session after the adoption of this Constitution, for which they may be allowed pay for one hundred days. And no bill shall be introduced in either House after the expiration of ninety days from the commencement of the first session, nor after fifty days after a commencement of each succeeding session, without the consent of two-thirds of the members thereof.

Members of the Assembly shall be elected in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, at the time and in the manner now provided by law. The second election of members of the Assembly, after the adoption of this Constitution, shall be on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, eighteen hundred and eighty. Thereafter, members of the Assembly shall be chosen biennially, and their term of office shall be two years; and each election shall be on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, unless otherwise ordered by the Legislature.

Senators shall be chosen for the term of four years, at the Same time and places as members of the Assembly, and no person shall be a member of the Senate or Assembly who has not been a citizen and inhabitant of the State three years, and of the district for which he shall be chosen one year, next before his election.

The Senate shall consist of forty members, and the Assembly of eighty members, to be elected by districts, numbered as hereinafter provided. The seats of the twenty Senators elected in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-two from the odd numbered districts shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year, so that one half of the Senators shall be elected every two years, provided, that all the Senators elected at the first election under this Constitution shall hold office for the term of three years.

For the purpose of choosing members of the Legislature, the State shall be divided into forty senatorial and eighty assembly districts, as nearly equal in population composed of contiguous territory, to be called senatorial and assembly districts. Each senatorial district shall choose one Senator, and each assembly district shall choose one member of Assembly. The senatorial districts shall be numbered from one to forty, inclusive, in numerical order, and in the assembly districts shall be numbered from one to eighty, in the same order, commencing at the northern boundary of the State, and ending at the southern boundary thereof. In the formation of such districts, no county, or city and county, shall be divided, unless it contain a sufficient population within itself to form two or more districts; nor shall a part of any county, or of any city and county, be united with any other county, or city and county, in forming any district. The census taken under the direction of the Congress of the United States in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty, and every ten years thereafter, shall be the basis of fixing and adjusting the legislative districts, and the Legislature shall, at its first session after each census, adjust such districts and re-apportion the representation so as to preserve them as near equal in population as may be. But in making such adjustment no persons who are not eligible to become citizens of the United States, under the naturalization laws, shall be counted as forming a part of the population of any district. Until such districting as herein provided for shall be made, Senators and Assemblymen shall be elected by the districts according to the apportionment now provided for by law.