Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/164

 actment? The power to create an office, to hire public employees, and to create obligations of the state to be paid through the exercise of the taxing power is distinctly an expression of the sovereign will, legislative in its character. It is true that this court has heretofore held, concerning constitutional construction, that all governmental power not lodged elsewhere by the Constitution resides in the Legislative Assembly; that this assembly may exercise any power not denied to it by the Constitution of the state. State v. Boucher, 3 N. D. 389, 409, 410, 56 N. W. 142, 21 L.R.A. 539. This principle, of course, is now subject to the initiative and referendum powers of the people expressly reserved, pursuant to recent constitutional amendments. The Constitution, however, vests this legislative power in the Legislative Assembly. Article 15, Amend. Const. It also provides that the Senate and House jointly shall be designated as the Legislative Assembly. § 52, Const. This legislative power, to evidence its expression, requires the independent and concurrent action of each house. §§ 58, 65, 79, Const. It may not be evidenced by the joint action of both houses acting as one body. Each house must act independently as a separate body. Accordingly the possession of a broad govesnmental power in the Legislative Assembly beyond the express grant thereof in the Constitution does not serve measurably to aid in construing the powers of each house alone, when the Constitution expressly requires the expression of the legislative power to be by the concurrent and independent action of both branches. As stated in State v. Guilbert, 75 Ohio St. 1, 78 N. E. 931, 934, the legislative power, whatever may be the extent of that power, which is conferred upon the assembly, is not expressly delegated to a part of the assembly. The inherent or implied power possessed by both houses is not possessed by one when acting alone. Ex parte Caldwell, 61 W. Va. 49, 55 S. E. 910, 912, 10 L.R.A. (N. S.) 172, 11 Ann. Cas. 646. Recurrence therefore must be had to the express provisions of the Constitution in order to establish either express or inherent powers existent in either house when acting alone.

Section 47 of the Constitution provides that each house shall be the judge of the election returns and qualifications of its own members. Section 48 provides that each house shall have the power to determine the rules of proceeding and punish its members or other persons for contempt or disorderly behavior in its presence and to protect its members against violence, the offers of bribes or private solicitation, and with the concurrence of two-thirds, to expel a member and shall have all other powers