Page:The Federal and state constitutions v2.djvu/589

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The legislative power of the State shall be vested in the general assembly, which shall consist of a senate and house of representatives.

The senators and representatives shall be chosen annually, by the qualified electors of the respective counties or districts for which they are chosen, on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November. Their terms of office shall be one year, and shall commence on the first day of January next after their election.

There shall be elected at the first election twenty-five senators and seventy-five representatives, and the number afterwards shall be regulated by law; and the general assembly shall, in all apportionments for members of the legislature, establish single representative and single senatorial districts.

No person shall be eligible to the office of senator or representative who shall not at the time of his election possess the qualifications of an elector.

Each house, except as otherwise provided in this constitution, shall choose its own officers, determine its own rules of proceeding, punish its members for disorderly conduct, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds of all the members elected to the house, expel a member, but not the second time for the same cause; and shall judge of the qualification, election, and return of its own members, and have all other powers necessary to secure its safety and the undisturbed transaction of its business.

Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, which shall be published. The yeas and nays shall, at the request of two members, be taken and entered on the journal.

Any member of either house shall have the right to protest against any act or resolution thereof; and such protest and reason therefor shall, without alteration, commitment, or delay, be entered on the journal.

All vacancies which may occur in either house shall, for the unexpired term, be filled by election, as shall be prescribed by law.

Senators and representatives shall, in all cases, except treason, felony, or breach or the peace, be privileged from arrest during the session of the general assembly, and in going to and returning from the same; and for words spoken in debate they shall not be questioned in any other place.

A majority of all the members elected to each house voting in the affirmative shall be necessary to pass a bill or joint resolution, and all bills and joint resolutions so passed shall be signed by the presiding officers of the respective houses and presented to the governor for his approval.

The doors of each house and of committees of the whole shall be kept open. Neither house shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than two days, nor to any other place than that in which the two houses shall be sitting, except for personal safety.