USA > Oklahoma > A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I > Part 65
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SEC. 36. The authority of the Legislature shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation, and any specific grant of authority in this Constitution, upon any subject whatsoever, shall not work a restriction, limitation, or exclusion of such an- thority upon the same or any other subject or subjects whatsoever.
SEC. 37. The Legislature shall have the power to establish a state printing plant, and to provide for the election or appointment of a State Printer.
SEC. 38. The Legislature shall provide for the establishment of a State Geological and Economic survey.
SEC. 39. The Legislature shall create a Board of Health, Board of Dentistry, Board of Phar- macy, and Pure Food Commission, and prescribe the duties of each. All physicians, dentists, and pharmacists now legally registered and practicing in Oklahoma and Indian Territory shall be eligi- ble to registration in the State of Oklahoma with out examination or cost.
SEC. 40. The Legislature shall provide for or- ganizing, disciplining, arming, maintaining, and equipping the Militia of the State.
SEC. 41. The Legislature may enact laws au- thorizing cities to pension meritorious and dis- abled firemen.
SEC. 42. In any legislative investigation, either House of the Legislature or any committee there- of, duly authorized by the House creating the same, shall have power to punish as for contempt, disobedience of process, or contumacious or dis- orderly conduct, and this provision shall also ap- ply to joint sessions of the Legislature, and also to joint committees thereof, when authorized by joint resolution of both Houses.
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SEC. 43. The Legislature shall, in the year nineteen hundred and nine and each ten years thereafter, make provision by law for revising, digesting, and promulgating the statutes of the State.
SEC. 44. The Legislature shall define what is an unlawful combination, monopoly, trust, act, or agreement, in restraint of trade, and enact laws to punish persons engaged in any "unlawful com- bination, monopoly, trust, act, or agreement, in restraint of trade," or composing any such mon- opoly, trust, or combination.
SEC. 45. The Legislature shall pass such laws as are necessary for carrying into effect the pro- visions of this Constitution.
SEC. 46. The Legislature shall not, except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, pass any local or special laws authorizing:
The creation, extension, or impairing of liens; Regulating the affairs of counties, cities, towns, wards, or school districts;
Changing the names of persons or places;
Authorizing the laying out, opening, altering, or maintaining of roads, highways, streets, or alleys;
Relating to ferries or bridges, or incorporating ferry or bridge companies, except for the erection of bridges crossing streams which form boun- daries between this and any other state;
Vacating roads, town plants, streets, or alleys; Relating to cemeteries, graveyards, or public grounds not owned by the State;
Authorizing the adoption or legitimation of children;
Locating or changing county seats;
Incorporating cities, towns, villages, or chang- ing their charter;
For the opening and conducting of election, or fixing or changing the places of voting; Granting divorces;
Creating offices, or prescribing the powers and duties of officers, in counties, cities, towns, elec- tion or school districts;
Changing the law of descent or succession;
Regulating the practice or jurisdiction of, or changing the rules of evidence in judicial pro- ceedings or inquiry before the courts, justices of the peace, sheriffs, commissions, arbitrators or other tribunals, or providing or changing the methods for the collection of debts, or the enforce- ment of judgments, or prescribing the effects of judicial sales of real estate;
Regulating the fees, or extending the powers and duties of aldermen, justices of the peace, or constables;
Regulating the management of public schools, the building or repairing of school houses, and the raising of money for such purposes;
Fixing the rate of interest;
Affecting the estate of minors, or persons under disability;
Remitting fines, penalties and forfeitures, and refunding moneys legally paid into the treasury; Exempting property from taxation;
Declaring any named person of age;
Extending the time for the assessment or col- lection of taxes, or otherwise relieving any as- sessor or collector of taxes from due performance of his official duties, or his securities from lia- bility;
Giving effect to informal or invalid wills or deeds;
Summoning or impaneling grand or petit juries; For limitation of civil or criminal actions;
For incorporating railroads or other works of internal improvements;
Providing for changes of venue in civil and criminal cases.
SEC. 47. The Legislature shall not retire any officer on pay or part pay, or make any grant to such retiring officer.
SEC. 48. The Legislature shall have no power to appropriate any of the public money for the establishment and maintenance of a Bureau of Immigration in this State.
SEC. 49. The Legislature shall not increase the number or emolument of its employees, or the employees of either House, except by general law, which shall not take effect during the term at which such increase was made.
SEC. 50. The Legislature shall pass no laws exempting any property within this State from taxation, except as otherwise provided in this Con- stitution.
SEC. 51. The Legislature shall pass no law granting to any association, corporation, or in- dividual any exclusive rights, privileges, or im- munities within this State.
SEC. 52. The Legislature shall have no power to revive any right or remedy which may have be- come barred by lapse of time, or by any statute of this State. After suit has been commenced on any cause of action, the Legislature shall have no power to take away such cause of action, or destroy any existing defense to such suit.
SEC. 53. The Legislature shall have no power to release or extinguish, or to authorize the re- leasing or extinguishing, in whole or in part, the indebtedness, liabilities, or obligations of any cor- poration, or individual, to this state, or any county or other municipal corporation thereof.
SEC. 54. The repeal of a statute shall not re- vive a statute previously repealed by such statute, nor shall such repeal affect any accrued right, or penalty incurred, nor proceedings begun by virtue of such repealed statute.
SEC. 55. No money shall ever be paid out of
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. the Treasury of this State, nor any of its funds, nor any of the funds under its management, ex- cept in pursuance of an appropriation by law, nor unless such payments be made within two and one-half years after the passage of such ap- propriation act, and every such law making a new appropriation, or continuing or reviving an appropriation, shall distinctly specify the sum appropriated and the object to which it is to be applied, and it shall not be sufficient for such law to refer to any other law to fix such sum.
SEC. 56. The general appropriation bill shall embrace nothing but appropriations for the ex- penses of the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of the State, and for interest on the public debt. The salary of no officer or employee of the State, or any subdivision thereof, shall be increased in such bill, nor shall any appropria- tion be made therein for any such officer or employee, unless his employment and the amount of his salary, shall have been already provided for by law. All other appropriations shall be made by separate bills, each embracing but one subject.
SEC. 57. Every act of the Legislature shall embrace but one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title, except general appropria- tion bills, general revenue bills, and bills adopt- ing a code, digest, or revision of statutes; and no law shall be revived, amended, or the provis- ions thereof extended or conferred, by reference to its title only; but so much thereof as is re- vived, amended, extended, or conferred shall be re- enacted and published at length: Provided, That if any subject be embraced in any act contrary to the provisions of this section, such act shall be void only as to so much of the law as may not be expressed in the title thereof.
SEC. 58. No act shall take effect until ninety days after the adjournment of the session at which it was passed, except enactments for car- rying into effect provisions relating to the ini- tiative and referendum, or a general appropria- tion bill, unless, in case of emergency, to be expressed in the act, the legislature, by a vote of two-thirds of all members elected to each House, so directs. An emergency measure shall include only such measures as are immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health, or safety, and shall not include the grant- ing of franchises or license to a corporation or individual, to extend longer than one year, nor provision for the purchase or sale of real estate, nor the renting or encumbrance of real property for a longer term than one year. Emergency measures may be vetoed by the Governor, but such measures so vetoed may be passed by a three-fourths vote of each House, to be duly entered on the journal.
SEC. 59. Laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation throughout the State, and where a general law can be made applicable, no special law shall be enacted.
SEC. 60. The Legislature shall provide by law for the establishment and maintenance of an efficient system of checks and balances between the officers of the Executive Department, and all commissioners and superintendents, and boards of control of State institutions, and all other officers entrusted with the collection, receipt, custody, or disbursement of the revenue or moneys of the State whatsoever.
ARTICLE VI. Executive Department.
SECTION 1. The executive authority of the state shall be vested in a Governor, Lieutenant Gov- ernor, Secretary of State, State Auditor, Attorney General, State Treasurer, Superintendent of Pub- lic Instruction, State Examiner and Inspector, Chief Mine Inspector, Labor Commissioner, Com- missioner of Charities and Corrections, Commis- sioner of Insurance, and other officers provided by law and this constitution, each of whom shall keep his office and public records, books, and papers at the seat of government, and shall per- form such duties as may be designated in this constitution or prescribed by law.
SEC. 2. The Supreme Executive power shall be vested in a Chief Magistrate, who shall be styled "The Governor of the State of Oklahoma." SEC. 3. No person shall be eligible to the office of Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Auditor, Attorney General, State Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction, or State Examiner and Inspector, except a male citizen of the United States, of the age of not less than thirty years, and who shall have been three years next preceding his election, a qualified elector of this state. Provided, That residence in this state shall include the territory now embraced in this state.
SEC. 4. The term of office of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Auditor, Attorney General, State Treasurer, State Examiner and Inspector and Superintendent of Public Instruction, shall be for four years from the second Monday of January next after their election. The governor, secretary of state, state auditor and state treasurer shall not be eligible immediately to succeed themselves. The term of the State officers chosen at the first election under this constitution shall begin on the day on which the state is admitted into the union, and expire on the second Monday of January, in the year Nineteen Hundred Eleven.
SEC. 5. The returns of every election for all elective state officers shall be sealed up and trans-
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mitted by the returning officers to the Secretary of State, directed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who shall, immediately after the organization of the house, and before proceeding to other business, open and publish the same in the presence of a majority of each branch of the legislature, who shall for that purpose assemble in the hall of the House of Representatives. The persons respectively having the highest number of votes for either of the said offices shall be de- clared duly elected; but in case two or more shall have an equal and the highest number of votes for either of said offices, the legislature shall, forthwith, by joint ballot, choose one of the said persons so having an equal and the highest num- ber of votes for said office.
SEC. 6. The Governor shall be Commander- in-chief of the militia of the state, except when in service of the United States, and may call out the same to execute the laws, protect the public health, suppress insurrection and repel invasion.
SEC. 7. The Governor shall have power to con voke the legislature or the senate only on extraor- dinary occasions. At extraordinary sessions, no subject shall be acted upon, except such as the governor may recommend for consideration.
SEC. 8. The Governor shall cause the laws of the state to be faithfully executed, and shall con- duct in person or in such manner as may be prescribed by law, all intercourse and business of the state with other states and with the United States, and he shall be a conservator of the peace throughout the state.
SEC. 9. At every session of the legislature, and immediately upon its organization, the Gov- ernor shall communicate by message, delivered to a joint session of the two houses, upon the condition of the state; and shall recom- mend such matters to the legislature as he shall judge expedient. He shall also transmit a copy, to each house, of the full report of each state officer and state commission. He shall communi- cate, from time to time, such matters as he may elect or the legislature may require.
SEC. 10. The Governor shall have power to grant, after conviction, reprieves, commutations, paroles and pardons for all offenses, except cases of impeachment, upon such conditions and with such restrictions and limitations as he may deem proper, subject to such regulations as may be pre- scribed by law. He shall communicate to the Legislature at each regular session each case of reprieve, commutation, parole, or pardon granted, stating the name of the convict, the crime for which he was convicted, the date and place of conviction and the date of commutation, pardon, parole, or reprieve.
SEc. 11. Every bill which shall have passed the Senate and House of Representatives, and
every resolution requiring .the assent of both branches of the legislature, shall, before it be- comes a law, be presented to the Governor; if he approve, he 'shall sign it; if not, he shall return it with his objections to the house in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the ob- jections at large in the Journal and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two- thirds of the members elected to that house shall agree to pass the bill or joint resolution, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other house, by which it shall likewise be recon- sidered; and, if approved by two-thirds of the members elected to that house, it shall become a law, notwithstanding the objection of the Gov ernor .. In all such cases, the vote in both houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the members voting shall be entered on the Journal of each house respectively. If any bill or resolution shall not be returned by the governor within five days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the legislature shall, by their adjournment, prevent its return, in which case it shall not become a law without the approval of the Governor. No bill shall become a law after the final adjournment of the legislature, unless approved by the Governor within fifteen days after such adjournment.
SEC. 12. Every bill passed by the legislature, making appropriations of money embracing dis- tinct items, shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the Governor; if he disapprove the bill, or any item, or appropriation therein con- tained, he shall communicate such disapproval, with his reasons therefor, to the house in which the bill shall have originated, but all items not disapproved shall have the force and effect of law according to the original provisions of the bill. Any item or items so disapproved shall be void, unless repassed by a two-thirds vote, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the preceding section in reference to other bills; Pro- vided, That this section shall not relieve emer- gency bills of the requirement of the three-fourths vote.
SEC. 13. The Governor shall commission all officers not otherwise commissioned by law. All commissions shall run in the name and by the authority of the "State of Oklahoma," be signed by the governor, sealed with the Great Seal of the State of Oklahoma, and attested by the Sec- retary of State. When any office shall become va- cant, he shall, unless otherwise provided by law, appoint a person to fill such vacancy, who shall continue in office until a successor shall have been duly elected or appointed, and qualified ac- cording to law.
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SEC. 14. In case of a disagreement between the two houses of the Legislature, at a regular or special session, with respect to the time of ad- journment, the Governor may, if the facts be cer- tified to him, by the presiding officer of the house first moving the adjournment, adjourn them to such time as he shall deem proper, not beyond the day of the next stated meetings of the Legis- lature. He may convoke the Legislature at or ad- journ it to another place, when, in his opinion, the public safety or welfare or the safety or health of the members require it: Provided, however, That such change or adjournment shall be con- curred in by a two-thirds vote of all members elected to each branch of the legislature.
SEC. 15. The Lieutenant Governor shall pos- sess the same qualifications of eligibility for office as the Governor. He shall be president of the Senate, but shall have only a casting vote therein, and also in joint vote of both houses. If, during a vacancy of the office of Governor, the Lieu- tenant Governor shall be impeached, displaced, resign, die or be absent from the state or be- come incapable of performing the duties of the office, the president, pro tempore, of the senate, shall act as Governor until the vacancy be filled or the disability shall cease; and if the president pro tempore of the senate, for any of the above enumerated causes, shall become incapable of per- forming the duties pertaining to the office of Governor, the Speaker of the House of Represen- tatives shall act as Governor until the vacancy be filled or the disability shall cease. Further provisions for succession to the office of governor shall be prescribed by law.
SEC. 16. In case of impeachment of the Gov- ernor, or of his death, failure to qualify, resigna- tion, removal from the state, or inability to dis- charge the powers or duties of the office, the said office, with its compensation, shall devolve upon the Lieutenant Governor for the residue of the term or until the disability shall be removed.
SEC. 17. The Secretary of State shall keep a register of the official acts of the Governor, and when necessary, shall attest them, and shall lay copies of the same, together with copies of all pa- pers relative thereto, before either house of the legislature, when required to do so. He shall also perform such other duties as shall be pre- scribed by law.
SEC. 18. The Secretary of State shall be the custodian of the Seal of the State, and authenti- cate therewith all official acts of the Governor, ex- cept his approval of laws. The said seal shall be called "The Great Seal of the State of Oklahoma."
SEC. 19. The State Examiner and Inspector must have had at least three years' experience as an expert accountant; his duties shall be, with- out notice to such treasurer, to examine the
state and all county treasurers' books, ac- counts, and cash on hand or in bank at least twice each year, and publish in his report as to every such treasurer once each year. For the purpose of such examination he shall take com- plete possession of such treasurer's office. He shall also prescribe a uniform system of book- keeping for the use of all treasurers. Other duties and powers may be added by law.
SEC. 20. A Department of Labor is hereby created to be under the control of a Commissioner of Labor who shall be elected by the people, whose term of office shall be four years, and whose duties shall be prescribed by law.
SEC. 21. The Legislature shall create a Board of Arbitration and Counciliation in the Labor De- partment, and the Commissioner of Labor shall be ex-officio chairman.
SEC. 22. There is hereby established an In- surance Department, which shall be charged with the execution of all laws now in force, or which shall hereafter be passed, in relation to insurance and insurance companies doing business in the State.
SEC. 23. There shall be elected by the quali- fied electors of the State, at the first general elec- tion, a chief officer of said department, who shall be styled "The Insurance Commissioner," whose term of office shall be four years: Provided, That the first term of the Insurance Commissioner so elected, shall expire at the time of the expiration of the term of office of the first Governor elected. Said Insurance Commissioner shall be at least twenty-five years of age and well versed in in- surance matters.
SEC. 24. The Insurance Commissioner shall give bond, perform such duties, and possess such further qualifications as may be prescribed by law.
SEC. 25. The office of chief inspector of mines, oil, and gas, is hereby created, and the incumbent of said office shall be known as the chief mine in- spector. The term of said office shall be four years, and no person shall be elected to said office unless he shall have had eight years' actual ex- perience as a practical miner, and such other quali- fications as may be prescribed by the legislature. The Chief Mine Inspector shall perform the duties, take the oath, and execute the bond prescribed by the legislature.
SEC. 26. The legislature shall create mining districts and provide for the appointment or elec- tion of assistant inspectors therein, who shall be under the general control of the chief mine in- spector, and the legislature shall define their quall ifications and duties and fix their compensation.
SEC. 27. A Commissioner of Charities and Cor- rections shall be elected in the same manner, at the same time, and for the same term as shall
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the Governor. Said officer may be of either sex, and shall be twenty-five years of age or over, in all other respects said officer shall have the qualifications which shall be required of the Gov- ernor.
SEC. 28. The Commissioner of Charities and Corrections shall have the power, and it is hereby made his or her duty, to investigate the entire system of public charities and corrections, to ex- amine into the conditions and management of ah prisons, jails, alms-houses, reformatories, reform and industrial schools, hospitals, infirmaries, dis- pensaries, orphanages, and all public and private retreats and asylums, which derive their support wholly or in part from the State, or from any county or municipality within the State; and the officers of the various institutions named herein shall promptly upon demand furnish the said Commissioner with such information, relating to their respective institutions, as shall be demanded by said Commissioner, in writing. The said Com- missioner shall have the power to summon any person to appear and produce such books and papers as shall be designated in the summons, and to give testimony under oath concerning the matter and institution under investigation. The said Commissioner shall have the power to admin- ister oaths to such persons as may be summoned, and to enforce all such powers as are given to notaries public when they are taking depositions. A full report of said investigation, including the testimony shall be promptly made to the Gov- ernor, and shall be transmitted by him to the next Legislature with any suggestions which he may desire to make.
SEC. 29. On the first day of October of each year, and at any time on request of the Gov- ernor, the said Commissioner shall make a full and complete report of the operations and ad- ministrations of said office, with such suggestions as said Commissioner may deem suitable and pertinent.
SEC. 30. The Legislature shall have power to alter, amend, or add to the duties of, or grant additional authority, to such Commissioner.
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