The constitution of 1818 imposed no conditions upon the frequency of apportioning the state for the election of members of the house and senate. The constitution of 1848 provided for a state census in the interval between federal censuses and permitted reapportionment after either census. As has already been suggested, reapportionment before 1870, aside from those in the constitutions themselves, took place in 1821, 1826, 1831, 1836, 1841, 1846, 1854 and 1861. The constitution of 1870 prescribes a reapportionment every ten years beginning with the year 1871, and this provision has been construed as limiting the General Assembly to a single reapportionment in each ten-year period' following a federal census.

However, the provision regarding decennial apportionments although mandatory in form is necessarily addressed to the discretion of the General Assembly. No reapportionment has taken place since 1901.

Powers. The constitution of 1818 imposed substantially no limits upon the power of the General Assembly and in fact gave to the General Assembly not only legislative power but also a rather wide appointing power as well. The experience of the state between 1818 and 1848 with respect to state banking (which was expressly commanded by the constitution of 1818) and with respect to internal improvements, led to the imposition of strict limitations. in the constitution of 1848 upon the General Assembly with reference to these matters. Some difficulties which had arisen with respect to methods of legislation and with respect to local and private laws. led to the imposition of limitations with reference to these matters in 1848, although such limitations were not at all strict. The constitution of 1848 did, however, contain a large amount of detail with respect to the organization of the courts and with respect to other matters and in this manner reduced the power of the General Assembly with respect to such matters. Between 1848 and 1870, the evil of special legislation became more pronounced than before 1848, and the constitution of 1870 was so framed as practically to destroy the General Assembly's power in this field. Between 1848 and 1870 also, municipalities of the state had incurred large indebtedness, primarily in aid of railroads, and the constitution of 1870 was so framed as to prohibit such aid for the future, and in addition debt limits were placed upon municipal corporations.

Aside from the matters discussed above and the large mass of temporary detail which had been placed in the constitutions of 1848 and 1870, the most important development with respect to legislative authority in this state has been that regarding the governor's veto power. In the constitution of 1818 a veto power was vested in a council of revision composed of the governor and the

People v. Hutchinson. 172 Ill. 486 (1898).

judges of the Supreme Court, but such power could be overcome by a vote of a majority of the members elected to each house of the General Assembly. By the constitution of 1848 the council of revision was abolished and a veto power was vested in the governor subject, however, to being overcome by a majority of the members elected to each of the two houses. In 1870 the governor's veto power was materially increased by the constitutional provision that it should be overcome only by a vote of two-thirds of all of the members elected to each house, and in 1884 his power was still further increased by the adoption of a constitutional amendment permitting the veto of items in appropriation acts.

Another important matter bearing upon the history of the legislative department in Illinois is that which relates to the appointing power of the General Assembly. Under the constitution of 1818 this appointing power was large and there were no limitations upon its extension when the General Assembly created new offices. The constitution of 1848 expressly provided that the governor should nominate and, by and with the consent of the senate, appoint all officers whose offices were established by the constitution or which were created by law and whose appointment was not otherwise provided for; and to this provision was added a clause that "no state officer shall be appointed or elected by the general assembly." With the adoption of this constitutional provision, which is repeated in the constitution of 1870, the governor's power of appointment began to be effective, for the General Assembly since 1848 has ordinarily vested the appointing power in the governor when it has created new offices. The appointing power of the General Assembly has, therefore, practically disappeared, and a similar function in connection with the federal government disappeared with the adoption of popular election of United States senators by the 17th amendment to the constitution of the United States, ratified in 1913.

With respect to appointments and removals, however, the power to confirm executive appointments has remained in the senate throughout the three constitutions. The power of impeachment through the bringing of charges by the house of representatives and trial by the senate has also remained, as has the power to remove judges by resolution of the two houses. In order to remove judges, the assent of three-fourths of all the members elected to each house is necessary, whereas the constitution of 1818 provided for removal of judges upon the assent of two-thirds of each branch of the General Assembly, and a somewhat similar provision was contained in the constitution of 1848.

III. ORGANIZATION OF THE TWO HOUSES.

The two-chambered system of legislative organization has prevailed in all of the states of this country, except in Pennsylvania, 1776-1790, Georgia 1777-1789, and Vermont 1777-1836. The legislature in the American colonies was generally composed of two houses, the one house representing the popular element in the colony with members chosen from districts within the colony, and the other house composed of members appointed by and representing the British crown; although in at least three of the colonies this divergence of representation in the two houses did not exist. With legislative bodies. of two houses already in existence, it was natural that the framers of the first state constitutions should continue this arrangement, and the organization of the national legislature into two houses (although in that case there was of course a distinct basis of representation justifying such representation) has helped to maintain the two-chambered legislative organization.

The two-chambered legislature. There has in this country been some little discussion in recent years of the proposal to adopt a single-chambered legislature, the arguments for this proposal being based largely upon the fact that there is little actual difference in the basis of representation in the two houses, and upon the further fact that two-chambered legislative bodies are cumbersome and to some extent ineffective. A single-chambered legislature was proposed by constitutional amendment in Oregon in 1912 and 1914, in Oklahoma in 1914, and in Arizona in 1916. All of these proposed amendments have failed of adoption, although upon the amendment in Oklahoma in 1914 there were about 94,000 affirmative votes as against 71,000 negative votes. Governor Hodges of Kansas in a message to the legislature of that state, on March 10, 1913, urged the abolition of the bicameral system and said:

"Two years ago I suggested a single legislative assembly of thirty members from thirty legislative districts. I am now inclined to believe that this number is too large, and that a legislative assembly of one, or at most two, from each congressional district would be amply large. My judgment is that the governor should be ex-officio a member and presiding officer of this assembly, and that it should be permitted to meet in such frequent and regular or adjourned sessions as the exigencies of the public business may demand; that their terms of office be for four or six years, and that they be paid salaries sufficient to justify them in devoting their entire time to the public business."

Governor Hodges' proposal is, of course, an extreme one, even with respect to the question of adopting a single-chambered legislature, for he proposed not merely the adoption of a single-chambered legislature but also that this single-chambered legislature should be a small group of more or less permanent expert legislators. The proposals in Oregon, Arizona and Oklahoma did not go so far as this, and no plan such as that suggested by Governor Hodges has been submitted in any state. The plan submitted in Oregon in 1912' contemplated a singlechambered legislature, of which the governor should be a member and of which minority candidates for the governorship should also be members with voting power proportionate to the votes they received as candidates. The Oregon plan contemplated that the single legislative body should consist of sixty elective members with terms of four years, and this single legislative body with the governor as a member was to be subject to the initiative and the referendum in that state.

In advocacy of a single-chambered legislature several arguments have been made. It is said that the present state legislative organization is extremely cumbersome and that such a cumbersome organization is not necessary for a legislature with powers which are distinctly subordinate to the powers of the federal government. It has been urged that in many

states members of one house work with the members of the other, so as to defeat legislation, without its being possible to fix the responsibility for such action, and this has, of course, been the case occasionally in the states. It is true, of course, that responsibility for action in passing legislation or for inaction in failing to pass legislation is difficult to place, and that the bicameral system makes the difficulty greater than it might be if there were a more direct responsibility in a single-chambered body.

It is also urged that bills passed by one house of the General Assembly are in most cases passed as a matter of course without amendment in the other house, and there seems some basis for this argument, as indicated by careful studies made in the state of New York and in some other states. This statement does not have direct application to Illinois, however. An examination of the legislative work of Illinois covering the sessions of 1907, 1909, 1911 and 1913, indicates that each house of the General Assembly does exercise a fairly decisive influence in defeating almost one out of five of the bills passed by the other house. The influence of each house in Illinois in preventing the adoption of bills passed by the other defeats more legislation than does the governor's veto, although the veto power has been vigorously exercised in this state in recent years. For the legislative sessions of 1917 and 1919 in this state the following statement indicates the influence of one house in defeating measures which have passed the other:

1 Public Policy Pamphlet of Oregon. 1912.

2 Colvin, D. L., Bicameral Principle in the New York Legislature, New York. 1913. Haines, Lynn, The Minnesota Legislature of 1911. Minneapolis, 1911. Hichborn. Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1913 San Francisco. 1913.

The larger proportion of bills passed in one house which failed in the other failed because of inaction of the other house rather than because of an actual negative vote, and this should probably be taken into consideration as a mitigation of the influence of one house upon the work of the other. It should also be borne in mind that it is customary in Illinois to introduce the same measure in each house at the same time. In 1917, out of 1041 bills introduced into the house and 612 bills introduced into the senate, 230 were identical bills. In many cases such identical bills will pass each house as introduced in that house, although they are counted as two separate bills. The bill passed by one house would then be passed by the other, and a duplicate bill would be dropped in each such case. It should also be borne in mind that a large number of the duplicate bills introduced relate to appropriations and that in recent years an effort has been made to consolidate minor specific appropriation bills into larger bills, so that the actual number of bills which passed one house and which did not pass the other may really upon analysis have little bearing upon the influence of one house with respect to the work of the other.

With respect to the influence of one house upon the work of the other, the most decisive consideration is that as to the extent to which bills passed by one house are amended and passed in the other house, and finally become law either as so amended or with changes resulting from the action of the second house. A close study of the work of the Illinois General Assembly indicates that a large number of the laws enacted by the two houses are passed with amendments proposed in the house which last acts upon them. It is substantially impossible to work out a statistical table illustrating the influence of one house upon the bills passed by the other house, but this influence should be borne in mind in connection with the whole problem of the proposal for a single-chambered legislative body.

With respect to the work of legislative bodies in this country, it should also be said that in some states the two-chambered system seems to have proved a means of shifting responsibility for legislation or for legislative inaction, but that in Illinois each house has had a definite and positive influence in recent years, at least, upon the form of legislation finally enacted.

In favor of a single-chambered legislature it is argued that such a proposal is in effect not a radical one, and that such a system has been adopted in most of the states which go to make up other federal governments. In the United States and in the Australian Commonwealth all of the states have two-chambered legislatures. In Argentina the majority of the provinces (which correspond to our states) have the two-chambered system, but the others have single-chambered legislative bodies. In Germany before the war, fifteen of the twenty-five states had single-chambered legislatures and most of the individual states of the Latin-American federations have but