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LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE BUREAU.

GOVERNOR FRANK O. LOWDEN, Chairman.

SENATOR EDWARD C. CURTIS, Grant Park.

SENATOR RICHARD J. BARR, Joliet.

REPRESENTATIVE EDWARD J. SMEJKAL, Chicago. REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAM P. HOLADAY, Danville.

E. J. VERLIE, Secretary.

W. F. DODD, in charge collection of data for

constitutional convention.

VINNOJITVO

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY.

This is the first of a series of pamphlets to be issued in connection with the constitutional convention. The purpose of this pamphlet is largely introductory. It seeks to do the following things:

(1) To outline briefly the plans now in progress for the collection of data for the use of delegates to the convention.

(2) To indicate the scope of a State Constitution as contrasted with functions of the regular state legislature, and to point out some of the dangers likely to result from detailed constitutional provisions.

(3) To discuss the types of problems involved in drafting a new constitution or amendments to the constitution of 1870, using as illustrations the provisions of the present constitution of this State.

(4) To indicate, from the experience of other conventions, some of the problems involved in the procedure of the constitutional convention. This discussion is largely the same as that in the publication issued by the Legislative Reference Bureau on "Constitutional Conventions in Illinois".

(5) To give a general outline of state constitutional developments since 1776, and

(6) To give somewhat in detail a statement of constitutional changes since 1900. The Illinois convention will be facing substantially the same problems that have presented themselves in other states, and it has seemed wise that the delegates to the convention should have before them a rather full indication of what other states have done in recent years.

September, 1919.

LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE BUREAU,
Springfield, Illinois.

I. WORK IN PREPARATION FOR THE CONSTITU

'TIONAL CONVENTION.

The delegates to a constitutional convention can not take the time to collect the information needed in their deliberations and if such information is collected the work must in the main be done in advance of the meeting of the convention. For this reason the practice has developed of planning in advance for the collection of desired information. Collections of constitutions were made available for the New York conventions of 1867 and 1894, and for the Michigan convention of 1907-08 and a digest of state constitutions was prepared for the Ohio convention of 1912. For the New Hampshire conventions which assembled in 1902 and 1918 manuals were prepared containing much useful information. In New York, careful preparations of materials were made in advance of the conventions of 1846, 1867, 1891 and 1915. For the Massachusetts constitutional convention of 1917-19 a series of publications was issued collecting information upon the more important subjects likely to be considered by the convention.

Some of the work done for conventions in other states will be of distinct use in Illinois, and some private publications will be useful. The publication in 1918 of Kettleborough's State Constitutions makes unnecessary the preparation for the Illinois convention of a collection. of state constitutions.1

The Index-Digest of State Constitutions, prepared for the New York constitutional convention of 1915 gives in alphabetical order a careful digest of the constitutional provisions of all of the states in 1915. A number of changes have been made since that time, but these. can be covered by a manuscript supplement to the New York IndexDigest, and the preparation of such an index-digest for the constitu tional convention of Illinois is thus rendered unnecessary.

Copies of Kettleborough's collection and of the New York IndexDigest will, through official action, be made available for all of the committees of the constitutional convention of this State.

In preparation for the constitutional convention to be assembled in Illinois in 1920, the Fifty-first General Assembly made appropriations. for the compilation of data for the use of delegates. In the compilation of data it is contemplated that two types of publications shall be issued in advance of the assembling of the convention:

(a) An annotated edition of the constitution of 1870 will be prepared. This publication will give for each clause of the constitution:

1 Charles Kettleborough, The State Constitutions. B. F Bowen & Co., Indianapolis, Ind., 1918.

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