Chap. 205.—An ACT to provide for the submission to the people for ratification
or rejection the proposed revision and/or amendments of sections 1, 2, 3, 4.
5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25.
26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, Al, 42, 43, 44, 45,
46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, ‘53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 05, 66,
67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, %6, 77, 78, 2, ‘80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86
87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105. 105,
107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122,
123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139,
140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158,
159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175,
176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191,
192, 193, 194, 195, 196 and 197 of the Constitution of Virginia (a part of
which said sections have not been altered but remain as they are in the
present Constitution, but have been included in said proposed revision), and
the addition thereto of seven new sections to be numbered as sections 86a,
115a, 183a, 184a, 184b. 195a and 198. and the repeal of sections 128, 148,
149, 150, 151 and 182 of the present Constitution, all as authorized by section
196 of the present Constitution; to provide when and how such election shall
be held; to designate the persons who may vote in such election; and to
provide for the ascertainment and proclamation of the result of such elec-
tion. [S B 382]

Approved March 14, 1928

Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia as follows:

1. That an election be held in all of the counties and cities of the
Commonwealth, on Tuesday, the nineteenth day of June, nineteen
hundred and twenty-eight, to take the sense of the qualified voters
upon the question of ratification or rejection of the proposed revision
and/or amendments of the Constitution of Virginia as contained in
the joint resolutions proposing the said revision and/or amendments,
of the Constitution of Virginia, and as hereinafter set out, the said
election to be held and conducted in the manner prescribed by law for
holding and conducting special elections, and bv the regular election
officers, except that the services of the regular clerks of election shall
be dispensed with and one of the judges of election at each voting
precinct shall perform the duties of clerk.

The persons entitled to vote in said election shall be the electors
qualified to vote for members of the general assembly.

And provided, further, that the said judges of election shall be paid
out of the State treasury the per diem fixed by law for the holding of
the election herein provided for, and an amount sufficient for such
purpose is hereby appropriated therefor out of any monies in the
State treasury, not otherwise appropriated, the same to be paid by the
State treasurer into the several county and city treasuries, on the war-
rant of the comptroller, upon the proper voucher, or vouchers, re-
quired by the comptroller, approved by the chairman of the several
boards of supervisors and the several mayors of the cities.

The hereinafter mentioned proposed revision and/or amendments
of the Constitution of Virginia shall be certified by the secretary of
the Commonwealth to the several county and city electoral boards at
least thirty days before the date set for the special election herein pro-
vided for.

2. That the said proposed revision and/or amendments of the
Constitution of Virginia contained in four joint resolutions submitted
by the general assemblies of nineteen hundred and twenty-six and of
nineteen hundred and twenty-seven, and approved by the general as-
sembly of nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, proposing a general revi-
sion and/or amendment of the Constitution of Virginia except sec-
tions eighty-one, one hundred and thirty-one, one hundred and forty-
five, and one hundred and seventy-one, thereof, and the proposal of
new sections to be numbered eighty-six-a, one hundred and fifteen-a,
one hundred and eighty-three-a, one hundred and eighty-four-a, one
hundred and eighty-four-b, one hundred and ninety-five-a, and one hun-
dred and ninety-eight, and proposing amendments to sections eighty-
one, one hundred and thirty-one, one hundred and forty-five, and one
hundred and seventy-one of the Constitution of Virginia, and propos-
ing to add thereto new sections to be numbered as sections eighty-six-a,
one hundred and fifteen-a, one hundred and eighty-three-a, one hundred
and eighty-four-a, one hundred and eighty-four-b, one hundred and
ninety-five-a, and one hundred and ninety-eight, of the Constitution of
Virginia, and the proposal to repeal sections one hundred and twenty-
eight, one hundred and forty-eight, one hundred and forty-nine, one
hundred and fifty, one hundred and fifty-one, and one hundred and
eighty-two of the present Constitution, be, and the same are, hereby,
submitted to the voters qualified to vote thereon as provided in section
one of this act, and at the time in said section provided, and as fol-
lows, to-wit:

Strike out from the Constitution of Virginia, articles one to fifteen,
thereof, both inclusive, and sections one to one hundred and ninety-
seven thereof, both inclusive (except section eighty-one of article five,
section one hundred and thirty-one of article nine, section one hun-
dred and forty-five of article ten, section one hundred and seventy of
article thirteen, and section one hundred and seventy-one of article
thirteen), and insert the following: :

CONSTITUTION OF VIRGINIA
ARTICLE I
Bill of Rights

A declaration of rights made by the good people of Virginia in
the exercise of their sovereign powers, which rights do pertain to them
and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of government.

Section 1. Equality and rights of men.—That all men are by
nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights,
of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any
compact deprive or divest their posterity, namely, the enjoyment of
life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property,
and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Section 2. People the source of power.—That all power is vested
in, and consequently derived from, the people, that magistrates are
their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.

Section 3. Government instituted for common benefit—That gov-
ernment is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protec-
tion and security of the people, nation or community; of all the various
modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of pro-
ducing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most ef-
fectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and, when-
ever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these
purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable,
and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it, in such manner as
shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.

Section 4. No man entitled to exclusive emoluments or privileges ;
offices not to be hereditary——That no man, or set of men, is entitled
to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the commun-
ity, but in consideration of public services; which not being descend-
ible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator or judge to be
hereditary.

Section 5. Legislative, executive and judicial departments of State
should be separate; elections should be periodical—That the legisla-
tive, executive and judicial departments of the State should be separate
and distinct; and that the members thereof may be restrained from
oppression, by feeling and participating the burthens of the people,
they should, at fixed periods, be reduced to a private station, return
into that body from which they were originally taken, and the vacan-
cies be supplied by regular elections, in which all or any part of the
former members shall be again eligible, or ineligible, as the laws may
direct.

Section 6. Suffrage; taxation; private property for public uses;
consent of governed.—That all elections ought to be free; and that all
men having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with,
and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage, and
cannot be taxed, or deprived of, or dagamed in, their property for
public uses, without their own consent, or that of their representatives
duly elected, or bound by any law to which they have not, in like man-
ner, assented for the public good.

Section 7. Laws should not be suspended.—That all power of sus-
pending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without
consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights,
and ought not to be exercised.

Section 8. Concerning criminal prosecutions generally —That in
criminal prosecutions a man hath a right to demand the cause and
nature of his accusation, to be confronted with the accusers and wit-
nesses, to call for evidence in his favor, and to a speedy trial by an
impartial jury of his vicinage, without whose unanimous consent he
cannot be found guilty. He shall not be deprived of life or liberty,
except by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers; nor be
compelled in any criminal proceeding to give evidence against himself,
nor be put twice in jeopardy for the same offense.

Laws may be enacted providing for the trial of offenses not felon-
ious by a justice of the peace or other inferior tribunal without a jury,
preserving the right of the accused to an appeal to and a trial by jury
in some court of record having original criminal jurisdiction. Laws
may also provide for juries consisting of less than twelve, but not less
than five, for the trial of offenses not felonious, and may classify such
cases, and prescribe the number of jurors for each class.

In criminal cases, the accused may plead guilty; and, if the accused
plead not guilty, with his consent and the concurrence of the Com-
monwealth’s attorney and of the court entered of record, he may be
tried by a smaller number of jurors, or waive a jury. In case of such
waiver, or plea of guilty the court shall try the case.

Section 9. Excessive bail or fines and cruel and unusual punish-
ments prohibited —That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor
excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Section 10. General warrants of search or seizure prohibited —
That general warrants, whereby an officer or messenger may be com-
manded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact com-
mitted, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose of-
fense is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are
grievous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted.

Section 11. No person to be deprived of property without due
process of law; trial by jury to be held sacred.—That no person shall
be deprived of his property without due process of law; and in con-
troversies respecting property, and in suits between man and man, trial
by jury is preferable to any other, and ought to be held sacred. The
general assembly may limit the number of jurors for civil cases in
courts of record to not less than five in cases cognizable by justices
of the peace, or to not less than seven in cases not so cognizable.

Section 12. Freedom of the press and of speech.—That the free-
dom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never
be restrained but by despotic governments; and any citizen may freely
speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsi-
ble for the abuse of that right.

Section 13. Militia the proper defense of a free State; standing
armies should be avoided; military should be subordinate to civil
power.—That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the
people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a
free State; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided
as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be
under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

Section 14. Government should be uniform.—That the people have
a right to uniform government; and, therefore, that no government
separate from, or independent of, the government of Virginia, ought to
be erected or established within the limits thereof.

Section 15. Qualities necessary to preservation of free govern-
ment.—That no free government, or the blessings of liberty can be
preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, modera-
tion, temperance, frugality and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to
fundamental principles.

Section 16. Religious freedom.—That religion or the duty which
we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be di-
rected only by reason and conviction. not by force or violence; and,
therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion,
according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty
of all to practice Christian forbearance, love and charity towards each
other.

Section 17. Construction of the bill of rights—The rights enumer-
ated in this bill of rights shall not be construed to limit other rights of
the people not therein expressed.

ARTICLE II
Elective Franchise and Qualification for Office

Section 18. Qualifications of voters.—Tvery citizen of the United
States, twenty-one years of age, who has been a resident of the State
one vear, of the county, city, or town, six months, and of the precinct
in which he offers to vote, thirty days, next preceding the election in
which he offers to vote, has been registered, and has paid his State
poll taxes, as hereinafter required, shall be entitled to vote for mem-
bers of the general assembly and all officers elective by the people; but
removal from one precinct to another, in the same county, city or town
shall not deprive any person of his right to vote in the precinct from
which he has moved, until the expiration of thirty days after such
removal.

The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged on ac-
count of sex.

Section 19. Registration of voters; those registered prior to nine-
teen hundred and four.—Persons registered under the general regis-
tration of voters during the years nineteen hundred and two and nine-
teen hundred and three, whose names were required to be certified by
the officers of registration for filing, record and preservation in the
clerks’ offices of the several circuit and corporation courts, shall not
be required to register again, unless they have ceased to be resi-
dents of the State, or become disqualified by section twenty-three.

Section 20. Who may register.—Every citizen of the United States,
aving the qualifications of age and residence required in_ section
ighteen, shall be entitled to register, provided:

First. That he has personally paid to the proper officer all State
Ol] taxes legally assessed or assessable against him tor the three years
lext preceding that in which he offers to register; or, if he came of
ge at such time that no poll tax shall have been assessable against him
or the year preceding the year in which he offers to register, has paid
ne dollar and fifty cents, in satisfaction of the first year’s poll tax as-
essable against him; and,

Second. That, unless physically unable, he make application to
egister in his own handwriting, without aid, suggestion, ‘or memoran-
um, in the presence of the registration officer, stating therein his name,
ge, date and place of birth, residence and occupation at the time and
or the one year next preceding, and whether he has previously voted,
and, if so, the State, county, and precinct in which he voted last; and,

Third. That he answer on oath any and all questions affecting his
qualifications as an elector, submitted to him by the registration officer,
which questions, and his answers thereto, shall be reduced to writing,
certified by the said officer, and preserved as a part of his official rec-
ords.

Section 21. Conditions for voting—A person registered under the
general registration of voters during the years nineteen hundred and
two and nineteen hundred and three, or under the last section, shall
have the right to vote for all officers elective by the people, subject to
the following conditions:

That unless exempted by section twenty-two, he shall, as a prere-
quisite to the right to vote, personally pay, at least six months prior
to the election, all State poll taxes assessed or assessable against him,
under this Constitution, during the three years next preceding that in
which he offers to vote.

If he shall have registered after the first day of January, nineteen
hundred and four, he shall, unless physically unable, prepare and de-
posit his ballot without aid, on such printed form as the law may pre-
scribe; but any voter registered prior to that date may be aided in the
preparation of his ballot by such officer of election as he himself may
designate.

Section 22. Persons exempt from payment of poll tax as condition
of right to vote—No person, nor the wife or widow of such person,
who, during the late war between the States, served in the army or navy
of the United States, or of the Confederate States, or of any State of the
United States, or of the Confederate States, shall at any time be re-
quired to pay a poll tax as a prerequisite to the right to register or
vote. The collection of the State poll tax assessed against anyone shall
not be enforced by legal process until the same has become three
years past due.

Section 23. Persons excluded from registering and voting.—The
following persons shall be excluded from registering and voting:
Idiots, insane persons and paupers; persons who, prior to the adoption
of this Constitution, were disqualified from voting, by conviction of
crime, either within or without this State, and whose disabilities shall
not have been removed; persons convicted after the adoption of this
Constitution, either within or without this State, of treason, or of any
felony, bribery, petit larceny, obtaining money or property under false
pretenses, embezzlement, forgery or perjury; persons who while citi-
zens of this State, after the adoption of this Constitution, have fought
a duel with a deadly weapon, or sent or accepted a challenge to fight
such a duel, either within or without this State, or knowingly conveyed
such a challenge, or aided or assisted in any way in the fighting of
such duel.

Section 24. Who not deemed to have gained legal evidence.—No
officer, soldier, seaman, or marine of the United States army or navy
shall be deemed to have gained a residence as to the right of suffrage,
in the State, or in any county, city or town thereof by reason of being
stationed therein; nor shall an inmate of any charitable institution or
a student in any institution of learning, be regarded as having either
gained or lost a residence, as to the right of suffrage, by reason of his
location or sojourn in such institution.

Section 25. Directions to general assembly in regard to registration
and transfers——The general assembly shall provide for the annual
registration of voters under section twenty, for an appeal by any per-
son denied registration, for the correction of illegal or fraudulent reg-
istration thereunder, and also for the proper transfer of all voters
registered under this Constitution.

Section 26. Persons qualified to vote at next election shall be ad-
mitted to registration—Any person who, in respect to age or residence,
would be qualified to vote at the next election, shall be admitted to
registration, notwithstanding that at the time thereof he is not so
qualified, and shall be entitled to vote at said election if then qualified
under the provisions of this Constitution.

Section 27. Method of voting.—All elections by the people shall be
by ballot; all elections by any representative body shall be viva voce,
and the vote recorded in the journal thereof.

The ballot box shall be kept in public view during all elections, and
shall not be opened, nor the ballots canvassed or counted, in secret.

So far as consistent with the provisions of this Constitution, the
absolute secrecy of the ballot shall be maintained.

Section 28. Ballots—The general assembly shall provide for ballots
without any distinguishing mark or symbol, for the use in all State,
county, city and other elections by the people, and the form thereof
shall be the same in all places where anv such election is held. All bal-
lots shall contain the names of the candidates, and of the offices to be
filled, in clear print and in due and orderly succession; but any voter
may erase any name and insert another.

Section 29. Privileges of voters during election—No voter, during
the time of holding any election at which he is entitled to vote, shall
be compelled to perform military service, except in time of war or
public danger; to attend any court as suitor, juror, or witness; and no
voter shall be subject to arrest under any civil process during his at-
tendance at election or in going to or returning therefrom.

Section 30. General assembly may prescribe property qualification
for voting in county, city or town elections—The general assembly
may prescribe a property qualification not exceeding two hundred
and fifty dollars for voters in any county or subdivision thereof, or
city or town as a prerequisite for voting in any election for officers,
other than the members of the general assembly, to be wholly elected
by the voters of such county or subdivision thereof, or city, or town,
such action, if taken, to be had upon the initiative of a representative
in the general assembly of the county, city or town affected; provided,
that the general assembly, in its discretion, may make such exemptions
from the operation of said property qualifications as shall not be in
conflict with the Constitution of the United States.

Section 31. Electoral boards; appointment and composition;
powers and duties of; who ineligible—There shall be in each county
and city an electoral board, composed of three members, appointed by
the circuit court of the county, or the corporation court of the city, or
the judge of the court in vacation. In the appointment of the electoral
boards representation as far as practicable shall be given to each of
the two political parties which, at the general election next preceding
their appointment, cast the highest and the next highest number of
votes. The present members of sttch boards continue in office until
the expiration of their respective terms: and thereafter their success-
ors shall be appointed for the term of three years. Any vacancy oc-
curring in any board shall be filled by the same authority for the un-
expired term.

Each electoral board shall appoint the judges, clerks and registrars
of election for its county or city; and, in appointing the judges of elec-
tion, representation as far as possible shall be given to each of the two
political parties which, at the general election next preceding their ap-
pointment, cast the highest and the next highest number of votes.

No person, nor the deputy of anv person, holding any office or post
of profit or emolument, under the United States government, or who
is in the employment of such government, or holding anv elective of-
fice of profit or trust in the State, or in any county, citv, or town there-
of, shall be appointed a member of the electoral board, or registrar or
judge of election.

Section 32. Qualifications of officers and of notaries public-—Every
person qualified to vote shall be eligible to any office of the State, or
of any county, city, town or other subdivision of the State, wherein he
resides, except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, and except
that this provision as to residence shall not apply to any office elective
by the people where the law provides otherwise; and except, further,
that the requirements of this section as to residence and voting qualli-
fications shall not apply to the appointment of persons to fill positions
or posts requiring special technical or professional training and expe-
rience.

Persons eighteen years of age shall be eligible to the office of notary
public and qualified to execute the bonds required of them in that
capacity.

Section 33. When terms of officers to begin and end.—Unless
otherwise prescribed by law, the terms of all officers elected under this
Constitution shall begin on the first day of February next succeeding
their election, unless otherwise provided in this Constitution. All of-
ficers elected or appointed, shall continue to discharge the duties of
their offices after their terms of service have expired until their suc-
cessors have qualified.

Section 34. Oath to be prescribed.—Members of the general assem-
bly, and all officers, executive and judicial, elected or appointed after
this Constitution goes into effect shall, before they enter on the per-
formance of their public duties, severally take and subscribe the fol-
lowing oath or affirmation;

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitu-
tion of the United States. and the Constitution of the State of Virginia,
and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all
the duties incumbent on me 4@S..............0c0000cceeeeeee , according to the
hest of my ability, so help me God.”

Section 35. Primary elections: who may vote—No person shall
vote at any legalized primary election for the nomination of any candi-
date for office unless he is at the time registered and qualified to vote
at the next succeeding election.

Section 36. General assembly shall enact laws to regulate clections.
—The general assembly shall enact such laws as are necessary and
proper for the purpose of securing the regularity and purity of gen-
eral, local and primary elections, and preventing and punishing any
corrupt practices, in connection therewith; and shall have power, in
addition to other penalties and punishments now or hereafter pre-
scribed by law for such offenses, to provide that persons convicted of
them shall thereafter be disqualified from voting or holding office.

Section 37. Voting machines.—The general assembly mav_ provide
for the use throughout the State, or in any one or more counties, cities,
or towns in any election, of machines for receiving, recording, and
counting the votes cast thereat: provided, that the secrecy of the vot-
ing be not thereby impaired.

Section 38. Duties of treasurers, clerks of circuit and corporation
courts and sheriffs in regard to making. filing, delivering and posting
list of paid poll taxes: how corrected.—The treasurer of each county
and city shall, at least five months before each regular election, file with
the clerk of the circuit court of his county, or of the corporation court
of his city, a list of all persons in his county or city, who have paid not
later than six months prior to such election, the State poll taxes re-
quired by this Constitution during the three years next preceding that
in which such election is held; which list shall be arranged alphabett-
cally, by magisterial districts in the counties, and in such manner as
the general assembly may direct in the cities, shall state the white and
colored persons separately, and shall be verified by the oath of the
treasurer. The clerk, within ten days from the receipt of the list.
shall make and certify a sufficient number of copies thereof, and shal
deliver one copy for each voting place in his county or city, to the
sheriff of the county or sergeant of the city, whose duty it shall be tc
post one copy, without delay, at each of the voting places, and, withir
ten days from the receipt thereof, to make return on oath to the clerk
as to the places where and dates at which said copies were respectively
posted, which return the clerk shall record in a book kept in his ot-
fice for the purpose; and he shall keep in his office, for public imspec-
tion, for at least sixty days after receiving the list, not less than ter
certified copies thereof, and also cause the list to be published in suct
other manner as may be prescribed by law. The original list returned
by the treasurer shall be filed and preserved by the clerk among the
public records of his office for at least five years after receiving the
same.

Within thirty days after the list has been so posted, any person who
shall have paid his capitation tax, but whose name is omitted from the
certified list, may after five days’ written notice to the treasurer, apply
to the circuit court of his county, or corporation court of his city, or
to the judge thereof in vacation, to have the same corrected and his
name entered thereon, which application the court or judge shall
promptly hear and decide.

The clerk shall deliver, or cause -to be delivered, with the poll
books, at a reasonable time before every election, to one of the judges
of election of each precinct of his county or city, a like certified copy
of the list, which shall be conclusive evidence of the facts therein
stated for the purpose of voting. The clerk shall also, within sixty
days after the filing of the list by the treasurer, forward a certified
copy thereof, with such corrections as may have been made by order
of the court or judge, to the officer designated by law, who shall charge
the amount of the poll taxes stated therein to such treasurer, unless
previously accounted for.

Further evidence of the prepayment of the capitation taxes re-
quired by this Constitution, as a prerequisite to the right to register
and vote, may be prescribed by law.

ARTICLE III
Division of Powers

Section 39. Departments to be distinct.—Except as hereinafter
provided, the legislative, executive and judicial departments shall be
separate and distinct, so that neither exercise the powers properly be-
longing to either of the others, nor any person exercise the power of
more than one of them at the same time.

ARTICLE IV
Legislative Department

Section 40. General assembly to consist of senate and house of
delegates.—The legislative power of the State shall be vested in a
general assembly, which shall consist of a senate and house of dele-
gates.

Section 41. Number and election of senators.—The senate shall
consist of not more than forty and not less than thirty-three members,
who shall be elected quadrennially by the voters of the several sen-
atorial districts on the Tuesday succeeding the first Monday in Novem-
ber. Oo
Section 42. Number and election of delegates—The house of
delegates shall consist of not more than one hundred and not less than
ninety members, who shall be elected biennially by the voters of the
several house districts, on the Tuesday succeeding the first Monday
in November.

Section 43. Apportionment of Commonwealth into senatorial and
house districts —The present apportionment of the Commonwealth
into senatorial and house districts shall continue; but a reapportion-
ment shall be made in the vear nineteen hundred and thirty-two and
every ten years thereafter.

Section 44. Qualifications of senators and delegates; who ineligi-
ble; removal from district vacates office —Any person may be elected
senator who at the time of election, is actually a resident of the sen-
atorial district and qualified to vote for members of the general as-
sembly; and any person may be elected a member of the house of dele-
gates who, at the time of-election, 1s actually a resident of the house
district and qualified to vote for members of the general assembly.
But no person holding a salaried oftice under the State government,
and no judge of any court, attorney for the Commonwealth, sheriff,
sergeant, treasurer, assessor of taxes, commissioner of the revenue,
collector of taxes, or clerk of any court, shall be a member of either
house of the general assembly during his continuance in office, and the
election of any such person to either house of the general assembly,
and his qualification as a member thereof, shall vacate any such of-
fice held by him; and no person holding any office or post of profit or
emolument under the United States government or who is in the em-
ployment of such government, shall be eligible to either house. The
removal of a senator or delegate from the district for which he is
elected shall vacate his office.

Section 45. Salaries of members of general assembly to be fixed by
law; members not to be elected by the general assembly to civil of-
hices of proht—The members of the general assembly shall receive
for their services a salary to be fixed by law and paid from the public
treasury; but no act increasing such salary shall take effect until after
the end of the term for which the members voting thereon were elected ;
and no member during the term tor which he shall have been elected
shall be elected by the general assembly to any civil office of profit in
the State.

Section 46. Time and duration of meetings of general assembly ;
ad journments; majority shall be a quorum; power of smaller number
han a quorum.—The general assembly shall mect once in two years on
he second Wednesday in January next succeeding the election of the
nembers of the house of delegates and not oftener unless convened
n the manner prescribed by this Constitution. No session of the general
issembly shall continue longer than sixty davs; but with the concur-
ence of three-fifths of the members elected to each house, the session
nay be extended for a period not exceeding thirty days. Members
hall be allowed a salary for not exceeding sixty days at any regular
session, and for not exceeding thirty days at any extra session. Neither
house shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn to another place
nor for more than three days. A majority of the members elected to
each house shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller
number may adjourn from day to day, and shall have power to com-
pel the attendance of members in such manner and under such penalty
as each house may prescribe.

Section 47. Power of each house of general assembly to elect its
presiding officer, make its own rules, fill vacancies, and judge of the
election and qualification of members and punish and expel members.—
The house of delegates shall choose its own speaker; and, in the ab-
sence of the lieutenant governor, or when he shall-exercise the office
of governor, the senate shall choose from its own body a president
pro tempore. Each house shall select its officers, settle its rules of
procedure, and direct writs of election for supplying vacancies which
may occur during the session of the general assembly; but, if vacancies
occur during the recess, such writs may be issued by the governor,
under such regulations as may be prescribed by law. Each house shall
judge of the election, qualification, and returns of its members; may
punish them for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-
thirds, expel a member.

Section 48. Privileges of members of general assembly.—Members
of the general assembly shall, in all cases, except treason, felony, or
breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during the sessions of
their respective houses; and for any speech or debate in either house
shall not be questioned in any other place. They shall not be subject
to arrest, under any civil process, during the sessions of the general
assembly, or the fifteen days next before the beginning or after the
ending of any session.

Section 49. Journal of proceedings——Each house shall keep a
journal of its proceedings, which shall be published from time to time.
and the yeas and nays of the members of either house on any question
shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered on the jour-
nal.

Section 50. Enactment of laws; tax laws shall specifically state the
tax and require a vote of majority of members.—No law shall be
enacted except by bill. A bill may originate in either house, may be
approved or rejected by the other, or amended by either, with the con-
currence of the other.

No bill shall become a law unless, prior to its passage, it has been:

(a) Referred to a committee of each house, considered by such
committee in session and reported ;

(b) Printed by the house in which it originated prior to its passage
therein;

(c) Read by title on three different calendar days in each house;
and unless—

a.(d) Upon its final passage a yea and nay vote has been taken
ber.on in cach house, the names of the members voting for and
against entered on the journal, and a majority of those voting, which
shall include at least two-fifths of the members elected to each house,
recorded in the affirmative.

Only in the manner required in subdivision (d) of this section
shall an amendment to a bill by one house be concurred in by the other,
or a conference report be adopted by either house, or either house
discharge a committee from the consideration of a bill and consider the
same as 1f reported. The printing and reading, or either, required in
subdivisions (b) and (c) of this section, may be dispensed with in a
bill to codify the laws of the State, and in any case of emergency by
a vote of four-fifths of the members voting in each house taken by the
yeas and nays, and the names of the members voting for and against,
entered on the journal.

No bill which creates or establishes a new office, or which creates,
continues or revives a debt or charge, or makes, continues or revives
any appropriation of public or trust money, or property, or releases,
discharges or commutes any claim or demand of the State, or which
imposes, continues or revives a tax, shall be passed except by the af-
frmative vote of a majority of all the members elected to each house,
the vote to be by the yeas and nays, and the names of the members
voting for and against, entered on the journal. Every law imposing,
continuing or reviving a tax shall specifically state such tax, and no
law shall be construed as so stating such tax, which requires a refer-
ence to any other law or any other tax.

The presiding officer of each house shall, in the presence of the
house over which he presides, sign every bill that has been passed by
both houses and duly enrolled. Immediately before this is done, all
other business being suspended, the title of the bill shall be publicly
read. The fact of signing shall be entered on the journal.

Section 51. Standing committee on special, private and local legisla-
tron.—There shall be a joint committee of the general assembly, con-
sisting of seven members appointed by the house of delegates, and five
members appointed by the senate, which shall be a standing committee on
special, private and local legislation. Before reference to a committee,
as provided by section fifty, any special, private, or local bill introduced
in either house shall be referred to and considered by such joint com-
mittee and returned to the house in which it originated, with a state-
nient m writing whether the object of the bill can be accomplished
ander general law or by court proceedings; whereupon, the bill, with
‘he accompanying statement, shall take the course provided by section
ifty. The joint committee may be discharged from the consideration
>t a bill by the house in which it originated, in the manner provided in
ection fifty for the discharge of other committees.

Section 52. Law shall embrace but one object, which shall be ex-
»ressed in its title; how laws revived or amended.—No law shall em-
»race more than one object which shall be expressed in its title; nor
Jhall any law be revived or amended with reference to its title, but the
act revived or the section amended shall be re-enacted and published
at length.

Section 53. Time when laws take effect—No law, except a general
appropriation law, shall take effect until at least ninety days after the
adjournment of the session of the general assembly at which it 1s
enacted, unless in case of an emergency (which emergency shall be
expressed in the body of the bill) the general assembly shall otherwise
direct, by a vote of four-fifths of the members voting in each house
such vote to be taken by the yeas and nays, and the names of the
members voting for and against entered on the journal.

Section 54. Impeachments; proceeding under; extent of judgment
under; indictment, et cetera, to lie—The governor, lieutenant governor,
attorney general, judges, members of the State corporation commission,
and executive officers at the seat of government, and all officers ap-
pointed by the governor or elected by the general assembly, offending
against the State by malfeasance in office, corruption, neglect of duty,
or other high crime or misdemeanor, may be impeached by the house
of delegates, and prosecuted before the senate which shall have the sole
power to try impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, the senators
shall be on oath or affirmation. and no person shall be convicted with-
out the concurrence of two-thirds of the senators present. Judgment
in case of impeachment shall not extend further than removal from
office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust,
or profit under the State; but the person convicted shall nevertheless be
subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment according to
law. The senate may sit during the recess of the general assembly
for the trial of impeachments.

Section 55. Apportionment of State into congressional districts by
general assembly.—The general assembly shall by law apportion the
State ito districts, corresponding with the number of representatives
to which it may be entitled in the house of representatives of the con-
gress of the United States; which districts shall be composed of con-
tiguous and compact territory containing as nearly as practicable, an
equal number of inhabitants.

Section 56. Directions to general assembly concerning elections and
declaring offices vacant—The manner of conducting and making
returns of elections, of determining contested elections, and.of filling
vacancies in office, in cases not specially provided for by this Constitu-
tion, shall be prescribed by law, and the general assembly may declare
the cases in which any office shall be deemed vacant where no provision
is made for that purpose in this Constitution.

Section 57. Power of general assembly to remove disabilities —
The general assembly shall have power, by a two-thirds vote, to remove
disabilities incurred under section twenty-three, of article two, of this
Constitution, with reference to duelling.

Section 58. Prolubitions on general assembly as to suspension of
writ of habeas corpus, and enactment of laws referring to religion
and other laws.— The privileges of the writ of habeas corpus shall not
be suspended unless when, in cases of invasion or rebellion, the public
safety may require. The general assembly shall not pass any bill of
attainder, or any ex-post facto law, or any law impairing the obligation
of contracts, or any law abridging the freedom of speech or of the
press. It shall not enact any law whereby private property shall be
taken or damaged for public uses, without just compensation, the term
“public uses” to be defined by the general assembly. No man shall be
compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or
ministry, whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested,
burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account
of his religious opinions or belief; but all men shall be free to profess
and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and
the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or atfect, their civil capaci-
ties. -\nd the general assembly shall not prescribe any religious test
whatever, or confer any peculiar privileges or advantages on any sect
or denomination, or pass any law requiring or authorizing any religious
society, or the people of any district within this State, to levy on them-
selves, or others any tax tor the erection or repair of any house of
public worship, or for the support of any church or ministry; but it
shall be left free to every person to select his religious instructor, and
to make for his support such private contract as he shall please.

Section 59. General assembly shall not incorporate churches or
religious denominations; may secure church property.—The general
assembly shall not grant a charter of incorporation to any church or
religious denomination, but may secure the title to church property
to an extent to be limited by law.

Section 60. Lotteries and sale of lottery tickets prohibited.—No
lottery shail hereafter be authorized by Jaw; and the buying, selling, or
transferring of tickets or chances in any lottery shall be prohibited.

Section 61. Formation, division and consolidation ef counties. —
No new county shall be formed with an area of less than six hundred
square miles; nor shall the county or counties from which it is formed
be reduced below that area; nor shall any county be reduced in popula-
tion below eight thousand. But any county, the length of which is three
times its mean breadth, or which exceeds fifty miles in length, may
be divided at the discretion of the general assembly.

The general assembly may provide for the consolidation of exist-
ing counties on a vote of a majority of the qualitied voters of each ot
such counties voting at an election held for that purpose.

Section 62. Power of the general assembly to enact hquor laws.—
The general assembly may enact laws controlling, regulating, or pro-
hibiting the manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors.

Section 63. Powers of the general assembly and limitations there-
911.— The authority of the general assembly shall extend to all subjects
of legislation, not herein forbidden or restricted; and a specific grant
>f authority in this Constitution upon a subject shall not work a restric.
ion of its authority upon the same or any other subject. “he omissior
n this Constitution of specific grants of authority heretofore con.
ferred shall not be construed to deprive the general assembly of such
authority, or to indicate a change of policy in reference thereto, unless
such purpose plainly appear.

The general assembly shall confer on the courts power to grant
divorces, change the names of persons, and direct the sales of estates
belonging to infants and other persons under legal disabilities, and
shall not, by special legislation, grant relief in these or other cases of
which the courts or other tribunals may have jurisdiction.

The general assembly may regulate the exercise by courts of the
rights to punish for contempt.

The general assembly shall not enact any local, special or private
law in the following cases:

First. For the punishment of crime.

Second. Providing a change of venue in civil or criminal cases.

Third. Regulating the practice in, or the jurisdiction of, or changing
the rules of evidence in any judicial proceedings or inquiry before the
courts or other tribunals, or providing or changing the methods of
collecting debts or enforcing judgments or prescribing the effect of
judicial sales of real estate.

Fourth. Changing or locating county seats.

* Fifth. For the assessment and collection of taxes, except as to
animals which the general assembly may deem dangerous to the
farming interests.

Sixth. Extending the time for the assessment or collection of taxes.

Seventh. Exempting property from taxation.

Eighth. Remitting, releasing, postponing, or diminishing any obliga-
tion or liability of any person, corporation or association to the State
or to any political subdivision thereof.

Ninth. Refunding money lawfully paid into the treasury of the
State or the treasury of any political subdivision thereof.

Tenth. Granting from the treasury of the State, or granting, or
authorizing to be granted from the treasury of any political subdivision
thereof, any extra compensation to any public ofhcer, servant, agent,
or contractor.

Eleventh. For conducting elections or designating the places of
voting.

Twelfth. Regulating labor, trade, mining or manufacturing, or the
rate of interest on money.

Thirteenth. Granting any pension.

Fourteenth. Creating, increasing, or decreasing, or authorizing to
be created, increased, or decreased, the salaries, fees, percentages, or
allowances of public officers during the term for which they are elected
or appointed.

Fifteenth. Declaring streams navigable, or authorizing the construc-
tion of booms or dams therein, or the removal of obstructions there-
from.

Sixteenth. Affecting or regulating fencing or the boundaries of
land, or the running at large of stock.
Seventeenth. Creating private corporations, or amending, renewing,
- extending the charters thereof.

Eighteenth. Granting to any private corporation, association, or
dividual any special or exclusive right, privilege or immunity.

Nineteenth. Naming or changing the name of any private corpora-
on or association.

Twentieth. Remitting the forfeiture of the charter of any private
orporation, except upon the condition that such corporation shall
iereafter hold its charter subtect to the provisions of this Constitu-
on, and the laws passed in pursuance thereof.

Section 64. General assembly shall enact general laws in cases men-
joned in preceding section, and wherever general laws will apply;
mendment or partial repeal of general law shall not enact special law;
estrictions as to laws.—lIn all cases enumerated in the last section,
nd in every other case which, in its judgment, may be provided for
yy general laws, the general assembly shall enact general laws. Any
reneral law shall be subject to amendment or repeal, but the amend-
nent or partial repeal thereof shall not operate directly or indirectly
o enact, and shall not have the effect of enactment of, a special, private,
yr local law.

No general or special law shall surrender or suspend the right and
ower of the State, or any political subdivision thereof, to tax corpora-
ions and corporate property, except as authorized by article thirteen.
No private corporation, association, or individual shall be specially
exempted from the operation of any general law, nor shall its opera-
‘ion be suspended for the benefit of any private corporation, associa-
ion, or individual.

Section 65. Powers of local and special legislation may be con:
ferred by general assembly, by general law, on supervisors and coun
cils—The general assembly may, by general laws, confer upon th
boards of supervisors of counties, and the councils of cities and towns
such powers of local and special legislation as it may, from time t
time, deem expedient, not inconsistent with the limitations containet
in this Constitution.

Section 66. Clerk of house of delegates to be keeper of the rolls
without compensation.—The clerk of the house of delegates shall b
keeper of the rolls of the State, but shall receive no compensation fror
the State for his services as such.

Section 67. Limitations on appropriations by general assembly t
charitable and other institutions; exceptions.—General assembly sha
not make any appropriation of public funds, or personal property, c
of any real estate, to any church, or sectarian society, association, c¢
institution of any kind whatever, which is entirely or partly, direct!
or indirectly, controlled by any church or sectarian society; nor sha
the general assembly make any like appropriation to any charitab
institution which is not owned or controlled by the State; except th:
it may, in its discretion, make appropriations to nonsectarian institt
tions for the reform of youthful criminals; but nothing herein cor
tained shall prohibit the general assembly from authorizing counties,
cities, or towns to make such appropriations to any charitable institu-
tion or association.

Section 68. Auditing committee, appointment and constitution;
powers and duties——At each regular session, the general assembly
shall appoint a standing committee, consisting of two members of the
senate and three members of the house of delegates, to be known as
the auditing committee. Such committee shall annually, or oftener,
in its discretion, examine the books and accounts of the State treasurer,
and all other executive officers at the seat of government whose duties
pertain to auditing or accounting for the State revenue, and of the
public institutions of the Commonwealth.

Such committee shall report the result of its investigations to the
governor, and cause the same to be published in two newspapers of
general circulation in the State. At the beginning of each session,
the governor shall submit such reports to the general assembly.

The committee may sit during the recess of the general assembly,
receive such compensation as may be prescribed by law, and may
employ one or more accountants to assist in its investigations.

ARTICLE V
Executive Department

Section 69. Governor; term of office—The chief executive power
of the State shall be vested in a governor. He shall hold office for a
term commencing on the third Wednesday in January next succeed-
ing his election and ending on the Tuesday after the second Wednes-
day in January in the fourth year thereafter. He shall be ineligible
to the same office for the term next succeeding that for which he was
elected, and to any other office during his term of service.

Section 70. How and when elected; how results ascertained; how
tie or contested elections decided.—The governor shall be elected by the
qualified voters of the State at the time and place of choosing members
of the general assembly. Returns of the election shall be transmitted,
under seal, by the proper officers, to the secretary of the Common-
wealth, or to such other officer as may be prescribed by law, who shall
deliver them to the speaker of the house of delegates on the first day of
the next session of the general assembly. The speaker of the house
of delegates shall, within three days thereafter, in the presence of a
majority of the senate and of the house of delegates, open the returns,
and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the highest
number of votes shall be declared elected; but if two or more shall
have the highest and an equai number of votes, one of them shall
be chosen governor by the joint vote of the two houses of the general
assembly. Contested elections for governor shall be decided by a like
vote. The mode of proceeding in such cases shall be prescribed by law.

Section 71. Qualifications of governor.—No person except a citizen
of the United States shall be eligible to the office of governor; and if
such person be of foreign birth, he must have been a citizen of the
United States for ten years next preceding his election; nor shall any
person be eligible to that office unless he shall have attained the age
of thirty years, and have been a resident of the State for five years
next preceding his election.

Section 72. His place of residence and compensation.—The gover-
nor shall reside at the seat of government. He shall receive for his
services a compensation to be prescribed by law, which shall neither
be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have
been elected. While in office he shall receive no other emolument from
this or any other government.

Section 73. Duties and powers of governor.—The governor shall
take care that the laws be faithfully executed; communicate to the
general assembly, at every session, the condition of the State; recom-
mend to its consideration such measures as he may deem expedient,
and convene the general assembly on application of two-thirds of the
members of both houses thereof, or when, in his opinion, the interest
of the State may require. He shall be commander-in-chief of. the
land and naval forces of the State; have power to embody the militia
to repel invasion, suppress insurrection and enforce the execution of
the laws; conduct, either in person or in such manner as shall be
prescribed by law, all intercourse with other and foreign States; and,
during the recess of the general assembly, shall have power to suspend
from office for misbehavior, incapacity, neglect of official duty, or acts
performed without due authority of law, all executive officers at the
seat of government, except the lieutenant governor; but, in any case
in which this power is so exercised, the governor shall report to the
general assembly, at the beginning of the next session thereof, the fact
of such suspension and the cause therefor, whereupon the general
assembly shall determine whether such officer shall be restored or
finally removed.

The governor shall have power, during the recess of the general
assembly, to appoint, pro tempore, successors to all officers so suspended,
and to fill, pro tempore, vacancies in all offices of the State for the filling
of which the Constitution and laws make no other provision. Such
appointments to vacancies shall be by commissions to expire at the
end of thirty days after the commencement of the next session of the
general assembly.

He shall have power to remit fines and penalties under such rules
and regulations as may be prescribed by law; and, except when the
prosecution has been carried on by the house of delegates, to grant
reprieves and pardons after conviction; to remove political disabilities
consequent upon conviction for offenses committed prior or subsequent
to the adoption of this Constitution, and to commute capital punish-
ment.

He shall communicate to the general assembly, at each session, par-
ticulars of every case of fine or penalty remitted, of reprieve or pardon
granted, and of punishment commuted, with his reasons for remitting,
granting or commuting the same.

The general assembly may, however, provide for a pardoning board,
not exceeding three in number, to be appointed by the governor. and
to serve during his pleasure. Such board may be vested with exclusive
pardoning power over sentences in cases not felonious.

Section 74, Further powers of governor——The governor may re-
quire information in writing, under oath, from the officers of the
executive department and superintendents of State institutions upon
any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices and institu-
tions ; and he may inspect at any time their official books, accounts and
vouchers, and ascertain the conditions of the public funds in their
charge, and in that connection may employ accountants. He may re-
quire the opinion in writing of the attorney general upon any question
of law affecting the official duties of the governor.

Section 75. Commissions and grants; how they shall run and how
attested—Commissions and grants shall run in the name of the
Commonwealth of Virginia, and be attested by the governor, with the
seal of the Commonwealth annexed.

Section 76. Bills, duties of governor in regard to; proceedings of
general assembly in passing bills over veto of governor: effect of
failure of governor to sign.—Every bill which shall have passed the
senate and house of delegates shall, before it becomes a law, be pre-
sented to the governor. If he approve, he shall sign it; but, if not. he
may return it with his objections to the house in which it originated.
which shall enter the objections at large on its journal and proceed
to reconsider the same. If, after such consideration, two-thirds of
the members present, which two-thirds shall include a majority of
the members elected to that house, shall agree to pass the bill, it shall
be sent, together with the objections, to the other house, by which it
shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of all
the members present, which two-thirds shall include a majority of the
members elected to that house, it shall become a law, notwithstanding
the objections. The governor shall have the power to veto any par-
ticular item or items of an appropriation bill, but the veto shall not
affect the item or items to which he does not object. The item or
items objected to shall not take effect except in the manner heretofore
provided in this section as to bills returned to the general assembly
without his approval. If he approve the general purpose of any bill,
but disapprove any part or parts thereof, he may return it, with recom-
mendations for its amendment, to the house in which it originated,
whereupon the same proceeding shall be had in both houses upon the
bill and his recommendations in relation to its amendment as is above
provided in relation to a bill which he shall have returned without his
approval, and with his objections thereto; provided, that if after such
reconsideration, both houses, by a vote of a majority of the members
present in each, shall agree to amend the bill, in accordance with his
recommendation in relation thereto, or either house by such vote shall
fail or refuse to so amend it, then, and in either case the bill shall be
again sent to him, and he may act upon it as if it were then before
him for the first time. But in all the cases above set forth the votes
of both houses shall be determined by ayes and noes, and the names
of the members voting for and against the bill, or item or items of
an appropriation bill, shall be entered on the journal of each house. If
any bill shall not be returned by the governor within five days (Sunday
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 general
assembly shall, by final adjournment, prevent such return; in which
case it shall be a law if approved by the governor, in the manner and
to the extent above provided, within ten days after such adjournment,
but not otherwise.

Section 77. Lieutenant governor, election and qualifications —A
lieutenant governor shall be elected at the same time and for the
same term as the governor, and his qualifications and the manner and
ascertainment of his election, in all respects, shall be the same.

Section 78. Duties of lieutenant governor.—In case of the removal
of the governor from office, or of his death, failure to qualify, resigna-
tion, removal from the State, or inability to discharge the powers and
duties of the office, the said office, with its compensation, shall devolve
upon the lieutenant governor; and the general assembly shall provide
by law for the discharge of the executive functions in other necessary
cases.

Section 79. Lieutenant governor shall be president of senate; com-
pensation as such.—The lieutenant governor shall be president of the
senate, but shall have no vote except in case of an equal division; and
while acting as such shall receive a compensation equal to that allowed
to the speaker of the house of delegates.

Section 80. Secretary of the Commonwealth.—A secretary of the
Commonwealth shall be appointed by the governor, subject to confirma-
tion by the general assembly, for a term coincident with that of each
governor making the appointment: provided, however, that the first
appointment under this section shall not be made until the expiration
of the term of office of the secretary of the Commonwealth, which
began February first, nineteen hundred and twenty-six; but after Jan-
uary first, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, the election or appointments
of a secretary of the Commonwealth may be made in such manner
and for such term as may be prescribed by law.

The powers and duties of the secretary of the Commonwealth shall
be prescribed by law.

On and after the first day of February, nineteen hundred and thirty,
the general assembly may abolish the office of secretary of the Com-
monwealth.

Section 82. Auditor of public accounts——An auditor of public ac-
counts shall be elected by the joint vote of the two houses of the
general assembly for the term of four years. His powers and duties
shall be prescribed by law.
Section 83. Salaries of officers of executive department.—The salary
of each officer of the executive department shall be fixed by law, and
shall not be increased or diminished during his term of office.

Section 84. Checks and balances on officers entrusted with collec-
tion of revenue, establishments of —The general assembly shall pro-
vide by law for the establishment and maintenance of an efficient system
of checks and balances between the officers at the seat of government
entrusted with the collection, receipt, custody, or disbursement of the
revenues of the State.

Section 85. Bond of officers handling State funds.—All State officers
and their deputies, assistants or employees, charged with the collec-
tion, custody, handling or disbursement of public funds, shall be
required to give bond for the faithful performance of such duties;
the amount of such bond in each case, and the manner in which
security shall be furnished, to be specified and regulated by law.

Section 86. Bureau of labor and statistics —The general assembly
shall have power to establish and maintain a bureau of labor and
statistics, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law.

Section 86-a. Effect of refusal of general assembly to confirm an
appointment by the governor.—No person appointed to any office by
the governor, whose appointment is subject to confirmation by the
general assembly, under the provisions of this Constitution or any
statute, shall enter upon, or continue in, office after the general as-
sembly shall have refused to confirm his appointment, nor shall such
person be eligible for reappointment during the recess of the general
assembly to fill the vacancy caused by such refusal to confirm.

ARTICLE VI
Judiciary Department

Section 87. Composition and jurisdiction ——The judicial power of
the State shall be vested in a supreme court of appeals, circuit courts,
city courts, and such other courts, inferior to the supreme court of
appeals, as are hereinafter authorized, or as may be hereafter estab-
lished by law. The jurisdiction of these tribunals, and of the judges
thereof, except so far as conferred by this Constitution, shall be regu-
lated by law.

The governor may be authorized by law to appoint judges pro
tempore.

Section 88. Supreme court of appeals; composition and jurisdic-
tion—The supreme court of appeals shall consist of seven judges,
any four of whom when convened shall form a quorum.

The judges may sit in bank, or in two divisions, consisting of not
less than three judges each, as the court may, from time to time,
determine. In case the court shall sit in divisions, each of such
divisions shall have the full power and authority of said court in
the determination of causes, the issuing of writs, and the exercise of
all powers authorized by this Constitution, or provided by law, sub-
ject to the general control of the court sitting in bank, and such rules
and regulations as the court may make; but no decision of any
division shall become the judgment of the court unless concurred in
by at least three judges; and no case involving a construction of the
Constitution of this State or of the United States, shall be decided
except by the court in bank and the assent of at least four of the
judges shall be required for the court to determine that any law is or
is not repugnant to the Constitution of this State or of the United
States ; and if, in a case involving the constitutionality of any such law,
not more than three of the judges sitting agree in opinion on the
constitutional questions involved, and the case cannot be determined
without passing on such question, no decision shall be rendered therein,
but the case shall be reheard by a full court; and in no case where
the jurisdiction of the court depends solely upon the fact that the
constitutionality of a law is involved, shall the court decide the case
upon its merits, unless the contention of the appellant upon the con-
stitutional question be sustained. In event the judges composing any
division shall differ as to the judgment to be rendered in any cause,
or in event any judge of either division, within a time and in a manner
to be fixed by the rules to be adopted by the court, shall certify that
in his opinion any decision of any division of the court is in conflict
with any prior decision of the court, or of any division thereof, the
cause shall then be considered and adjudged by the full court, or a
quorum thereof.

The court shall have original jurisdiction in cases of habeas corpus,
mandamus and prohibition, but in other cases in which it shall have
jurisdiction, shall have appellate jurisdiction only.

Subject to such reasonable rules as may be prescribed by law as to
the course of appeals, the limitation as to the time, the value, amount
or subject matter involved, the security required, if any, the granting
or refusing of appeals, and the procedure therein, it shall, by virtue of
this Constitution, have appellate jurisdiction in cases involving the con-
stitutionality of a law as being repugnant to the Constitution of this
State or of the United States, or involving the life or liberty of any
person; and in such other cases as may be prescribed by law. No
appeal shall be allowed to the Commonwealth in a case involving the
life or liberty of a person, except that an appeal by the Commonwealth
may be allowed in any case involving the violation of a law relating
to the State revenue.

No bond shall be required of an accused person as a condition of
appeal, but a supersedeas bond may be required where the only punish-
nent imposed in the court below is a fine.

Each of the judges shall have the title of justice.

The judge longest in continuous service shall be chief justice;
1nd if two or more shall have so served for the same period, the senior
n years of these shall be chief justice.

Section 89. Special court of appeals— The general assembly may,
from time to time, provide for a special court of appeals to try any
cases on the docket of the supreme court of appeals, in respect to
which a majority of the judges are so situated as to make it improper
for them to sit; and also to try any cases on said docket which cannot
be disposed of with convenient dispatch. The said special court shall
be composed of not less than three nor more than five of the judges ot
the circuit courts and city courts of record, or of the judges of either
of said courts, or of any of the judges of said courts, together with
one or more of the judges of the supreme court of appeals.

Section 90. Opinions and judgments of the supreme court of
appeals.—When a judgment or decree is reversed, modified or affirmed
by the supreme court of appeals, the reasons therefor shall be stated
in writing and preserved with the record of the case. The court may,
but need not, remand a case for a new trial. In any civil case, it may
enter final judgment, except that judgment for unliquidated damages
shall not be increased or diminished.

Section 91. Qualifications and terms of judges of supreme court
of appeals; how chosen.—The judges of the supreme court of appeals
shall be chosen by the joint vote of the two houses of the general
assembly for terms of twelve years. They shall, when chosen, have
held a judicial station in the United States, or shall have practiced law
in this or some other State for five years.

Section 92. Officers of supreme court of appeals—The officers of
the supreme court of appeals shall be appointed by the court or by the
judges in vacation. Their duties, compensation, and tenure of office
shall be prescribed by law.

The supreme court of appeals shall have the management of the
law library and the appointment of the librarian and other employees
thereof.

Section 93. Sessions of supreme court of appeals.—The supreme
court of appeals shall hold its sessions at two or more places in the
State, as may be fixed by law.

Section 94. Judicial circuits, number and constitution.—The judicial
circuits of the State shall continue as at present until changed as here-
inafter provided.

Section 95. Powers of general assembly to rearrange judicial cir-
cuits; limitations —The general assembly may rearrange the said cir-
cuits and increase or diminish the number thereof. But no new circuit
shall be created containing, by the last United States census or other
census provided by law, less than forty thousand inhabitants, nor when
the effect of creating it will be to reduce the number of inhabitants in
any existing circuit below forty thousand, according to such census.

Section 96. Circuit judges; election, qualifications; residence and

vote of the two houses of the general assembly for a term ot eight
years. He shall, when chosen, possess the same qualifications as
judges of the supreme court of appeals, and during his continuance ir
ottice shall reside in the circuit of which he is judge.
Section 97. Terms of circuit courts: judges may be required to
hold terms in other circuits —The number of terms of the circuit courts
to be held for each county and city shall be prescribed by law. But
no separate circuit court shall be held for any city of the second class,
until the city shall abolish its existing city court. The judge of one
circuit may be required or authorized to hold court in any other circuit
or city.

Section 98. Division of cities into classes; courts of each class,
additional courts of cities, how provided; abolition and cessation of
corporation or city court—For the purpose of a judicial system, the
cities of the State shall be divided into two classes.

Cities having a population of ten thousand or more, as shown by
the last United States census, or other census provided by law, shall be
cities of the first class and those having a population of less than ten
thousand, as thus shown, shall be cities of the second class.

In each city of the first class, there may be, in addition to the cir-
cult court, a corporation court. In any city containing thirtv thousand
inhabitants or more, the general assembly may provide for such addi-
tional courts as the public interest may require, and in every such city
the city courts, as they now exist, shall continue until otherwise pro-
vided by law.

In every city of the second class the corporation or hustings court
now existing shall continue under the name of the corporation court
of such city; but it may be abolished by a vote of a majority of the
qualifed voters of such city at an election held for the purpose. And
whenever the office of judge of a corporation or hustings court of a
city of the second class, whose annual salary is less than eight hun-
dred dollars, shall become and remain vacant for ninety days consecu-
tively, such court shall thereby cease to exist. In case of the abolition
of the corporation or hustings court of any city of the second class, such
city shall thereupon come in every respect within the jurisdiction of the
circuit court of the county wherein it is situated, until otherwise pro-
vided by law; and the records of such corporation or hustings court
shall thereupon become a part of the records of such circuit court,
and be transferred thereto, and remain therein until otherwise pro-
vided by law. During the existence of the corporation or hustings
court, the circuit court of the county in which such city is situated shall
have concurrent jurisdiction with said corporation or hustings court, in
actions at law and suits in equity, unless otherwise provided by law.

Section 99. Judges of city courts; qualifications, term of office and
residence; holding court in other circuits—lor each city court of
record a judge shall be chosen for a term of eight years by a joint
vote of the two houses of the general assembly. Ile shall, when chosen,
possess the same qualifications as judges of the supreme court ot
appeals, and during his continuance in office, shall reside within the
jurisdiction of the court over which he presides; but the judge of the
corporation court of any corporation having a city charter, and less
than ten thousand inhabitants, may reside outside of the city limits; and
such judge may be judge of such corporation court and judge of the
corporation court of some other city having less than ten thousand
inhabitants. The judges of city courts may be required or authorized
to hold the circuit or city courts of any county or city.

Section 100. Courts of land registration—The general assembly
shall have power to establish such court or courts of land registration
as it may deem proper for the administration of any law it may adopt
for the purpose of the settlement, registration, transfer, or assurance
of titles to land in the State, or any part thereof.

Section 101. Clerks of courts; jurisdiction in cases of wills, in-
sane persons, et cetera.—The general assembly may confer upon the
clerks of the several courts having probate jurisdiction, jurisdiction
of the probate of wills, and of the appointment and qualification of
guardians, personal representatives, curators, appraisers, and com-
mittees of persons adjudged insane or convicted of felony, and in the
matter of the substitution of trustees.

Section 102. Judges, how commissioned; salaries and allowances ;
terms of office; vacancies; retirement and compensation.—Judges shall
be commissioned by the governor. They shall receive such salaries and
allowances as shall be prescribed by law, the amount of which shall not
be diminished during their term of office. Their term of office shall
commence on the first day of February next following their election.
Whenever a vacancy occurs in the office of judge, his successor shall be
elected for the unexpired term. ‘The general assembly may enact such
laws as it may deem necessary for the retirement of the said judges
with such compensation and such duties as it may prescribe.

— Section 103. Salaries of judges——The salaries of judges shall be
paid out of the State treasury, but the State shall be reimbursed for
one-half of the salaries of each of the circuit judges by the counties
and cities composing the circuit, according to their respective popula-
tions, and of each of the judges of a city of the first class by the city
in which such judge presides; except that the entire salary of the
judge of the circuit court of the city of Richmond shall be paid by
the State. A city may increase the salary of its circuit or city judge,
or any one or more of them, such increase to be paid wholly by such
city and not to be diminished during the term of office of such judge.
A city containing less than ten thousand inhabitants shall pay the salary
of its city judge.

Section 104. Removal of judges for cause—Judges may be re-
moved from ofhce for cause, by a concurrent vote of both houses of
the general assembly ; but a majority of all the members elected to each
house must concur in such vote, and the cause of removal shall be
entered on the journal of each house. ‘The judge against whom the
general assembly may be about to proceed shall have notice thereof, ac-
companied by a copy of the causes alleged for his removal, at least
twenty days before the day on which either house of the general as-
sembly shall act thereon.

Section 105. Judges shall not practice law or hold office of public
trust; exception——No judge of a court of record shall practice law
within or without this State, nor hold any office of public trust during
his continuance in office; except that the judge of a city court in a city
of the second class may hold the office of commissioner in chancery of
the circuit court for the county in which the city is located.

Section 106. Writs and indictments.—Writs shall run in the name
of the “Commonwealth of Virginia,” and be attested by the clerks of
the several courts. Indictments shall conclude “against the peace and
dignity of the Commonwealth.”

Section 107. Attorney general, election, commission, duties and com-
pensation.—An attorney general shall be elected by the qualified voters
of the State at the same time and for the same term as the governor;
and the fact of his election shall be ascertained in the same manner.
He shall be commissioned by the governor, perform such duties and
receive such compensation as may be prescribed by law, and shall be
removable in the manner prescribed for the removal of judges.

Section 108. Justices of the peace—The general assembly may pro-
vide for the appointment or election of justices of the peace and pre-
scribe their jurisdiction.

Section 109. Applications for bail—The general assembly shall
provide by whom, and in what manner, applications for bail shall be
heard and determined.

ARTICLE VII
Organization and Government of Counties

Section 110. County officers, number, terms and compensation ;
county organization—There shall be elected by the qualified voters of
each county a treasurer, a sheriff, an attorney for the Commonwealth,
and a county clerk, who shall be the clerk of the circuit court; and
there shall also be elected by the qualified voters of each county one
commissioner of the revenue.

The duties and compensation of such officers shall be prescribed
by general law.

There shall be appointed for each county, in such manner as may
be provided by law, one county surveyor.

The general assembly may provide for the election or appointment
of a superintendent of the poor, other ministerial and executive officers
for each county, and for the election or appointment of such officers
for two or more counties conjointly. The provisions for such con-
jointly elected or appointed officers shall apply only to such counties
as may adopt the same by a majority vote of the qualified voters of
each of such counties voting in any election held for such purpose.

The general assembly may provide for the consolidation by two or
more counties, or by one or more counties with one or more cities, of
their charitable and penal institutions. But such consolidation shall
apply only to such counties and cities as may authorize the same, in
such manner as has heretofore been, or may hereafter be, prescribed
by law.

Notwithstanding the provisions of this article, the general assembly
may, by general law, provide for complete forms of county organiza-
tion and government different from that provided for in this article, to
become effective in any county when submitted to the qualified voters
thereof in an election held for such purpose and approved by a majority
of those voting thereon.

Section 111. Magisterial districts, supervisors ; how chosen, powers
and duties—The magisterial districts shall, until changed by law, remain
as now constituted ; provided, that hereafter no additional districts shall
be made containing less than thirty square miles. Subject to the pro-
visions of section one hundred and ten, in each district there shall be
elected by the qualified voters thereof, one supervisor. The supervisors
of the districts shall constitute the board of supervisors of the county,
which shall meet at stated periods, and at other times as often as may
be necessary, lay the county and district levies, pass upon all claims
against the county, subject to such appeal as may be provided by
law, and perform such duties as may be required by law. -

Section 112. Elections for county and district officers, when held;
terms of officers——Regular elections for county and district officers
shall be held on Tuesday after the first Monday in November, and
such officers shall enter upon the duties of their offices on the first
day of January next succeeding their election, and shall hold their re-
spective offices for the term of four years, except that the county clerks
shall hold office for eight years.

Section 113. No person shall hold more than one office at the same
time. Additional security may be required of officer. —Subject to the
provisions of section one hundred and ten foregoing, no person shall
at the same time hold more than one of the offices mentioned in this
article. Any officer required by law to give bond may be required to
give additional security thereon, or to execute a new bond, and in default
of so doing his office shall be declared vacant.

Section 114. County not responsible for acts of sheriff—Counties
shall not be made responsible for the acts of the sheriffs.

Section 115. Examinations of books, accounts, et cetera, of officers
handling public funds.—The general assembly shall provide for the
examination of the books, accounts and settlements of county and city
officers who are charged with the collection and disbursement of public
funds.

Section 115-a. Power of counties and districts to borrow money
and to issue evidences of indebtedness restricted—No debt shall be
contracted by any county, or by or on behalf of any district of any
county, or by or on behalf of any school board of any county, or by or
on behalf of any school district in any county, except in pursuance of
authority conferred by the general assembly by general law; and the
general assembly shall not authorize any county, or any district of any
county, or any school board of any county, or any school district in
any county, to contract any debt except to meet casual deficits in the
revenue, a debt created in anticipation of the collection of the revenue
of the said county, board or district for the then current year, or to
redeem a previous liability, unless in the general law authorizing the
same provision be made for the submission to the qualified voters of
the proper county or district, tor approval or rejection, by a majority
vote of the qualified voters voting in an election, on the question of con-
tracting such debt; and such approval shall be a prerequisite to con-
tracting such debt. No scrip, certificate or other evidence of county
or district indebtedness shall be issued except for such debts as are
expressly authorized in this Constitution or by the laws made in pur-
suance thereof.

ARTICLE VIII
Organization and Government of Cities and Towns

Section 116. Definitions of “cities” and “towns.”—As used in this
article the words, “incorporated communities” shall be construed to
relate only to cities and towns. All incorporated communities, having
within defined boundaries a population of five thousand or more, shall
be known as cities; and all incorporated communities, having within
defined boundaries a population of less than five thousand, shall be
known as towns. In determining the population of such cities and
towns the general assembly shall be governed by the last United States
census, or such other enumeration as may be made by authority of
the general assembly; but nothing in this section shall be construed to
repeal the charter of any incorporated community of less than five
thousand inhabitants having a city charter at the time of the adoption
of this Constitution, or to prevent the abolition by such incorporated
communities of the corporation or hustings court thereof.

Section 117. General assembly shall enact laws for government of
cities and towns; how special act therefor passed; as to city charters
existing at adoption of Constitution-—(a) General laws for the organi-
zation and government of cities and towns shall be enacted by the
general assembly, and no special act shall be passed in relation thereto,
except in the manner provided in article four of this Constitution, and
then only by a recorded vote of two-thirds of the members elected to
each house. But each of the cities and towns of the State having at the
time of the adoption of this Constitution a municipal charter may
retain the same, except so far as it shall be repealed or amended by
the general assembly; provided, that every such charter is hereby
amended to conform to all the provisions, restrictions, limitations and
powers set forth in this article, or otherwise provided in this Constitu-
tion.

(b) The general assembly may, by general law or by special act
(passed in the manner provided in article four of this Constitution)
provide for the organization and government of cities and towns with-
out regard to, and unaffected by any of the provisions of this article,
except those of sections one hundred and twenty-four, one hundred
and twenty-five (except so far as the provisions of section one hun-
dred and twenty-five recognize the office of mayor and the power of
veto), one hundred and twenty-six and one hundred and twenty-seven
of this article, and except those mentioned in subsection (d) of this
section. The term “council,’’ as used in any of said sections, shall
include the body exercising legislative authority for the city or town,
and all ordinances enacted and resolutions adopted by such body shall
have the same force and effect for all purposes, as if enacted or adopted
in accordance with the provisions of section one hundred and twenty-
three of this article. But such organization and government shall apply
only to such cities or towns as may thereafter adopt the same by a
majority vote of those qualified voters of any such city or town voting
in any election to be held for the purpose, as may be provided by
law.

(c) The general assembly, at the request of any city or town, made
in manner provided by law, may grant to it any special form of organt-
zation and government authorized by subsection (b) of this section.
and subject to all of the provisions of that subsection, except that tt
shall not be necessary for such city or town to thereafter adopt the
same.

(d) Any laws or charters enacted pursuant to the provisions of
this section shall be subject to the provisions of this Constitution
relating expressly to judges and clerks of courts, attorneys for the
Commonwealth, commissioners of revenue, city treasurers and city
sergeants.

(e) Any form of organization and government authorized by any
provisions of this section which may have been adopted heretofore by
any city or town pursuant to any act of the general assembly enacted
before such provisions become effective, and which is now in opera-
tion, is hereby declared legal and valid ab initio, and shall have the
same force and effect as if it had been authorized by this Constitution
at the time of its adoption.

Section 118. Clerks of city courts, elections, duties and number;
only one in city of less than thirty thousand inhabitants.—In each city
which has a court in the office of which deeds are admitted to record.
there shall be elected, for a term of eight years, by the qualified voters of
such city, a clerk of said court, w ho shall perform such duties as may
be required by law.

There shall be elected in like manner and for a like term all such
additional clerks of courts for cities as the general assembly may pre-
scribe, or as are now authorized by law, so long as such courts shall

continue in existence. Ina city of less than thirty thousand inhabitants
there shall be not more than one clerk of the court, who shall be clerk
of all the courts of record in such city.

Section 119. Commonwealth's attorney in cities; commissioner of
revenue in cities.—In every city, so long as it has a corporation court.
or a separate circuit court, there shall be elected, for a term of four
years, by the qualified voters of such city, one attorney for the Com-
monwealth, who shall also, in those cities having a separate circuit
court, be the attorney for the Commonwealth for such circuit court.

In every city there shall be elected one commissioner of the revenue
fora term of four years.

The duties and compensation of such officers shall be prescribed by
law.

Section 120. City officers. their titles, election, powers and duties.—
In every city there shall be elected, by the qualified voters thereof, one
city treasurer, for a term of four years; one citv sergeant, for a term
of four years, whose duties shall be prescribed by law; and a mayor
for a term of four years, who shall be the chief executive officer of
such city. All city and town officers, whose election or appointment
is not provided for by this Constitution, shall be elected by the electors
of such cities or towns, or of some division thereof, or appointed by

such authorities thereof as the general assembly shall designate.

The mayor shall see that the duties of the various citv officers, mem-
hers of the police and fire departments, whether elected or appointed,
in and for such city. are faithfully performed. Te shall have power to
investigate their acts, have access to all books and documents in their
ofices, and mav examine them and their subordinates on oath. The
evidence given by persons so examined shall not be used against them
im anv criminal proceedings. He shall also have power to suspend such
ofhcers, and the members of the police and fire departments, and to
remove such officers, and also such members of said departments, when
authorized by the general assembly, for misconduct in office or neglect
of duty, to be specified in the order of suspension or removal: but no
such removal shall be made without reasonable notice to the officer
complained of, and an opportunity afforded him to be heard in person,
or hy counsel, and to present testimony in his defense. From such
order of suspension or removal, the city officer so suspended or re-
moved shall have an appeal of right to the corporation court, or, if
there be no such court, to the circuit court of such city, in which court
the case shall he heard de novo by the judge thereof, whose decision
shall be final. He shall have all the other powers and duties which may
be conferred and imposed upon him by general laws.

Section 121. City council, composition, how elected, powers and
duties; ineligibility of members to certain offices: powers and duties
as to apportionments; when mandamus against council lies—There
shall be in every city a council, composed of two branches, having a
ditferent number of members, whose powers and terms of office shall
he prescribed by law, and whose members shall be elected by the qualt-
fied voters of such city, in the manner prescribed by law, but so as to
give, as far as practicable, to each ward of such city, equal representa-
tion in each branch of said council in proportion to the population of
such ward; but the general assembly may permit the council to consist
of one branch.
No member of the council shall be eligible, during his tenure of
office as such member, or for one year thereafter, to any office to be
filled by the council by election or appointment.

* The council of every city may, in a manner prescribed by law, in-
crease or diminish the number, and change the boundaries, of the wards
thereof, and shall, in the year nineteen hundred and thirty-three, and
in every tenth year thereafter, and also whenever the boundaries of
such wards are changed, reapportion the representation in the council
among the wards in a manner prescribed by law: and whenever the
council of any such city shall fail to perform the duty so prescribed,
a mandamus shall lie on behalf of any citizen thereof to compel its
performance.

Section 122. Election and terms of office of city officers —The
mavors and councils of cities shall be elected on the second Tuesday
in Tune, and their terms of office shall begin on the first day of Sep-
tember, succeeding. All other elective officers, provided for by this
article. or hereafter authorized by law, shall be elected on the Tuesdav
after the first Monday in November, and their terms of office shall
begin on the first day of January succeeding, except that the terms of
office of clerks of the city courts shall begin coincidently with that of
the judges of said courts: provided, that the general assembly may
change the time of election of all or any of the said officers, except that
the election and the beginning of the terms of mayors and councils of
cities shall not be made by the general assembly to occur at the same
time with the election and beginning of the terms of office of the other
elective officers provided for by this Constitution.

Section 123. Ordinances, proceedings to pass over veto of mayor:
as to appropriation ordinances vetoes.—Every ordinance, or resolution
having the effect of an ordinance, shall, before it becomes operative,
be presented to the mayor. If he approve he shall sign it, but if not,
if the council consist of two branches, he may return it with his objec-
tions in writing, to the clerk, or other recording officer, of that branch
in which it originated ; which branch shall enter the objections at length
on its journal and proceed to reconsider it. If after such consideration
two-thirds of all the members elected thereto shall agree to pass the
ordinance or resolution, it shall be sent, together with the objections,
to the other branch, by which it shall likewise be considered, and if
approved by two-thirds of all the members elected thereto, it shall
become operative, notwithstanding the objections of the mayor. But
in all such cases the votes of both branches of the council shall be de-
termined by veas and nays, and the names of the members voting for
and against the ordinance or resolution shall be entered on the journal
of each branch. If the council consist of a single branch, the mayor's
objections, in writing, to any ordinance, or resolution having the effect
of an ordinance, shall be returned to the clerk, or other recording officer
of the council, and be entered at length on its journal; whereupon the
council shall proceed to reconsider the same. Upon such consideration
the vote shall be taken in the same manner as where the council consists
of two branches, and if the ordinance or resolution be approved by
two-thirds of all the members elected to the council, it shall become
operative, notwithstanding the objections of the mayor. If any ordi-
nance or resolution shall not be returned by the mayor within five days
(Sundays except) after it shall have been presented to him, it shall
become operative in like manner as if he had signed it. unless his term
ot office, or that of the council, shall expire within said five days.

The mayor shall have the power to veto any particular item or items
of an appropriation ordinance or resolution: but the veto shall not
affect anv item or items to which he does not object. The item or
items objected to shall not take effect except in the manner provided
in this section as to ordinances or resolutions not approved by the
mayor. No ordinance or resolution appropriating money exceeding
the sum of one hundred dollars, imposing taxes, or authorizing the
borrowing of money, shall be passed, except by a recorded affirmative
vote of a majoritv of all the members elected to the council or to each
branch thereof where there are two; and in case of the veto by the
mayor of such ordinance or resolution, it shall require a recorded
affirmative vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to the council,
or to each branch thereof where there are two, to pass the same over
such veto in the manner provided in this section. Nothing contained in
this section shall operate to repeal or amend any provision in any exist-
ing city charter requiring a two-thirds vote for the passage of anv ordi-
nance as to the appropriation of money, imposing taxes or authorizing
the borrowing of money.

Section 124. Consent of corporate authorities necessary to use of
streets, alleys, or public grounds by certain companies or persons.—No
street railway, gas, water, steam or electric heating, electric light or
power, cold storage, compressed air, viaduct, conduit, telephone or
bridge company, nor any corporation, association, person or partner-
ship engaged in these or like enterprises, shall be permitted to use the
streets, alleys, or public grounds of a city or town without the previous
consent of the corporate authorities of such city or town.

Section 125. Sale of corporate property and granting of franchises
by cities and towns.—The rights of no city or town in and to its water
front, wharf property, public landings, wharves, docks, streets, ave-
nues, parks, bridges, and other public places, and its gas, water and
electric works shall be sold, except by an ordinance or resolution passed
by a recorded affirmative vote of three-fourths of all the members
elected to the council, or to each branch thereof where there are two,
and under such other restrictions as may be imposed by law; and in
case of the veto by the mayor of such an ordinance or resolution, it
shall require a recorded affirmative vote of three-fourths of all the
members elected to the council, or to each branch thereof where there
are two, had in the manner heretofore provided for in this article, to
pass the same over the veto. No franchise, lease or right of any kind
to use any such public property or any other public property or ease-
ment of any description, in a manner not permitted to the general
may prescribe; but until otherwise provided by law, the State board
of education may continue existing rules and regulations in force and
amend or change the same.

Fourth. It shall select textbooks and educational appliances for use
in the schools of the State, exercising such discretion as it may see fit
in the selection of books suitable for the schools in the cities and
counties, respectively; provided, however, the general assembly may
prescribe the time in which the State board of education may change
the textbooks.

Section 133. School districts; school trustees—The supervision of
schools in each county and city shall be vested in a school board, to be
composed of trustees to be selected in the manner, for the term and to
the number provided by law. Each magisterial district shall constitute
a separate school district, unless otherwise provided by law, and the
magisterial district shall be the basis of representation on the school
board of such county or city, unless some other basis is provided by
the general assembly ; provided, however, that in cities of one hundred
and fifty thousand or over, the school boards of respective cities shall
have power, subject to the approval of the local legislative bodies of
said cities, to prescribe the number and boundaries of the school dis-
tricts.

There shall be appointed by the school board or boards of each
school division, one division superintendent of schools, who shall be
selected from a list of eligibles certified by the State board of educa-
tion and shall hold office for four years. In the event that the local
board or boards fail to elect a division superintendent within the time
prescribed by law, the State board of education shall appoint such
division superintendent.

Section 134. Literary fund.—The general assembly shall set apart as
a permanent and perpetual literary fund, the present literary fund of
the State; the proceeds of all public lands donated by Congress for
public free school purposes; of all escheated property ; of all waste and
unappropriated lands; of all property accruing to the State by for-
feiture, and all fines collected for offenses committed against the State,
and such other sums as the general assembly may appropriate.

Section 135. Appropriations for school purposes, school age.—The
general assembly shall apply the annual interest on the literary fund;
that portion of the capitation tax provided for in the Constitution to
be paid into the State treasury, and not returnable to the counties and
cities; and an amount equal to the total that would be received from an
annual tax on property of not less than one nor more than five mills on
the dollar to the schools of the primary and grammer grades, for the
equal benefit of all the people of the State, to be apportioned on a basis
of school population; the number of children between the ages of seven
and twenty years in each school district to be the basis of such ap-
portionment. And the general assembly shall make such other ap-
propriations for school purposes as it may deem best, to be apportioned
ona basis to be provided by law.
Section 136. Local school taxes.—Each county, city or town, if the
same be a separate school district, and school district is authorized to
raise additional sums by a tax on property, subject to local taxation,
not to exceed in the aggregate in any one year a rate of levy to be fixed
by law, to be apportioned and expended by the local school authorities
of said counties, cities, towns and districts in establishing and maintain-
ing such schools as in their judgment the public welfare may require;
provided that such primary schools as may be established in any school
year Shall be maintained at least four months of that school year, before
any part of the fund assessed and collected may be devoted to the
establishment of schools of higher grade. The boards of supervisors
of the several counties, and the councils of the several cities and towns,
if the same be separate school districts, shall provide for the levy and
collection of such local school taxes.

Section 137. Agricultural, normal, manual training and technical
schools.—The general assembly may establish agricultural, normal,
manual training and technical schools, and such grades of schools as
shall be for the public good.

Section -138. Compulsory education.—The general assembly may,
in its discretion, provide for the compulsory education of children of
school age.

Section 139. Free textbooks.—Provision shall be made to supply
children attending the public schools with necessary textbooks in cases
where the parent or guardian is unable, by reason of poverty, to
furnish them.

Section 140. Mixed schools prohibited—White and colored chil-
dren shall not be taught in the same school.

Section 141. State appropriations prohibited to schools or institu-
tions of learning not owned or exclusively controlled by the State or
some subdivision thereof; exceptions to rule—No appropriation of
public funds shall be made to any school or institution of learning not
owned or exclusively controlled by the State or some political sub-
division thereof; provided, first, that the general assembly may, in
its discretion, continue the appropriations to the College of William and
Mary; second, that this section shall not be construed as requiring or
prohibiting the continuance or discontinuance by the general assembly
of the payment of interest on certain bonds held by certain schools and
colleges as provided by an act of the general assembly, approved
February twenty-third, eighteen hundred and ninety-two, relating to
bonds held by schools and colleges; third, that counties, cities, towns,
and districts may make appropriations to nonsectarian schools of
manual, industrial, or technical training, and also to any school or in-
stitution of learning owned or exclusively controlled by such county,
city, town, or school district.

Section 142. Boards of visitors and trustees of educational institu-
tions, how appointed, and term of office.—Members of the boards of
visitors or trustees of educational institutions shall be appointed as may
be provided by law, and shall hold for the term of four years; provided,
that at the first appointment, if the board be of an even number, one-
half of them, or, if an odd number, the least majority of them, shall
be appointed for two years.

ARTICLE X
Agriculture and Immigration

Section 143. Department of agriculture and immigration, where
maintained, how controlled, composition, qualification of members, how
appointed and term of office.—There shall be a department of agricul-
ture and immigration, which shall be permanently maintained at the
capital of the State, and which shall be under the management and con-
trol of a board of agriculture and immigration, composed of one mem-
ber from each congressional district, who shall be a practical farmer,
appointed by the governor for a term of four years, subject to confirma-
tion by the senate, and the president of the Virginia Polytechnic In-
stitute, who shall be ex-officio member of the board.

Section 144. Powers and duties of same.—The powers and duties of
the board shall be prescribed by law; provided, that it shall have power
to elect and remove its officers, and establish elsewhere in the State
subordinate branches of said department.

Section 146. President of board of agriculture and immigration to
be ex-officio member of board of visitors of Virginia Polytechnic In-
stitute——The president of the board of agriculture and immigration
shall be ex-officio a member of the board of visitors of the Virginia
Polytechnic Institute.

ARTICLE XI
Public Welfare and Penal Institutions

Section 147. Public welfare, charitable, reformatory, or penal in-
stitutions—Such public welfare, charitable, sanitary, benevolent,
reformatory or penal institutions as the claims of humanity and the
public good may require shall be established and operated by the Com-
monwealth under such organization and in such manner as the general
assembly may prescrbie.

Unless otherwise prescribed by law, the existing institutions and
laws with respect thereto shall continue.

Section 148. (Omitted. )

Section 149. (Omitted.)

Section 150. (Omitted. )

Section 151. (Omitted.)

Section 152. Office of commissioner of State hospitals abolished.—
The office of commissioner of State hospitals for the insane is hereby
abolished.
Section 153. Definition of terms used in article; article not to con-
flict with federal Constitution-—As used in this article, the term “cor-
poration” or “company” shall include all trust, associations and joint
stock companies having any powers or privileges not possessed by in-
dividuals or unlimited partnerships, and exclude all municipal cor-
porations and public institutions owned or controlled by the State; the
term “charter” shall be construed to mean the charter of incorpora-
tion by, or under, which any such corporation is formed; the term
“transportation company” shall include any company, trustee, or other
‘person owning, leasing or operating for hire a railroad, street railway,
canal, steamboat or steamship line, and also any freight car company,
car association, or car trust, express company, or company, trustee or
person in any way engaged in business as a common carrier over a
route acquired in whole or in part under the right of eminent domain;
the term “rate” shall be construed to mean “rate of charge for any
service rendered or to be rendered”; the terms “rate,” “charge” and
“regulation” shall include joint rates, joint charges, and joint regula-
tions, respectively; the term “transmission company” shall include
any company owning, leasing or operating for hire any telegraph or
telephone line; the term “freight” shall be construed to mean any
property transported, or received for transportation by any transporta-
tion company; the term “public service corporation” shall include all
transportation and transmission companies, all gas, electric light, heat
and power companies, and all persons authorized to exercise the right
of eminent domain, or to use or occupy any street, alley or public high-
way, whether along, over, or under the same, in a manner not per-
mitted to the general public; the term “person,” as used in this article,
shall include individuals, partnerships and corporations, in the singular
as well as plural number; the term “bond” shall mean all certificates
or written evidences of indebtedness issued by any corporation and
secured by mortgage or trust deed; the term “frank” shall be construed
to mean any writing or token, issued by, or under authority of, a trans-
mission company, entitling the holder to any service from such comr
pany free of charge. The provisions of this article shall always be so
restricted in their application as not to conflict with any of the provi-
sions of the Constitution of the United States, and as if the necessary
limitations upon their interpretation had been herein expressed in
each case.

Section 154. As to chartering a corporation, and legislation relat-
ing thereto by general assembly; surrender of charters; special acts
regulating corporations prohibited—The creation of corporations, and
the extension and amendment of charters (whether heretofore or
hereafter granted), shall be provided for by general laws, and no
charter shall be granted, amended or extended by special act, nor shall
authority in such matters be conferred upon any tribunal or officer,
except to ascertain whether the applicants have, by complying with the
requirements of the law, entitled themselves to the charter, amendment
or extension applied for, and to issue, or refuse, the same accordingly.
Such general laws may be amended or repealed by the general assem-
bly; and all charters and amendments of charters, now existing and
revocable, or hereafter granted or extended, may be repealed at any
time by special act. Provision shall be made, by general laws, for the
voluntary surrender of its charter by any corporation, and for the for-
feiture thereof for non-users or mis-user. The general assemblv shall
not, by special act, regulate the affairs of any corporation, nor, by such
act, give it any rights, powers or privileges.

Section 155. State corporation commission; how selected; term of
office; how vacancies filled; who ineligible; qualifications of at least
one member; how removed or impeached; officers, how selected; rules
of order and procedure; general provisions; salaries——There shall be
a permanent commission, to consist of three members, which shall be
known as the State corporation commission. Their regular term of
office shall be six years, respectively. Whenever a vacancy in the com-
mission shall occur, the governor shall forthwith appoint a qualified
person to fill the same for the unexpired term, subject to confirmation
by the general assembly or until his successor be chosen as provided
by law. Commissioners selected for regular terms shall, at the begin-
ning of the terms for which selected, and those appointed to fill vacan-
cies, shall immediately upon their selection or appointment, enter upon
the duties of their office. The commissioners shall be elected by the
general assembly. The present commissioners shall continue in office
until the expiration of their present terms. The terms of their suc-
cessors shall begin on the first day of February next succeeding their
selection.

No person while employed by, or holding any office in relation to,
any transportation or transmission company, or while in any wise
financially interested therein, or while engaged in practicing law, shall
hold office as a member of said commission, or perform any of the
duties thereof. Nor shall any such person be interested, either di-
rectly or indirectly, in any insurance company, association or fraternal
organization, or in any bank, trust or other like company “doing busi-
ness in this State and which is by law made subject to the supervision
of said State corporation commission, but this section shall not be so
construed as to prevent any such person from being a policyholder in
any insurance company, insurance association, or fraternal organiza-
tion.

At least one of the commissioners shall have the qualifications pre-
scribed for judges of the supreme court of appeals; and any commis-
sioner may be impeached or removed in the manner provided for the
impeachment or removal of a judge of said court. |
The commission shall annually elect one of its members chairman
of the same, and shall have one clerk, and such other clerks, officers,
assistants and subordinates as may be provided by law, all of whom
shall be appointed, and subject to removal by the commission. It shall
prescribe its own rules of order and procedure, except so far as the
same are specified in this Constitution or any amendment thereof.

The general assembly may establish within the department, and
subject to the supervision and control of the commission, subordinate
divisions, or bureaus of insurance, banking or other special branches
of the business of that department.

All sessions of the commission shall be public, and a permanent
record shall be kept of all its judgments, rules, orders, findings and
decisions, and of all reports made to or by it. Two of the commis-
sioners shall constitute a quorum for the exercise of the judicial, legis-
lative and discretionary functions of the commission, whether there
be a vacancy in the commission or not, except as otherwise provided
by law, but a quorum shall not be necessary for the exercise of its ad-
ministrative functions, which are mandatory. The commission shall
keep its office open for business on every day except Sundays and legal
holidays.

Transportation companies shall at all times transport, free of
charge, within this State, the members of said commission, and its of-
ficers, or any of them, when engaged on their official duties.

The general assembly shall provide suitable quarters for the com-
mission and funds for its lawful expenses, including pay for witnesses
summoned, and costs of executing processes issued by the commission
of its own motion; and shall fix the salaries of the members of the
commission, ©

Section 156. Powers, duties and method of procedure of commis-
sion.—(a) Subject to the provisions of this Constitution and to such
requirements, rules and regulations as may be prescribed by law, the
State corporation commission shall be the department of government
through which shall be issued all charters and amendments or exten-
sions thereof, for domestic corporations, and all licenses to do busi-
ness in this State to foreign corporations; and through which shall be
carried out all the provisions of this Constitution, and of the laws made
in pursuance thereof, for the creation, visitation, supervision, regula-
tion and control of corporations chartered by, or doing business in, this
State.

The commission shall prescribe the forms of all reports which may
be required of such corporations by this Constitution or by law. It
shall have all the rights and powers of, and perform all the duties de-
volving upon, the railroad commissioner and the board of public works
on July tenth, nineteen hundred and two, except so far as they are or
may be inconsistent with the law or this Constitution.

(b) The commission shall have the power and be charged with the
duty of supervising, regulating and controlling all transportation and
transmission companies doing business in this State, in all matters re-
lating to the performance of their public duties and their charges
therefor, and of correcting abuses therein by such companies; and to
that end the commission shall, from time to time, prescribe and en-
force against such companies, in the manner hereinafter authorized,
such rates, charges, classifications of traffic, and rules and regulations,
and shall require them to establish and maintain all such public service
facilities and convenience as may be reasonable and just, which said
rates, charges, classifications, rules, regulations and requirements the
commission may, from time to time, alter or amend. All rates, charges,
classifications, rules and regulations adopted, or acted upon, by any
such company, inconsistent with those prescribed by the commission,
within the scope of its authority, shall be unlawful and void.

The commission shall also have the right at all times to inspect the
books and papers of all transportation and transmission companies
doing business in this State, and to require from such companies, from
time to time, special reports and statements, under oath, concerning
their business; it shall keep itself fully informed of the physical condi-
tion of all the railroads of the State, as to the manner in which they
are operated, with reference to the security and accommodation of the
public, and shall, from time to time, make and enforce such require-
ments, rules and regulations as may be necessary to prevent unjust or
unreasonable discriminations by any transportation or transmission
company in favor of, or against, any person, locality, community, con-
necting line, or kind of traffic. in the matter of car service, train or
boat schedule, efficiency of transportation or otherwise, in connection
with the public duties of such company.

Before the commission shall prescribe or fix any rate, charge. or
classification of traffic, and before it shall make any order, rule, regu-
lation or requirement directed against any one or more companies by
name, the company or companies to be affected by such rate. charge.
classification, order, rule, regulation or requirement shall first be given,
by the commission, at least ten days’ notice of the time and place when
and where the contemplated action in the premises will be considered
and disposed of, and shall be afforded a reasonable opportunity to in-
troduce evidence and to be heard thereon, to the end that justice may
be done, and shall have process to enforce the attendance of witnesses ;
and before the commission shall make or prescribe any general order,
rule, regulation or requirement, not directed against any specific com-
pany or companies by name, the contemplated general order, rule,
regulation or requirement shall first be published in substance, not less
than once a week for four consecutive weeks in one or more of the
newspapers of general circulation published in the city of Richmond,
Virginia, together with notice of the time and place when and where
the commission will hear any objections which may be urged by any
person interested, against the proposed order, rule, regulation or re-
quirement; and every such general order, rule, regulation or require-
ment made by the commission shall be published at length, for
the time and in the manner above specified, before it shall go into ef-
fect, and shall also, as long as it remains in force, be published in each
subsequent annual report of the commission.

The authority of the commission (subject to review on appeal as
hereinafter provided) to prescribe rates, charges and classifications of
traffic for transportation and transmission companies shall be para-
mount; but its authority to prescribe any other rules, regulations or
requirements for corporations or other persons shall be subject to the
superior authority of the general assembly to legislate thereon by gen-
eral laws; provided, however, that nothing in this section shall impair
the right which has heretofore been, or may hereafter be, conferred by
law upon the authortties of any city, town or county to prescribe rules,
regulations or rates of charge to be observed by any public service
corporation in connection with any services performed by it under a
municipal or county franchise granted by such city, town or county, so
far as such services may be wholly within the limits of the city, town
or county granting the franchise. Upon the request of the parties
interested, it shall be the duty of the commission, as far as possible,
to effect, by mediation, the adjustment of claims, and the settlement of
controversies, between transportation or transmission companies and
their patrons.

(c) In all matters pertaining to the public visitation, regulation or
control of corporations, and within the jurisdiction of the commis-
sion, it shall have the powers and authority of a court of record, to
administer oaths, to compel the attendance of witnesses and the pro-
duction of papers, to punish for contempt any person guilty of dis-
respectful or disorderly conduct in the presence of the commission
while in session, and to enforce compliance with any of its lawful
orders or requirements by adjudging and enforcing by its own appro-
priate process, against the delinquent or offending company (after it
shall have been first duly cited, proceeded against by due process of
law béfore the commission sitting as a court, and afforded opportunity
to introduce evidence and to be heard, as well against the validity,
justness or reasonableness of the order or requirement alleged to have
been violated, as against the liability of the company for the alleged
violation), such fines or other penalties as may be prescribed or au-
thorized by this commission or by law.

The commission may be vested with such additional powers, and
charged with such other duties (not inconsistent with this Constitu-
tion) as may be prescribed by law, in connection with the visitation,
regulation or control of corporations, or with the prescribing and
enforcing of rates and charges to be observed in the conduct of any
business where the State has the right to prescribe the rates and charges
in connection therewith, or with the assessment of the property of
corporations, or the appraisement of their franchises, for taxation, or
with the investigation of the subject of taxation generally.
Any corporation failing or refusing to obey any valid order or
requirement of the commission, within such reasonable time, not less
than ten days, as shall be fixed in the order, may be fined by the com-
mission (proceeding by due process of law as aforesaid) such sum, not
exceeding five hundred dollars, as the commission may deem proper,
or such sum, in excess of five hundred dollars, as may be prescribed,
or authorized by law; and each day’s continuance of such failure or
refusal, after due service upon such corporation of the order or re-
quirement of the commission, shall be a separate offense; provided.
that should the operation of such order or requirement be suspended
pending an appeal therefrom, the period of such suspension shall not
be computed against the company in the matter of its liability to fines
or penalties.

(d) From any action of the commission prescribing rates, charges
or classifications of traffic, or affecting the train schedule of any trans-
portation company, or requiring additional facilities, conveniences or
public service of any transportation or transmission company, or retus-
ing to approve a suspending bond, or requiring additional security
thereon, or an increase thereof, as provided for in subsection (e) ot
this section, an appeal (subject to such reasonable limitation as to
time, regulations as to procedure and provisions as to costs, as may be
prescribed by law) may be taken by the corporation whose rates,
charges or classifications of traffic, schedule, facilities, conveniences or
service are affected, or by any person deeming himself aggrieved by
such action, or (if allowed by law) by the Commonwealth. Until
otherwise provided by law, such appeal shall be taken in the manner
in which appeals may be taken to the supreme court of appeals from
the inferior courts, except that such an appeal shall be of right, and
the supreme court of appeals may provide by rule for proceedings in
the matter of appeals in any particular in which the existing rules of
law are applicable. If such appeal be taken by the corporation whose
rates, charges or classifications of traffic, schedules, facilities, conve-
niences or service are affected, the Commonwealth shall be made the
appellee; but, in the other cases mentioned, the corporation so affected
shall be made the appellee.

The general assembly may also, by general laws, provide for ap-
peals from any other action of the commission, by the Commonwealth
or by any person interested, irrespective of the amount involved. All
appeals from the commission shall be to the supreme court of appeals
only ; and in all appeals to which the Commonwealth is a party it shall
be represented by the attorney general or his legally appointed repre-
sentatives. No court of this Commonwealth (except the supreme
court of appeals, by way of appeal as herein authorized) shall have
jurisdiction to review, reverse, correct or annul any action of the com-
mission, within the scope of its authority, or to suspend or delay the
execution or operation thereof, or to enjoin, restrain or interfere with
the commission in the performance of its official duties; provided,
however, that the writs of mandamus and prohibition shall lie from the
supreme court of appeals to the commission in all cases where such
writs, respectively, would lie to any inferior tribunal or officers.

(e) Upon the granting of an appeal a writ of supersedeas may be
awarded by the appellate court, suspending the operation of the action
appealed from until the final disposition of the appeal, but, prior to
the final reversal thereof by the appellate court, no action of the com-
mission prescribing or affecting the rates, charges or classifications of
traffic of any transportation or transmission company shall be delayed,
or suspended, in its operation, by reason of any appeal by such corpor-
ation, or by reason of any proceedings resulting from such appeal,
until a suspending bond shall first have been executed, and filed with,
and approved bv, the commission (or approved on review by the
supreme court of appeals), payable to the Commonwealth, and sufh-
cient in amount and security to insure the prompt refunding, by the
appealing corporation to the parties entitled thereto, of all charges
which such company may collect or receive, pending the appeal, in
excess of those fixed or authorized, by the final decision of the court
on appeal. The commission, upon the execution of such bond, shall
forthwith require the appealing company, under penalty of the imme-
diate enforcement (pending the appeal and notwithstanding any super-
sedeas) of the order or requirement appealed from, to keep such ac-
counts, and to make to the commission, from time to time, such re-
ports, verified by oath, as may, in the judgment of the commission,
suffice to show the amounts being charged or received by the company,
pending the appeal, in excess of the charge allowed by the action of
the commission appealed from, together with the names and addresses
of the persons to whom such overcharges will be refundable in case the
charges made by the company pending the appeal, be not sustained on
such appeal, and the commission shall also, from time to time, require
such company, under like penalty, to give additional security on, or
to increase the said suspending bond, whenever, in the opinion of the
commission, the same may be necessary to insure the prompt refund-
ing of the overcharge aforesaid. Upon the final decision of such
appeal, all amounts which the appealing company may have collected,
pending the appeal, in excess of that authorized by such final decision,
shall be promptly refunded, with legal interest from the date of col-
lection thereof, by the company to the parties entitled thereto, in such
manner, and through such methods of distribution, as may be pre-
scribed by the commission or by law. All such appeals affecting rates,
charges or classifications of traffic shall have precedence upon the
docket of the appellate court, and shall be heard and disposed of
promptly by the court, irrespective of its place of session, next after
the habeas corpus and Commonwealth’s cases already on the docket of
the court.

(f) In no case of appeal from the commission shall any new or
additional evidence be introduced in the appellate court; but the chair-
man of the commission, under the seal of the commission, shall certify
to the appellate court all the facts upon which the action appealed from
was based, and which may be essential for the proper decision of the
appeal, together with such of the evidence introduced before, or con-
sidered by, the commission as may be selected, specified and required
to be certified by any party in interest, as well as such other evidence,
so introduced or considered, as the commission may deem proper to
certify. The commission shall, whenever an appeal is taken therefrom,
file with the record of the case, and as a part thereof, a written state-
ment of the reasons upon which the action appealed from was based,
and such statement shall be read and considered by the appellate court
upon disposing of the appeal. The appellate court shall have juris-
diction, on such appeal, to consider and determine the reasonableness
and justness of the action of the commission appealed from, as well
as any other matter arising under such appeal; provided, however, that
the action of the commission appealed from shall be regarded as prima
facie just, reasonable and correct, but the court may, when it deems
necessary in the interest of justice, remand to the commission any
cased pending on appeal, and require the same to be further investi-
gated by the commission, and reported upon to the court (together
with a certificate of such additional evidence as may be tendered before
the commission by any party in interest), before the appeal is finally
decided.

(g) Whenever the court, upon appeal, shall reverse an order of
the commission affecting the rates, charges or the classification of traf-
fic of any transportation or transmission company, it shall at the same
time, substitute therefor such order as, in its opinion, the commis-
sion should have made at the time of entering the order appealed from;
otherwise the reversal order shall not be valid. Such substituted order
shall have the same force and effect (and none other) as if it had been
entered by the commission at the time the original order appealed from
was entered. The right of the commission to prescribe and enforce
rates, charges, classifications, rules and regulations, affecting any or
all actions of the commission theretofore entered by it, and appealed
from, but based upon circumstances different from those existing at
the time the order appealed from was made, shall not be suspended
or impaired by reason of the pendency of such appeal; but no order of
the commission, prescribing or altering such rates, charges, classifica-
tions, rules or regulations shall be retroactive.

(h) The right of any person to institute and prosecute in the ordi-
nary courts of justice any action, suit or motion against any trans-
portation or transmission company, for any claim or cause of action
against such company, shall not be extinguished or impaired by reason
of any fine or other penalty which the commission may impose, or be
authorized to impose, upon such company, because of its breach of any
public duty, or because of its failure to comply with any order or re-
quirement of the commission ; but, in no such proceeding by any person
1928] ACTS OF ASSEMBLY 683

against such corporation, nor in any collateral proceeding, shall the
reasonableness, justness or validity of any rate, charge, classification
of traffic, rule, regulation or requirement, theretofore prescribed by
the commission, within the scope of its authority, and then in force, be
questioned ; provided, however, that no case based upon or involving
any order of the commission shall be heard or disposed of against the
objection of either party, so long as such order is suspended in its
operation by an order of the supreme court of appeals, as authorized
by this Constitution or by any law passed in pursuance thereof.

(1) The commission shall make annual reports to the governor of
its proceedings, in which reports it shall recommend, from time to
time, such new or additional legislation in reference to its powers or
duties, or the creation, supervision, regulation or control of corpora-
tions, or to the subject of taxation, as it may deem wise or expedient,
or as may be required by law.

(j) In addition to the modes of amendment provided for in article
fifteen of this Constitution, the general assembly, upon the recom-
miendation of the State corporation commission, may, by law, from
time to time, amend subsections (a) to (1) inclusive, of this section, or
any of them, or any such amendent thereof; provided, that no amend-
ment made under authority of this subsection shall contravene the
provisions of any part of this Constitution other than the subsections
last above referred to, or any such amendment thereof.

(k) All books, papers and documents pertaining to the board of
public works and the office of railroad commissioner, which have been
transferred to the State corporation commission, shall continue to be
a part of its records.

Section 157. Fees from corporations.—Provisions shall be made
by general laws for the payment of a fee to the Commonwealth by
every domestic corporation, upon the granting, amendment or exten-
sion of its charter, and by every foreign corporation upon obtaining a
license to do business in this State, as specified in this section; and also
for the payment, by every domestic corporation and foreign corpora-
tion doing business in this State, of an annual registration fee of not
less than five dollars, nor more than twenty-five dollars, which shall
be irrespective of any specific license or other tax imposed by law upon
such company for the privilege of carrying on its business in this State,
or upon its franchise or property; and for the making, by every such
corporation (at the time of paying such annual registration fee), of
such report to the State corporation commission, of the status, business
or condition of such corporation, as the general assembly may pre-
scribe. No foreign corporation shall have authority to do business in
this State until it shall have first obtained from the commission a
license to do business in this State, upon such terms and conditions as
may be prescribed by law. The failure by any corporation for two
successive years to pay its annual registration fee, or to make its said
annual reports, shall, when such failure shall have continued for ninety
days after the expiration of such two years, operate as revocation and
annulment of the charter of such corporation if it be a domestic com-
pany, or, of its, license to do business in this State, if it be a foreign
company, and the general assembly shall provide additional and suit-
able penalties for the failure of any corporation to comply promptly
with the requirements of this section, or of any laws passed in pur-
suance thereof. The commission shall compel all corporations to com-
ply promptly with such requirements, by enforcing, in the manner here-
inbefore authorized, such fines and penalties against the delinquent
company as may be provided for, or authorized by this article; but
the general assembly may relieve from the payment of said registra-
tion fee any purely charitable institution or institutions.

Section 158. Effect of amendment of previously obtained charter
of corporation.—Every corporation heretofore chartered in this State,
which shall hereafter accept, or effect, any amendment or extension of
its charter, shall be conclusively presumed to have thereby surrendered
every exemption from taxation, and every non-repeatable feature of its
charter and of the amendments thereof, and also all exclusive rights
or privileges theretofore granted to it by the general assembly and not
enjoyed by other corporations of a similar general character; and to
have thereby agreed to thereafter hold its charter and franchises, and
all amendments thereof, under the provisions and subject to all the
requirements, terms and conditions of this Constitution and of any
laws passed in pursuance thereof, so far as the same may be applicable
to such corporation.

Section 159. Eminent domain and police power of State never
abridged.—The exercise of the right of eminent domain shall never be
abridged, nor so construed as to prevent the general assembly from
taking the property and franchises of corporations and subjecting
them to public use, the same as the property of individuals; and the
exercise of the police power of the State shall never be abridged, nor
so construed as to permit corporations to conduct their business in such
manner as to infringe the equal mghts of individuals or the general
well being of the State.

Section 160. Concerning rates of transportation and transmission
companies.—No transportation or transmission company shall charge
or receive any greater compensation, in the aggregate, for transport-
ing the same class of passengers or property, or for transmitting the
same class of messages, over a shorter than over a longer distance,
along the same line and in the same direction—the shorter being in-
cluded in the longer distance; but this section shall not be construed
as authorizing any such company to charge or receive as great com-
pensation for a shorter as for a longer distance. The State corpora-
tion conimission may, from time to time, authorize any such company
to disregard the foregoing provisions of this section, by charging such
rates as the commission may prescribe as just and equitable between
such company and the public, to or from any junctional or competitive
points or localities, or where the competition of points located without
this State may make necessary the prescribing of special rates for the
protection of the commerce of this State; but this section shall not
apply to mileage tickets, or to any special excursion, or commutation
rates, or to special rates for services rendered to the government of
this State, or of the United States, or in the interest of some public
object, when such tickets or rates shall have been prescribed or author-
ized by the commission.

Section 161. Free transportation to members of general assembly
and of State, county, district, or municipal officers, except members
and officers of State corporation commission, prohibited; penalty;
policemen and firemen excepted.—No transportation or transmission
company doing business in this State shall grant to any member of the
general assembly, or to any State, county, district or municipal officer,
except to members and officers of the State corporation commission for
their personal use while in office, any frank, free pass, free transporta-
tion, or any rebate or reduction in the rates charged by such company
to the general public for like services. For violation of the provisions
of this section the offending company shall be liable to such penalties
as may be prescribed by law; and any member of the general assembly,
or any such officer, who shall, while in office, accept any gift, privilege
or benefit, prohibited by this section, shall thereby forfeit his office, and
be subject to such further penalties as may be prescribed by law; but
this section shall not prevent a street railway, transportation or trans-
mission company from granting free transportation or free service,
within this State, to any member of the police force or fire department
while in the discharge of his official duties, nor prohibit the acceptance
by any such policeman or fireman of such free transportation.

Section 162. Fellow-servant doctrine abolished to extent stated.—
The doctrine of fellow-servant, so far as it affects the liability of the
master for injuries to his servant, resulting from the acts or omissions
of any other servant or servants of the common master, is, to the ex-
tent hereinafter stated, abolished as to every employee of a railroad
company, engaged in the physical construction, repair or maintenance
of its roadway, track or any of the structures connected therewith, or
in any work in or upon a car or engine standing upon a track, or
in the physical operation of a train, car, engine, or switch, or in any
service requiring his presence upon a train, car or engine; and every
such employee shall have the same right to recover from every injury
suffered by him from the acts or omissions of any other employee or
employees of the common master, that a servant would have (at the
time when this Constitution goes into effect), if such acts or omissions
were those of the master himself in the performance of non-assignable
duty ; provided, that the injury, so suffered by such railroad employee,
result from the negligence of an officer, or agent of the company of a
higher grade of service than himself, or from that of a person em-
ployed by the company, having the right, or charged with the duty, to
subject to such segregation of property, if any, as is provided in sec
tion one hundred. and seventy-one of this Constitution, such propert
shall be taxed for State, county, city, town and district purposes it
the manner prescribed by law, at such rates of taxation as may be im
posed by them, respectively, from time to time, upon the real estat
and personal property of natural persons.

Section 177. Franchise tax of railroad and canal companies.—
Every such railway or canal corporation shall also pay an annual State
franchise tax to be prescribed by law, upon the gross receipts herein.
after specified in section one hundred and seventy-eight, for the privi
lege of exercising its franchises in this State, which, with the taxe:
provided for in section one hundred and seventy-six, shall be in liet
of all other taxes or license charges whatsoever upon the franchise of
such corporation, the shares of stock issued by it, or upon its prop-
erty assessed under section one hundred and seventy-six; provided.
that nothing herein contained shall exempt such corporation from the
annual fee required by section one hundred and fifty-seven of this
Constitution, or from assessments for street and other public local 1m-
provements authorized by section one hundred and seventy; and, pro-
vided, further, that nothing herein contained shall annul or interfere
with or prevent any contract or agreement by ordinance between street
railway corporations and municipalities, as to compensation for the use
of the streets or alleys of such municipalities by such railway cor-
porations. |

Section 178. Amount and ascertainment of such franchise tax.—
The amount of such franchise tax shall be equal to such per centum
of the gross transportation receipts of such corporation for the year
preceding the year for which the tax is levied, or the year for which
the tax is levied, as may be prescribed by law, to be ascertained by
the State corporation commission in the following manner:

(a) When the road or canal of the corporation lies wholly within
this State, the tax shall be equal to the prescribed per centum of the
entire gross transportation receipts of such corporation. 7090

(b) When the road or canal of the corporation lies partly within
and partly without this State, or is operated as a part of a line or sys-
tem extending beyond this State, the tax shall be equal to the pre-
scribed per centum of the gross transportation receipts earned within
this State, to be determined as follows: By ascertaining the average
gross transportation receipts per mile over its whole extent, within and
without this State, and multiplying the result by the number of miles
operated within this State; provided, that from the sum so ascertained
there may be a reasonable deduction because of any excess of value of
the terminal facilities or other similar advantages in other States over
similar facilities or advantages in this State. ae

Section 179. Reports of corporation to corporation commuission.—
Each corporation mentioned in sections one hundred and seventy-six
and one hundred and seventy-seven shall annually, at the time preé-
tion shall not affect any public service corporation whose line or route
extends across the boundary of this Commonwealth, nor prevent anv
foreign corporation from continuing in such lawful business as it may
be actually engaged in within this State, when this Constitution goes
into effect ; but anv such foreign public service corporation, so engaged,
shall not, without first becoming incorporated under the laws of this
State, be authorized to acquire, lease, use or operate, within this State,
any public or municipal franchise or franchises, in addition to such as
it may own, lease, use or operate, when this Constitution goes into
effect. The property within this State, of foreign corporations. shall
always be subject to attachment, the same as that of non-resident in-
dividuals; and nothing in this section shall restrict the power of the
general assembly to discriminate against foreign corporations when-
ever, and in whatsoever respect, it may deem wise or expedient.

Section 164. Right of regulation and control of common carriers
and public service corporations never surrendered or abridged.—The
right of the Commonwealth through such instrumentalities as it may
select, to prescribe and define the public duties of all common carriers
and public service corporations, to regulate and control them in the
performance of their public duties, and to fix and limit their charges
therefor shall never be surrendered or abridged.

Section 165. General assembly shall enact laws preventing all trust,
combinations and monopolies inimical to the public welfare—The gen-
eral assembly shall enact laws preventing all trusts, combinations and
monopolies, inimical to the public welfare.

Section 166. Right to parallel railroads; as to building road paral-
lel to Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac railroad: duties of con-
necting railroad—The exclusive right to build or operate ratlroads
parallel to its own or any other line of railroad, shall not be granted
to any company; but every railroad company shall have the right, sub-
ject to such reasonable regulations as may be prescribed by law, to
parallel, intersect, connect with or cross, with its roadway, any other
railroad or railroads; but no railroad conrpany shall build or operate
anv line of railroad not specified in its charter, or in some amendment
thereof. All railroad companies whose lines of railroad connect, shall
receive and transport each other’s passengers, freight and loaded or
empty cars, without delay or discrimination. Nothing in this section
shall deprive the general assembly of the right to prevent, by statute,
repealable at pleasure, any railroad from being built parallel to the
present line of the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac railroad.

Section 167. Concerning issuance of stocks and bonds by corpora-
tions; penalty for violation—The general assembly shall enact general
laws regulating and controlling all issues of stock and bonds by cor-
porations. Whenever stock or bonds are to be issued by a corporation,
it shall, before issuing the same, file with the State corporation com-
mission a statement (verified by the oath of the president or secre-
‘ary of the corporation, and in such form as may be prescribed or per-
mitted by the commission) setting forth fully and accurately the basis,
or financial plan upon which such stock or bonds are to be issued ;
and where such basis or plan includes services or property (other than
money), received or to be received by the company, such statement
shall accurately specify and describe, in the manner prescribed or per-
mitted by the commission, the services or property, together with the
valuation at which the same are received or to be received; and such
corporation shall comply with any other requirements or restrictions
which may be imposed by law. The general assembly shall provide
adequate penalties for the violation of this section, or of any laws
passed in pursuance thereof; and it shall be the duty of the commis-
sion to adjudge and enforce (in the manner hereinbefore provided).
against any corporation refusing or failing to comply with the provi-
sions of this section, or of any laws passed in pursuance thereof, such
fines and penalties as are authorized by this Constitution, or may be
prescribed by law.

ARTICLE XIII
Taxation and Finance

Section 168. Taxable property; taxes shall be uniform as to class
of subjects and levied and collected under general laws.—All property,
except as hereinafter provided, shall be taxed; all taxes, whether State,
local or municipal, shall be uniform upon the same class of subjects
within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax, and shall
be levied and collected under general laws. The general assembly may
define and classify taxable subjects, and, except as to classes of prop-
erty herein expressly segregated for either State or local taxation, the
general assembly may segregate the several classes of property so as
to specify and determine upon what subjects State taxes, and upon
what subjects local taxes may be levied.

Section 169. How property assessed; general assembly may grant
cities and towns right to reduce taxation for a period of years on land
added to corporate limits—Except as hereafter provided, all assess-
ments of real estate and tangible personal property shall be at their
fair market value, to be ascertained as prescribed by law. So long as
the State shall levy upon any public service corporation, other than a
railway or a canal corporation, a State franchise, license, or other tax,
based upon or measured by its gross receipts, or gross earnings, or
any part thereof, its real estate and tangible personal property shall be
assessed by the State corporation commission, or other central State
agency, in the manner prescribed by law. The general assembly may
allow a lower rate of taxation to be imposed for a period of years by
a city or town upon land added to its corporate limits, than is imposed
on similar property within its limits at the time such land is added.

Section 172. Assessment of coal and mineral lands.—Coal and
other mineral lands shall be assessed or reassessed for local taxation,
in such manner and at such times as the general assembly has hereto-
fore prescribed, or may hereafter prescribe by general laws.

Section 173. State, county and municipal capitation taxes——The
general assembly shall levy a State capitation tax of, and not exceed-
ing one dollar and fifty cents per annum on every resident of the State
not less than twenty-one years of age, except those pensioned by this
State for military services; one dollar of which shall be applied ex-
clusively in aid of the public free schools, and the residue shall be re-
turned and paid by the State into the treasury of the county or city in
which it was collected, to be appropriated by the proper authorities to
such county or city purposes as they shall respectively determine.
Such State capitation tax shall not be a lien upon, nor collected by legal
process from, the personal property which may be exempt from levy
or distress under the poor debtor’s law. The general assembly may
authorize the board of supervisors of any county, or the council of
any city or town, to levy an additional capitation tax not exceeding
one dollar per annum on each such resident within its limits, to be
applied to city, town or county purposes.

Section 174. Statute of limitations shall not run against State
taxes; failure to assess not to defeat subsequent assessment and col-
lection of taxes; exception as to bona fide purchaser for value.—After
this Constitution shall be in force, no statute of limitations shall run
against any claim of the State for taxes upon any property; nor shall
the failure to assess property for taxation defeat a subsequent assess-
ment for and collection of taxes for any preceding year or years, unless
such property shall have passed to a bona fide purchaser for value,
without notice; in which latter case the property shall be assessed for
taxation against such purchaser from the date of his purchase.

Section 175. The natural oyster beds.—The natural oyster beds,
rocks and shoals, in the waters of this State shall not be leased, rented
or sold, but shall be held in trust for the benefit of the people of this
State, subject to such regulations and restrictions as the general assem-
bly may prescribe, but the general assembly may, from time to time,
define and determine such natural beds, rocks or shoals by surveys or
otherwise.

Section 176. Assessment and taxation of railroad and canal com-
panies.—The State corporation commission shall annually ascertain
and assess, in the manner prescribed by law, the value of the roadbed
and other real estate, rolling stock, and all other personal property
whatsoever (except its franchise and the non-taxable shares of stock
issued by other corporations) in this State, of each railway corpora-
tion, whatever its motive power, now or hereafter liable for taxation
upon such property ; the canal bed and other real estate, the boats and
all other personal property whatsoever (except its franchise and the
non-taxable shares of stock issued by other corporations) in this State,
of each canal corporation, empowered to conduct transportation; and
subject to such segregation of property, if any, as is provided in sec-
tion one hundred and seventy-one of this Constitution, such property
shall be taxed for State, county, city, town and district purposes in
the manner prescribed by law, at such rates of taxation as may be 1m-
posed by them, respectively, from time to time, upon the real estate
and personal property of natural persons.

Section 177. Franchise tax of railroad and canal companies.—
Every such railway or canal corporation shall also pay an annual State
franchise tax to be prescribed by law, upon the gross receipts herein-
after specified in section one hundred and seventy-eight, for the privi-
lege of exercising its franchises in this State, which, with the taxes
provided for in section one hundred and seventy-six, shall be in lieu
of all other taxes or license charges whatsoever upon the franchise of
such corporation, the shares of stock issued by it, or upon its prop-
erty assessed under section one hundred and seventy-six; provided,
that nothing herein contained shall exempt such corporation from the
annual fee required by section one hundred and fifty-seven of this
Constitution, or from assessments for street and other public local 1m-
provements authorized by section one hundred and seventy; and. pro-
vided, further, that nothing herein contained shall annul or interfere
with or prevent any contract or agreement by ordinance between street
railway corporations and municipalities, as to compensation for the use
of the streets or alleys of such municipalities by such railway cor-
porations.

Section 178. Amount and ascertainment of such franchise tax.—
The amount of such franchise tax shall be equal to such per centum
of the gross transportation receipts of such corporation for the year
preceding the year for which the tax is levied, or the year for which
the tax is levied, as may be prescribed by law, to be ascertained by
the State corporation commission in the following manner:

(a) When the road or canal of the corporation lies wholly within
this State, the tax shall be equal to the prescribed per centum of the
entire gross transportation receipts of such corporation.

(b) When the road or canal of the corporation lies partly within
and partly without this State, or is operated as a part of a line or sys-
tem extending beyond this State, the tax shall be equal to the pre-
scribed per centum of the gross transportation receipts earned within
this State, to be determined as follows: By ascertaining the average
gross transportation receipts per mile over its whole extent, within and
without this State, and multiplying the result by the number of miles
operated within this State; provided, that from the sum so ascertained
there may be a reasonable deduction because of any excess of value of
the terminal facilities or other similar advantages in other States over
similar facilities or advantages in this State.

Section 179. Reports of corporation to corporation commission.—
Each corporation mentioned in sections one hundred and seventy-six
and one hundred and seventy-seven shall annually, at the time pre-
scribed by law, make to the State corporation commission a report
which shall show the property taxable in this State belonging to the
corporation on the date that may be prescribed by law, and its total
gross transportation receipts for the year ending on that date. Upon
receiving such report the State corporation commission shall, after
thirty days notice previously given, as provided by law, assess the
value of the property of the corporation not exempt from taxation,
and ascertain the amount of the franchise tax and not State taxes
chargeable against it.

All taxes for which the corporation is liable shall be paid as pre-
scribed by law.

Such taxes, until paid, shall be a lien upon the property within this
State of the corporation owning the same, and take precedence of all
other liens or incumbrances.

Section 180. Application for relief from assessment for taxation;
proceedings thereunder—The Commonwealth, or any political sub-
division thereof, or a corporation, aggrieved by the assessment and
ascertainment made under sections one hundred and seventy-six and
one hundred and seventy-eight foregoing, may, according to such
course of procedure as may be prescribed by law, apply for relief first
to the State corporation commission and then to the circuit court of
the city of Richmond.

If the court be of opinion that the assessment or tax is excessive,
it shall reduce the same; but if of opinion that it is insufficient, shall
increase the same. Unless the applicant paid the taxes under protest,
when due, the court, if it disallows the application, shall give judg-
ment against it for a sum, by way of damages, equal to interest at the
rate of one per centum per month upon the amount of taxes from the
time the same were payable.

If the application be allowed, in whole or in part, appropriate relief
shall be granted, including the right to recover any excess of taxes that
may have been paid, with legal interest thereon, and costs from the
State or local authorities, or both, as the case may be; the judgment
to be enforceable by mandamus or other proper process issuing from
the court finally adjudicating the application.

Subject to the provisions of article six of this Constitution, the
supreme court of appeals may allow a writ of error to either party.

Section 181. Legislative power over system of corporate taxation.—
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections one hundred and seventy-
one and one hundred and seventy-six to one hundred and eighty, in-
clusive, the general assembly shall have power to change the system of
taxation as to the corporations therein mentioned to be administered by
the State corporation commission, or other central State agency. If
the said system of taxation shall, for any reason become inoperative
the general assembly shall have power to prescribe some other system
in lieu thereof, and to provide how and by what agencies it shall be
administered.
Section 182. (Omitted.)

Section 183. Property exempt from taxation. —Unless otherwise
provided in this Constitution, the following property and no other
shall be exempt from taxation, State and local, including inheritance
taxes :

(a) Property owned directly or indirectly by the United States,
the Commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof, and obligations
of the Commonwealth issued since February fourteenth, eighteen
hundred and eighty-two, or hereafter exempted by law.

(b) Buildings with land they actually occupy, and the furniture
and furnishings therein and endowment funds lawfully owned and
held by churches or religious bodies, and wholly and exclusively used
for religious worship, or for the residence of the minister of any such
church or religious body, together with the additional adjacent land
reasonably necessary for the convenient use of any such building.

(c) Private or public burying grounds or cemeteries and endow-
ment funds, lawfully held, for their care, provided the same are not
operated for profit.

(d) Property owned by public libraries, incorporated colleges or

other incorporated institutions of learning, not conducted for profit,
together with the endowment funds thereof not invested in real estate.
But this provision shall apply only to property primarily used for
literary, scientific or educational purpose or purposes incidental thereto.
It shall not apply to industrial schools which sell their product to other
than their own employees or students.
_ (e) Real estate belonging to, actually and exclusively occupied and
used by, and personal property, including endowment funds, belong-
ing to young men’s Christian associations, and other similar ‘religious
associations, orphan or other asylums, reformatories, hospitals and
nunneries, conducted not for profit, but exclusively as charities, also
parks or playgrounds held by trustees for the perpetual use of the
general public.

(f{) Buildings with the land they actually occupy, and the furni-
ture and furnishing therein, belonging to any benevolent or charitable
association and used exclusively for lodge purposes or meeting rooms
by such association, together with such additional adjacent land as
may be necessary for the convenient use of the buildings for such
purposes; and

(g) Property of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia
Antiquities, the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, the Mount
Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, the Virginia Historical So-
ciety, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, Incorporated, the
posts of the American Legion and such other similar organizations
or societies as may be prescribed by law.

Except as to class (a) above, general laws may be enacted restrict-
ing but not extending the above exemptions.

Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to exempt from
taxation the property of any person, firm, association, or corporation,
who shall, expressly or impliedly, directly or indirectly, contract or
promise to pay a sum of money or other benefit, on account of death,
sickness, or accident to any of its members or other person.

_ Whenever. any building or land, or part thereof, mentioned in this
section, and not belonging to the State, shall. be leased or shall other-
wise be a source of revenue or profit, all of such buildings and land
shall be liable to taxation as other land and buildings in the same
county, city or town. But the generally assembly may provide for the
partial taxation of property not exclusively used for the purposes
herein named.

Nothing herein contained shall be construed as authorizing or re-
quiring any county, city, or town to tax for county, city, or town pur-
poses, in violation of the rights of the lessees thereof, existing under
any lawful contract heretofore made, any real estate owned by such
county, city or town, as heretofore leased by it.

Obligations issued by counties, cities or towns may be exempted
by the authorities of such localities from local taxation.

Section 183a. Officers’ salaries not exempt from income tax.—The
provisions of this Constitution forbidding the diminution of the salary
or compensation of a judge or other officer during his term of office
shall not be construed to exempt such salary or compensation from
State income tax thereon.

Section 184. Authorization of certain debts—The general assem-
bly may contract debts to meet casual deficits in the revenue, to re-
deem a previous liability of the State, to suppress insurrection, repel
invasion, or defend the State in time of war.

Section 184a. Authorization of certain liabilities if approved by
popular vote; limitations as to amount.—No debt or liability, except
the debts specified in section one hundred and eighty-four, shall be
hereafter contracted by or in behalf of the State, unless such debt shall
be authorized by law for some single purpose constituting new capital
outlay, to be distinctly specified therein, and a vote of a majority of
all the members elected to each house shall be necessary to the passage
of such law. On the final passage of such law in either house of the
general assembly, the question shall be taken by ayes and noes, to be
duly entered on the journals thereof, and shall be “Shall this bill pass,
and ought the same to receive the sanction of the people?” No such
law shall take effect until it shall have been submitted to the people
at a general election, and shall have received a majority of all the
votes cast for or against it. Such law shall be published, as may be
prescribed by law, for at least three months next preceding such elec-
tion.

The aggregate amount of the debts authorized by this section shall
not at any time exceed one per centum of the assessed value of all the
taxable real estate in the State, as shown by the last preceding assess-
ment.
None of the provisions of this section shall apply to the debts spe-
cifically authorized by section one hundred and eighty-four of this
article.

Section 184b. Issues of evidences of indebtedness by State pro-
hibited with certain exceptions.—No scrip, certificates, or other evi-
dence of indebtedness, shall be issued, except for the transfer or re-
demption of stock previously issued, or for such debts as are expressly
authorized in this Constitution.

Section 185. Lending of credit to, or subscription to stock of, cor-
porations or persons by State, county, city or town prohibited; State
shall become interested in no work of internal improvements except
public roads and public parks; exceptions as to counties, cities and
towns.—Neither the credit of the State, nor of any county, city, or
town, shall be directly or indirectly, under any device or pretense what-
soever, granted to or in aid of any person, association, or corporation,
nor shall the State, or any county, city, or town subscribe to or become
interested in the stock or obligations of any company, association, or
corporation, for the purpose of aiding in the construction or mainte-
nance of its work; nor shall the State become a party to or become
interested in any work of internal improvement, except public roads
and public parks, or engage in carrying on any such work; nor assume
any indebtedness of any county, city, or town, nor lend its credit to
the same; but this section shall not prevent a county, city, or town
from perfecting a subscription to the capital stock of a railroad com-
pany authorized by existing charter conditioned upon the afhrmative
vote of the voters and freeholders of such county, city, or town in favor
of such subscription; provided, that such vote was had prior to July
first, nineteen hundred and three.

Section 186. Collection and disposition of State revenue; payment
of money from State treasurer; what appropriations shall not be made.
—All taxes, licenses and other revenues of the State shall be collected
by its proper officers and paid into the State treasury. No money shall
be paid out of the State treasury except in pursuance of appropriations
made by law; and no such appropriation shall be made which is pay-
able more than two years and six months after the end of the session
of the general assembly at which the law is enacted authorizing the
same; and no appropriation shall be made for the payment of any debt
or obligation created in the name of the State during the war between
the Confederate States and the United States. Nor shall any county,
city, or town pay any debt or obligation created by such county, city
or town in aid of said war.

Section 187. Sinking fund for State debts; every law creating a
debt to provide for a sinking fund for its payment.—The general as-
sembly shall provide and maintain a sinking fund, in accordance with
the provisions of section ten of the act, approved February the twen-
tieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-two, entitled an act to provide for
the settlement of the public debt of Virginia not funded under the pro-
visions of an act entitled an act to ascertain and declare Virginia’s
equitable share of the debt created before and actually existing at the
time of the partition of her territory and resources, and to provide
for the issuance of bonds covering the same, and the regular and
prompt payment of the interest thereon, approved February the four-
teenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-two. Every law hereafter en-
acted by the general assembly, creating a debt or authorizing a loan,
shall provide for the creation and maintenance of a sinking fund for
the payment or redemption of the same.

Section 188. Limit of tax or revenue——No other or greater amount
of tax or revenues shall, at any time, be levied than may be required
for the necessary expenses of the government, or to pay the indebted-
ness of the State.

Section 189. Authorization of exemption of manufactories from
local taxation.—The general assembly may, by general law, authorize
the governing bodies of cities, towns and counties to exempt manu-
facturing establishments and works of internal improvement from
local taxation for a period not exceeding five years, as an inducement
to their location.

ARTICLE XIV
Miscellaneous Provisions, Homestead and Other Exemptions

Section 190. Homestead exemptions; when not to apply.—Every
householder or head of a family shall be entitled, in addition to the
articles now exempt from levy or distress for rent, to hold exempt
from levy, seizure, garnishment, or sale under execution, order, or
other process issued on any demand for a debt hereafter contracted,
his real and personal property, or either, including money and debts
due him, to the value of not exceeding two thousand dollars, to be
selected by him; provided, that such exemption shall not extend to
any execution, order, or other process issued on any demand in the
following cases:

First. For the purchase price of said property, or any part thereof,
If the property purchased, and not paid for, be exchanged for, or
converted into, other property by the debtor, such last-named property
shall not be exempted from the payment of such unpaid purchase
money under the provisions of this article;

Second. For services rendered by a laboring person or mechanic;

Third. For liabilities incurred by any public officer, or officer of
a court, or any fiduciary, or any attorney-at-law for money collected ;

Fourth. For a lawful claim for any taxes, levies, or assessments
accruing after the first day of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-six ;

Fifth. For rent;

Sixth. For the legal or taxable fees of any public officer, or of-
ficers of a court.
Section 191. In what property homestead exemptions cannot be
claimed—The said exemption shall not be claimed or held in a shift-
ing stock of merchandise, or in any property the conveyance of which
by the homestead claimant has been set aside on the ground of fraud
or want of consideration.

Section 192. Manner and conditions on which homestead may he
set apart to be prescribed by genera! assembly.—The general assembly
shall prescribe the manner and the conditions on which a householder
or head of a family shall set apart and hold for himself and family a
homestead in any part of the property hereinbefore mentioned. But
this section shall not be construed as authorizing the general assembly
to defeat or impair the benefits intended to be conferred by the pro-
visions of this article.

Section 193. Homestead previously claimed not invalidated (11-
berally construed).—Nothing contained in this article shall invalidate
any homestead exemption heretofore claimed under the provisions of
the former Constitution; or impair in any manner the right of any
householder or head of a family existing at the time that this Con-
stitution goes into effect, to select the exemption, or any part thereof,
to which he is entitled under the former Constitution; provided, that
such right, if hereafter exercised, be not in conflict with the exemptions
set forth in sections one hundred and ninety and one hundred and
ninety-one. But no person who has selected and received the full
exemption allowed by the former Constitution shall be entitled to
select an additional exemption under this Constitution; and no person
who has selected and received part of the exemption allowed by the
former Constitution shall be entitled to select an additional exemption
beyond the difference between the value of such part and a total valua-
tion of two thousand dollars. So far as necessary to accomplish the
purposes of this section, the provisions of chapter two hundred and
seventy-four of the Code of Virginia, and the acts amendatory there-
of, shall remain in force until repealed by the general assembly. ‘The
provisions of this article shall be liberally construed.

Section 194. Stay laws prohibited; exceptions.—The general as-
sembly is hereby prohibited from passing any law staying the collec-
tion of debts, commonly known as “stay laws’; but this section shall
not be construed as prohibiting any legislation which the general as-
sembly may deem necessary to fully carry out the provisions of this
article.

Section 195. Heirs of property; children of slaves—The children
of parents, one or both of whom were slaves at and during the period
of cohabitation, and who were recognized by the father as his chil-
dren, and whose mother was recognized by such father as his wite, and
was cohabited with as such, shall be as capable of inheriting any estate
whereof such father may have died seized or possessed, or to which
he was entitled, as though they had been born in lawful wedlock.

Section 195-a. Terms of office of incumbents.—All incumbents of
offices shall serve the term for which they have been previously
selected, subject to all the contingencies which affect officials of a
similar class hereafter selected.

ARTICLE XV
Future Changes in the Constitution

Section 196. Amendments.--Any amendment or amendments to
the Constitution may be proposed in the senate or house of delegates,
and if the same shall be agreed to by a majority of the members
elected to each of the two houses, such proposed amendment or
amendments shall be entered on their journals, with the ayes and noes
taken thereon, and referred to the general assembly at its first regular
session held after the next general election of members of the house of
delegates, and shall be published for three months previous to the time
of such election. If, at such regular session or any subsequent extra
session of that general assembly the proposed amendment or amend-
ments shall be agreed to by a majority of all the members elected to
each house, then it shall be the duty of the general assembly to submit
such proposed amendment or amendments to the people, in such man-
ner and at such time as it shall prescribe; and if the people shall ap-
prove and ratify such amendment or amendments by a majority of
the electors, qualified to vote for members of the general assembly,
voting thereon, such amendment or amendments shall become part of
the Constitution.

Section 197. Constitutional convention; how called.—At such time
as the general assembly may provide, a majority of the members elected
to each house being recorded in the affirmative, the question, “shall
there be a convention to revise the Constitution and amend the same?”
shall be submitted to the electors qualified to vote for members of the
general assembly; and in case a majority of the electors so qualified,
voting thereon, shall vote in favor of a convention for such purpose,
the general assembly, at its next session, shall provide for the election
of delegates to such convention; and no convention for such purpose
shall be otherwise called.

ARTICLE XVI
Rules of Construction

Section 198. Rules of construction—In this Constitution, the
singular shall include the plural, and the masculine the feminine.

In conferring a power or imposing a duty, “may” is permissive and
“shall” is mandatory.

Omissions, having been often made for brevity, or because a part
omitted was superflous, do not necessarily imply a change of policy.
These rules do not apply where a contrary intent plainly appears.

Strike out from the Constitution of Virginia section one hundred
and seventy-one, and insert in lieu thereof the following:

Section 171. No State property tax for State purposes shall be
levied on real estate or tangible personal property, except the rolling
stock of public service corporations. Real estate and tangible per-
sonal property, except the rolling stock of public service corporations,
are hereby segregated for, and made subject to, local taxation only,
and shall be assessed or reassessed for local taxation in such manner
and at such times as the general assembly has heretofore prescribed,
or may hereafter prescribe, by general laws.

Strike out from the Constitution of Virginia section one hundred
and forty-five and insert in lieu thereof the following:

Section 145. A commissioner of agriculture and immigration shall
be appointed by the governor, subject to confirmation by the general
assembly, for a term coincident with that of each governor making the
appointment; provided, however, that the first appointment under this
section, as hereby amended, shall not be made until the expiration of
the term of office of the commissioner of agriculture and immigration,
which began February first, nineteen hundred and twenty-six; and pro-
vided, further, that the genera] assembly shall have power, by statute
enacted after January first, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, to pro-
vide for the election or appointment of a commissioner of agriculture
and immigration in such manner and for such terms as may be pre-
scribed by statute. No commissioner of agriculture and immigration
shall be elected at the general election to be held on the Tuesday suc-
ceeding the first Monday in November, nineteen hundred and twenty-
nine. The powers and duties of the commissioner of agriculture and
immigration shall be prescribed by law.

Strike out from the Constitution of Virginia section one hundred
and thirty-one and insert in lieu thereof the following:

Section 131. A superintendent of public instruction, -who shall
be an experienced educator, shall be appointed by the governor, subject
to confirmation by the general assembly, for a term coincident with
that of each governor making the appointment; provided, however,
that the first appointment under this section, as hereby amended, shall
not be made until the expiration of the term of office of the superinten-
dent of public instruction, which began February first, nineteen hun-
dred and twenty-six; and provided, further, that the general assembly
shall have power, by statute enacted after January first, nineteen hun-
dred and thirty-two, to provide for the election or appointment of a
superintendent of public instruction in such manner and for such
term as may be prescribed by statute. No superintendent of public
instruction shall be elected at the general election to be held on the
Tuesday succeeding the first Monday in November, nineteen hundred
and twenty-nine. The powers and duties of the superintendent of
public instruction shall be prescribed by law.
Strike out from the Constitution of Virginia section eighty-one and
insert in lieu thereof the following:

Section 81. A State treasurer shall be appointed by the governor,
subject to confirmation by the general assembly, for a term coincident
with that of each governor making the appointment; provided, how-
ever, that the first appointment under this section, as hereby amended,
shall not be made until the expiration of the term of office of the State
treasurer, which began February first, nineteen hundred and twenty-
six; and provided, further, that the general assembly shall have power,
by statute enacted after January first, nineteen hundred and thirty-two,
to provide for the election or appointment of a State treasurer in such
manner and for such term as may be prescribed by statute. No State
treasurer shall be elected at the general election to be held on the
Tuesday succeeding the first Monday in November, nineteen hundred
and twenty-nine. The powers and duties of the State treasurer shall
be prescribed by law.

SCHEDULE

At such election a ballot shall be furnished to each voter which
shall have printed thereon the following:

PROPOSAL No. 1

For the general revision of the Constitution of Virginia, except
sections eighty-one, one hundred and thirty-one, one hundred and
forty-five, one hundred and seventy and one hundred and seventy-one
thereof, and to repeal by omitting therefrom sections one hundred and
twenty-eight, one hundred and forty-eight, one hundred and_ forty-
nine, one hundred and fifty, one hundred and fifty-one and one hun-
dred and eighty-two of the present Constitution.

-\gainst the general revision of the Constitution of Virginia, ex-
cept sections eighty-one, one hundred and thirty-one, one hundred and
forty-five, one hundred and seventy and one hundred and seventy-one
thereof, and to repeal by omitting therefrom sections one hundred and
twenty-eight, one hundred and forty-eight, one hundred and_ forty-
nine, one hundred and fifty, one hundred and fifty-one, and one hun-
dred and eighty-two of the present Constitution.

PROPOSAT. No. 2

For the amendment to section one hundred and seventy-one of the
Constitution of Virginia, providing that no State property tax for
State purposes shall be levied on real estate or tangible personal prop-
2rty. except the rolling stock of public service corporations.

Against the amendment to section one hundred and seventy-one of
he Constitution of Virginia, providing that no State property tax for
State purposes shall be levied on real estate or tangible personal prop-
erty, except the rolling stock of public service corporations.

PROPOSAL No. 3

For the proposed amendment to section one hundred and forty-
five of the Constitution of Virginia, providing for the appointment by
the governor for one term, subject to approval by the general assembly
and authorizing the general assembly, after January first, nineteen
hundred and thirty-two, to provide the manner in which and the term
for which the commissioner of agriculture and immigration shall be
selected.

Against the proposed amendment to section one hundred and forty-
five of the Constitution of Virginia, providing for the appointment by
the governor for one term, subject to approval by the general assem-
bly and authorizing the general assembly, after January first, nineteen
hundred and thirty-two, to provide the manner in which and the term
for which the commissioner of agriculture and immigration shall be
selected.

PROPOSAL No. 4

For the amendment to section one hundred and thirty-one of the
Constitution of Virginia, providing for the appointment by the gover-
nor for one term, subject to approval by the general assembly and
authorizing the general assembly, after January first, nineteen hundred
and thirty-two, to provide the manner in which and the term for which
the superintendent of public instruction shall be selected.

Against the amendment to section one hundred and thirty-one of
the Constitution of Virginia, providing for the appointment by the
governor for one term, subject to approval by the general assembly
and authorizing the general assembly, after January first, nineteen
hundred and thirty-two, to provide the manner in which and the term
for which the superintendent of public instruction shall be selected.

PROPOSAL No. 5

For the amendment to section eighty-one of the Constitution of
Virginia providing for the appointment by the governor for one term,
subject to approval by the general assembly and authorizing the gen-
eral assembly, after January first, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, to
provide the manner in which and the term for which the treasurer of
Virginia shall be selected.

Against the amendment to section eighty-one of the Constitution of
Virginia providing for the appointment by the governor for one term,
subject to approval by the general assembly and authorizing the gen-
eral assembly, after January first, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, to
provide the manner in which and the term for which the treasurer of
Virginia shall be selected.

The said ballots shall be printed and furnished by the electoral
boards as other ballots are required by law to be printed and furnished,
and the said election shall be held and conducted as hereinbefore pro-
vided for.

The marking out of the words “for” or “against’’ shall be sufficient
to indicate the wishes of the voters, and it shall not be necessary to
mark out the entire paragraph to indicate such wish.

2. Immediately after closing the polls the said officers shall count
the votes cast at said election for and against each of said proposed
amendments, and shall make return thereof at the time and in the
manner provided by law, as in the case of other elections; and it shall
be the duty of the clerks and commissioners of election of each county
and city, respectively, to make out, certify and forward an abstract
of the votes cast for and against each of said proposed amendments
in the manner now prescribed by law in relation to votes cast in general
elections.

3. It shall be the duty of the secretary of the Commonwealth, and
of the State board of canvassers, to open and canvass the said abstract
of returns, and to examine and make statement of the whole number of
votes given at said election for each of said proposed amendments
and against each of said proposed amendments, respectively, in the
manner now prescribed by law, in relation to votes cast in general
elections; and it shall be the duty of the secretary of the Common-
wealth to record said certified statement in his office, and without delay
to make out and transmit to the governor of the Commonwealth an
official copy of said statement, certified by him under his seal of office.

4. The governor shall, without delay, make proclamation of the
result, stating therein the aggregate vote for and against each of said
amendments, to be published in such newspapers in the State as may
be deemed requisite for general information; and if a majority of said
votes be cast for the ratification of the amendments, or any of them,
he shall annex to his proclamation a copy of such as were ratified.

5. The secretary of the Commonwealth at least thirty days before
said election shall cause to be sent to the clerks of each county and
corporation as many copies of this act as there are places of voting
therein and a similar number of copies of the present Constitution of
Virginia; and it shall be the duty of said clerks to forthwith deliver
the same to the sheriff for distribution, whose duty it shall be forth-
with to post said copies at some public place in each election district
at or near the usual voting place in said district.

6. The expenses incurred in conducting this election shall be de-
frayed as in the case of the election of members of the general assem-
bly ; excepting as herein otherwise provided.