Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1911 — STATE OFFICERS ARE ENJOINED [ARTICLE]

STATE OFFICERS ARE ENJOINED

From Placiog Statements on Election Ballots IN REGARD TO CONSTITUTION Judge Remster Holds Legislative Act of 1911 Void —Legislature Exceeded Its Authority in Proposing New Constitution.

Judge Charles Remster, of the Marion circuit court, on Monday declared the legislative .act of the last Indiana general assembly, proposing a new state constitution, to be unconstitutional and void, and enjoined the state board of election commissioners and the secretary of state from taking action necessary to submit the new constitution to the people’s vote. In a brief summary of his decision, Judge Remster held that the general assembly does not possess the power to propose a new constitution; that the proposed constitution regarded as a series of proposed amendments to the existing constiutition is void because it is not proposed in the mode for making amendments prescribed in the constitutional grant of .power to the legislature; that questions concerning the new constitution act are judicial questions and not political questions, and that therefore the plaintiff in the case, John T. Dye, an Indianapolis attorney, and a democrat, who,' as a taxpayer and elector of the state, has the right to invoke the jurisdiction of a court of equity to have such judicial questions determined.

All power to propose and make a new constitution abides in the people, Judge Remster said, and in his opinion the only proper way to frame and propose a new constitution is through a constitutional convention. “The people can no more divest themselves of this abiding power than a living human being can divest himself of his soul,” Remster said.