The Augusta Courier

M. E. Too Thompson Attempts To Put The Monkey on Clerk's Back

The last legislature made a mistake and the Supreme Court has thrown several hundred of their bills out the window.

The Constitution of Georgia says: "No local or special bill shall become law unless there is attached to and made a part of said bill a copy of said notice certified by the publisher, or accompanied by an affidavit of the author, to the effect that said notice has been published as provided by law."

The notice must by the bill itself be made a part of the bill.

Merely clipping or pinning it to the bill is not sufficient.

This is a new provision written into the Constitution in 1945.

The Legislature slipped up and their bills go out the window.

Whose fault is it? M. E. Too tries to put the blame on the clerk of the House because he is a Talmadge Supporter.

This is a cowardly and a dastardly effort on the part of M. E. Too.

Now let's see what happens with a local bill in the Legislature.

The members observe the rule of Legislative Courtesy. Every local bill is left to the local members. So it is the duty of the local members to see to it that his local bill is in proper shape.

Usually the local member prepares his own bill, follows it through the committees in both the House and the Senate, and then checks it for errors before it goes to the Governor for his signature.

But this is not all. The bill is checked by a committee in the House and the Senate before it passes. After it passes, it is checked again by four Committees before it reaches the Governor's office.

After the bill is prepared for the Governor, it is checked in its final shape by a committee of the Senate and a committee of the House.

So if there are any errors in a local bill as prepared by the clerk to be sent to the Governor it should be caught by one of these Committees.

Every bill, before it goes to the Governor must be signed by the clerk of the House, the Speaker of the House, the Secretary of the Senate and the President of the Senate.

But this isn't all. The Constitution of Georgia provides "The Governor shall have the revision of all bills passed by the General Assembly before the same shall become laws".

The object of this provision is to place the duty on the Governor to read the bills and to have any errors corrected.

Still this isn't all. The Constitution of Georgia again says: "Every vote, resolution, or order, to which the concurrence of both houses may be necessary, except on a question of election or adjournment, shall be presented to the Governor, and before it shall take effect be approved by him".

So M. E. Too approved the bills, errors and all. If he is so smart why did he not catch the errors and send the bills back to be corrected?

Part of these bills were prepared by the Secretary of the Senate.

Why is she not blamed? They were all signed by the President of the Senate. Why is he not blamed? The President and the Secretary of the Senate are Thompson Supporters.

So they try to put the monkey on the back of the Speaker of the House and the clerk of the House.

If the blame is to be put in one spot it should be placed on the Governor. He has a force of assistants and the whole flock of Lawyers in the Attorney General's office to advise him.

The truth of the matter is M. E. Too made the same mistake as everybody else, and he is too dumb to know it.

Why should the pot call the kettle black?

M. E. Too and everybody else made the same mistake.

It is cowardly and utterly dishonest for the Acting Governor to try to put the monkey on the back of the Clerk of the House.