Opinion
No. 28978.
December 1, 1930.
1. COURTS. Constitutional provision governing change of boundary of judicial districts in county held applicable only to relocation of line between districts ( Constitution 1890, section 260).
Constitution 1890, section 260, provides: "Nor shall the boundary of any judicial district in a county be changed, unless, at an election held for that purpose, two-thirds of those voting assent thereto."
2. COURTS.
Constitutional provision requiring two-thirds vote to change boundary of judicial districts in county held inapplicable to election to abolish districts (Constitution 1890, section 260).
3. COURTS. Special statute relating to removal of county site of Coahoma county held to authorize submission to voters of question whether line between judicial districts should be abolished ( Laws 1930, chapter 504).
Laws 1930, chapter 504, authorized submission to voters of Coahoma county at a special election questions involving removal and location of county site. Statute further provided that, if two-thirds of voters at election should assent to removal, then boundary line which divides county into two judicial districts should be abolished.
APPEAL from chancery court of Coahoma county, First district. HON. R.E. JACKSON, Chancellor.
E.M. Yerger, of Clarksdale, for appellant.
House Bill No. 30, under and by virtue of which the election held on June 3rd to determine whether or not the county site should be removed from Friars Point, Mississippi, and whether it should be located at Clarksdale, Mississippi, and if not where it should be located, was null and void.
The said bill made no provision whatever for any vote as to whether or not the two judicial districts should be abolished and any attempt to remove the seat of justice from Friars Point, Mississippi, would be absolutely void unless the seat of justice aforesaid was removed to some other point within the said first judicial district. It could not be moved to any point beyond the boundary line of the said first judicial district.
Hinton v. Board of Supervisors, Perry County, 36 So. 565.
The bill is unconstitutional and void because it was not framed under section 260 of the Constitution of the state of Mississippi.
Maynard, FitzGerald Venable, of Clarksdale, for appellant.
The decision in the case of Simpson v. Buckley, 85 Miss. 729, is directly in point.
In both of the above sections 259 and 260 of the state Constitution it is provided that the particular question must be submitted to the electorate of the county or district concerned, and that the legislature had no jurisdiction, and the board of supervisors of the county had no jurisdiction to change the status in either of said matters without the particular question being presented to the electorate of the county to be voted upon; and if the question of the removal of the county site in Coahoma county was submitted to the people that certainly could not carry with it the change in the boundary line of the two judicial districts, unless that question also were presented to the electorate for the vote for or assent of the people thereto.
We contend that the legislature of the state of Mississippi without authority of the Constitution and without power so to do has legislated that if the people of Coahoma county, Mississippi, should vote that the county site of Coahoma county should not remain at Friars Point, that in that event the legislature removed and changed thereby the boundary lines between the districts. The legislature had no right to change the boundary line. Only the people had the right, and such question was never submitted to them. The wording of the two sections of the Constitution is plain and unambiguous. With reference to the moving of the county sites, it is provided that none shall be removed unless such removal be authorized by two-thirds of the electors of the county voting therefor.
Ethridge Mississippi Constitution, p. 450-1.
The legislature of the state of Mississippi did not have power, right or authority to submit to the people of Coahoma county, Mississippi, whether or not the Act approved February 19, 1892, should be repealed. This in effect is done by section 7 of the Act of House Bill No. 30, above referred to.
Roberson Cook and J.W. Hopkins, all of Clarksdale, for appellees.
It can well be said that the act of February 19, 1892, was nothing more nor less than a legislative enactment dividing Coahoma county into two districts for holding circuit and chancery court.
Lindsley v. Coahoma County, 69 Miss. 815.
We concede that a boundary line between two judicial districts of a county could not be moved from east to west, or vice versa, without complying with section 260 of the Constitution, because after that removal was had and done, two judicial districts would still exist. But such is not the case here. The situation that now confronts this court is that no longer do two judicial districts exist in Coahoma county, but the legislature has, in its wisdom, provided that that territory which formerly comprised two judicial districts should now be considered as only one judicial district.
Argued orally by Edward M. Yerger, for appellant, and by J. Lake Roberson, for appellees.
In 1892 the county of Coahoma was divided into two judicial districts, with courthouses at Friars Point and Clarksdale. By chapter 504, Laws 1930, it was enacted that the three following questions should be submitted, at a special election to the voters of the county:
"Shall the county site of Coahoma County be removed from Friars Point?
"Shall the county site of Coahoma County be located at Clarksdale?
"In the event you desire the county site located elsewhere than Clarksdale insert the name of location below." And there was a blank on the ticket for that insertion.
It was further provided that, "if two-thirds of those voting at said election shall assent to the removal of said county site from Friars Point and vote therefor, then the boundary line which divides the said county into two judicial districts shall be abolished." More than two-thirds of those voting, in fact nearly three-fourths, voted for the removal from Friars Point, and also for the location at Clarksdale, the latter point being towards the center of the county.
The contention of appellant is that the legislative act and the vote aforementioned did not have the effect to merge the county again into one judicial district; that the said act made no provisions for any vote on the direct question whether the two districts should be abolished; and that the act was not so framed as to conform to the provision of that part of section 260, Constitution 1890, reading as follows: "Nor shall the boundary of any judicial district in a county be changed, unless, at an election held for that purpose, two-thirds of those voting assent thereto."
The constitutional inhibition just quoted has sole reference to a relocation of the line between the districts, placing the same elsewhere, while yet preserving the existence thereof somewhere. "The inhibition is only of a change of this [boundary] line by drawing it somewhere else." Lindsley v. Coahoma County, 69 Miss. 815, 825, 11 So. 336, 337. To abolish the line is not to draw it somewhere else, but is to wholly obliterate it, destroy its existence, so that it cannot longer be drawn anywhere; and this is, of course, in legal effect to abolish the two districts and to convert the territory into an undivided county. The latter proposition was exactly what the legislature intended to submit to the voters, and is exactly what every voter knew, or by the exercise of an intelligent consideration should have known, was submitted to him or her at said election; and the affirmative vote being far more than the required proportion of all votes cast, the question must be accepted as settled, so that there are no longer two judicial districts in that county; its territory is again united and its one and only county site is Clarksdale.
Affirmed.