Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 — John Shaqi
Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909Hichborn, Franklin
History
Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909
Hichborn, Franklin
California -- Politics and government
Anthony, Estudillo and Walker stood out against the machine in the
direct primary fight which followed the defeat of the Stetson bill, and
before the fight was over, Burnett had returned to the anti-machine
forces.
The case of Senator Hurd is not at all creditable to the machine. But
Hurd's instincts and sympathies are not those of Gus Hartman, Hare,
Wolfe and Leavitt. Had the anti-machine forces had even semblance of
organization there would have been no straying, and the accomplishment
of the legislative session of 1909 would have been more satisfactory to
the best citizenship of the State.
The fact that the anti-machine forces, without leaders and without
organization, stuck together so well as they did is one of the most
extraordinary and at the same time encouraging features of the session.
Although the anti-machine forces numbered a majority of the Senate,
nevertheless a bare majority of the regular Republican Senators - those
who were eligible to admittance to the Republican caucus - were with the
machine. The division in the Republican caucus, counting Welch and Price
with the machine element, was on machine and anti-machine lines as
follows:
Anti-machine - Anthony, Birdsall, Black, Boynton, Burnett, Cutten,
Estudillo, Hurd, Roseberry, Rush, Stetson, Strobridge, Thompson, Walker
- 14.
Machine - Bates, Pills, Finn, Hartman, Leavitt, Lewis, Martinelli,
McCartney, Price, Reily, Savage, Weed, Welch, Willis, Wolfe, Wright -
16.
By time-honored custom it has become a rule for the majority[5a] in the
Senate - and the same holds in the Assembly - to meet in caucus to
decide upon the details of organization. This is done on the theory that
the House should be so organized as to permit the majority to carry out
its policies as expeditiously and with as little friction as possible.
By the unwritten rule of the caucus, the majority governs and each
member who attends the caucus is bound in honor to vote - regardless of
his individual views or wishes - on the floor of the Senate or Assembly,
as the majority of the caucus decides. Thus, by going into caucus with
the sixteen machine Senators, the fourteen anti-machine Senators were
placed in a position where they were, under caucus rule, compelled to
vote on the floor of the Senate as the sixteen machine Senators
dictated. This gave the machine on the floor of the Senate thirty votes
out of forty on questions affecting organization, and permitted it to
name the President pro tem., the Secretary of the Senate, the
Sergeant-at-Arms, and gave it filial voice in the appointment of the
various attaches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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