Given the presiding officers of the Senate and Assembly and the appointment of the Committees of both bodies, the machine minority in the Legislature had comparatively little difficulty in preventing the passage of desirable measures. Thus, the Commonwealth Club bills to simplify and expedite proceedings in criminal cases, or, if you like, to prevent quackery in the practice of the criminal law, were, by clever manipulation, defeated, although if fairly presented to Senate and Assembly they undoubtedly would have become laws[74]. But when it came to passing vicious measures in the face of the opposition of the unorganized majority of both Houses, the machine had a harder job on its hands. A majority vote of each House is required for the passage of a measure. To get through its bills, then, the machine had to create a situation in which vicious measures could be rushed through without the unorganized reformers knowing what was being done. By preventing action on a large majority of the measures pending before the Legislature until the end of the session, such a situation was created. In the confusion of the closing days of the session, not only were good bills denied passage, but vicious bills, in spite of the opposition of a majority of the Legislature, were passed. Some normally anti-machine members in such a situation become worn out, get discouraged and vote for machine policies to secure machine support for measures, the passage of which their constituents at home are demanding. Others, in the confusion of a whirlwind close of the session, vote for measures which they have no time to read, and which they cannot understand. Thus, even with a majority of Senate and Assembly against machine policies, the clever machine leaders often slip through measures which could not be passed early in the session, when the members have opportunity to study the bills upon which they are called upon to act, and before the ranks of the reform element have been broken. This was very well illustrated at the Session of 1909 by the passage of the so-called Change of Venue bill[74a]. This measure was introduced in the Assembly by Grove L. Johnson. Under its provisions a person charged with crime would have been permitted upon his whim or caprice to allege bias and disqualify the Judge before whom he was to be tried. The Legislature of 1907 was admittedly controlled by the machine, but even the Legislature of 1907 did not dare pass the Change of Venue bill. The reform Legislature of 1909, however, did pass it. The manner in which it was passed is a lesson in machine methods. To the credit of Governor Gillett let it be said, however, that he vetoed the measure[75].