Registration Increases

Arizona State Highway Commission Wins Battle in Supreme Court to Gain Vehicle Data and Records

ATA, records and property of the state relative to the administration of the motor vehicle laws have been turned over to the Motor Vehicle Division of the Arizona State Highway Department by James H. Kerby, secretary of State, in compliance with the writ of mandamus made permanent by the Supreme Court of Arizona in favor of the Arizona State Highway Commission.

The decision of the Supreme Court, ordering Mr. Kerby to turn his motor vehicle records over to the Arizona State Highway Commission, was written by Justice Alfred C. Lockwood, with Chief Justice Henry D. Ross and Justice A. G. McAllister concurring The effect of the decision on the powers and duties of the highway commission, the question which it settles is described by the court itself as "one of great importance, involving as it does the meaning of the referendum provisions of the constitution."

After analyzing the consequences which might ensue if Secretary Karby were sustained in the position he took, the court makes occasion to refer to the muddle caused by the recent attempt to nullify all 1927 legislative appropriations for bridges by recourse to the referendum.

"We have recently," said the court. "passed through an actual situation which illustrates fully the dangers of respondent's"-Secretary Kerby's "position. The legislature at its regular session passed certain special acts for the construction of bridges. Shortly before the period for referendum had expired, certain unkown interests, for reasons best known to themselves, desired to refer these laws, and petitions for referendums were placed in circulation, and were quite liberally signed. "The parties interested in these measures, however, on their discovery that these petitions were being circulated, immediately secured wide-spread public-ity, both through court action and in the press, in regard to their circulation, and it promptly appeared that many of those who had signed the petitions had done so under a misapprehension as to the real facts of the case, and desired to have their names withdrawn therefrom, while further signatures became almost impossible to get.

PETITIONS NEVER FILED

"The upshot of the whole matter was that, for some reason or other, the petitions were never filed and the laws went into effect. Had the circulation, however, been delayed but a few days longer and the petitions filed at the last possible moment, under respondent's (Kerby's) theory, even though every man who signed the referendum petitions had joined in a request to the leg-islature to adopt acts similar to the referred acts, and even though the unani-mous legislature and the governor had desired to do so, they would have been helpless until after the next general election. "We think this practical example shows clearly that the respondent's posi-tion, although apparently supporting the doctrine that the will of the people should prevail, actually tends to hamper the free exercise of such will far more than does the theory of the petitioners" namely, the members of the state highway commissino.

The position of Secretary Kerby was that the administration of the certificate of title act must remain in his hands, under authority of certain constitutional provisions, until the people at the next general election shall have passed on a referendum invoked against the legislature, at a later session, had dele-

CONTROL OF GOVERNMENT

More specifically, the court says that it is the contention of Secretary Kerby that his filing of a referendum "had the effect of suspending the right of the legislature, pending the referendum, to adopt any legislation which would conflict with any of the provisions of the statute repealed by the referred chapter. "After careful consideration of the briefs and arguments, however, we are inclined to think that an approval of respondent's that is Secretary Kerby's -"contention, would be far more likely to result in a control of our government by a few selfish interests and a denial of the real will of the people than would be a contrary holding." Only four cases touching on the questions involved, can be found, the court says, and of these only one makes a "definite and sustained effort to meet the issue herein presented," and in this case the court was divided four to three, so that the Arizona supreme court finds itself guided by "no rule on the subject, at least to the extent that there is a preponderant and well reasoned line of decisions one way or the other."

So Justice Lockwood assembles all the constitutional provisions relating to the referendum, all the accepted principles of constitutional interpretation, and then asks: "What is it the people reserve the right to refer?"

CITES CONSTITUTION

In short and in fine, the court holds