Weill

In the view we take of this application* it becomes unnecessary to decide that this Court has or has not original jurisdiction to issue the writ of mandamus.

The important question presented is, whether every bill introduced into either House of the Legislature, (unless the requirement in that regard of § 15, art. 4, of the Constitution is dispensed with by a two-thirds vote duly recorded) must be read three times; or whether the requirement has been complied with by reading the title and a portion of a bill twice, and reading the whole once. The section reads as follows:

It is claimed by petitioner that the words “ be read ” in the clause “ nor shall any bill become a law unless the same be read *113 on three several days,” etc., should receive an interpretation “ technical ” and special. It is admitted that all bills—unless the provision is dispensed with—must be read on three several days, but it is insisted that the framers of the Constitution, and the people who ratified that instrument, must have intended that all bills should be read in the manner, and to the extent only, that it had been the legislative practice to read them prior to the adoption of the…