LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE BUREAU. GOVERNOR FRANK O. LOWDEN, Chairman. SENATOR EDWARD C. CURTIS, Grant Park. SENATOR RICHARD J. BARR, Joliet. REPRESENTATIVE EDWARD J. SMEJKAL, Chicago. REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAM P. HOLADAY, Danville. E. J. VERLIE, Secretary. W. F. DODD, in charge collection of data for constitutional convention. 451679 INTRODUCTION. By legislation of the Fifty-first General Assembly (1919), the Legislative Reference Bureau was charged with the duty of collecting and publishing data for the constitutional convention. The fifteen bulletins collected in this volume represent in part the work done in performance of the duty imposed by statute. In these bulletins the purpose has been to present facts and to present them impartially, with an analysis of such facts in order to bring out the chief problems which have arisen in this and other states. Appendices to each pamphlet have ordinarily given. texts of constitutional provisions adopted in other states. Where a particular type of the institution under discussion has not been embodied in constitutional provisions in other states, drafts have occasionally been printed in order to give in concrete form all the types of such institutions. Such drafts where included are in no way intended as suggestions to the convention, or as recommendations of plans which the Legislative Reference Bureau would wish to see adopted, but are merely intended as exhibits of types of institutions not fully covered by constitutional provisions in other states. In order that the complete texts of state constitutions might be available, each delegate to the convention was supplied with a copy of Kettleborough's "The State Constitutions," (Indianapolis, 1918). Other publications issued by the Bureau supplement these bulletins. In the bulletins no effort is made to review completely. the judicial decisions interpreting the constitution of Illinois, because the decisions are fully summed up in a separate volume entitled "Constitution of the State of Illinois: Annotated." In 1918 the Bureau published a general survey of the constitutional situation in Illinois, entitled "Constitutional Conventions in Illinois," and a second edition of this publication was issued in 1919. In the bulletins collected in this volume reference is occassionally made to this publication for a fuller discussion of certain subjects. Each bulletin as separately issued contained an index. These separate indexes have been omitted from this volume, and a brief consolidated index has been substituted which seeks to include references to every subject of importance. LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE BUREAU. February, 1920. |