iation. In Tennessee the exception was of cases where
"the public welfare" required an earlier date. Out of 265 laws passed
at one session 230 contained the declaration that the public welfare
required their going into effect immediately. In Texas the
constitution provides that no bill shall be passed until it has been
read on three several days in each house and free discussion allowed
thereon, but that "in cases of imperative public necessity four-fifths
of the house may suspend the rule." Out of 118 laws passed at one
session all but five contained the statement that "imperative public
necessity" required suspension of the rule.

Legislatures also seem prone to disregard the constitutional provision
for the referendum despite the strong, explicit language of that
provision. In California the constitutional provision is as follows:
"No act shall go into effect until ninety days after the adjournment
of the legislature which passed such act ... except urgency measures
necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health
or safety, passed by a two-thirds vote of all the members elected to
each house." Surely the language of the exception is strong and
forceful. Two-thirds of all the members elected to each house must
hold that the measure is urgent, not admitting of delay, that the
public peace, health or safety, not the mere interests or convenience
of individuals or localities, is threatened and that the danger is
imminent, requiring immediate action. Among other instances, the
legislature of California at its special session of 1911 adjudged an
act to validate certain defective registrations of voters in some
municipalities to be an urgency measure within the language of the
exception; also an act to change the boundaries in a Reclamation
District. Oregon has a similar constitutional requirement and
exception which its legislature does not always observe. At the
session of 1911, among other cases the legislature adjudged an act
authorizing a county to levy a tax for advertising the county's
resources to be within the exception; also an act dividing a road
district; but an act appropriating money to guard against the bubonic
plague was not declared to be within the exception. In Oklahoma with a
similar constitutional provision and exception, the legislature seems
to have run riot. At the session of 1910 a very large proportion, if
not a majority, of the statutes were adjudged to be within the
exceptio