The three bills were introduced by Mr. Wheelan on January 11th, and referred to the Assembly Judiciary Committee. The Committee, which pigeon-holed sixty-three of the Commonwealth Club bills, and reported back the two remaining too late for passage, had better treatment in store for the Wheelan measures. They were reported back to the Assembly on March 6th, at a time when the Assembly was fairly swamped with pending measures. On March 17th, in the midst of a mass of legislation, they were slipped through the Assembly without many of the members apparently knowing what they were. The Assembly journal of that date shows that such men as Bohnett, Callan, Cattell, Cogswell, Flint, Gerdes, Gibbons, Gillis, Hayes, Hewitt, Hinkle, Johnson of Placer, Juilliard, Kehoe, Mendenhall, Polsley, Stuckenbruck, Telfer, Whitney, Wilson and Wyllie, who ordinarily voted for good measures and against bad ones, voted for the Wheelan bills.
With the exception of Bill No. 223, not one vote was cast against the measures. The vote on Bill No. 223 was the last taken. Gillis, who had voted for the two others, appears to have awakened to the fact that something was wrong. At any rate, he voted against Bill 223.
His was the only vote cast against any of the three bills in the lower House, They appear to have gone through the Assembly without thorough appreciation of their significance. At any rate, there were members enough present, who were usually against bad measures, to have prevented the Wheelan bills securing the forty-one votes necessary for their passage.
A reform measure passing the Assembly on March 17th would have had no chance whatever in the Senate. The Wheelan bills were more fortunate.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, before which the Commonwealth Club bills had dragged along for weeks, received the Wheelan bills on March 17th, the day they passed the Assembly, and the same day, March 17th, reported them back to the Senate with the recommendation that they do pass. On March 18th the measures were read the second time in the Senate, and on March 20th, three days after they had passed the Assembly, the Senate passed them.
Such is the difference in action on machine-favored bills and bills which the machine does not favor. Incidentally, it may be said that at the time the Wheelan bills were before the Senate, the machine had that body tied up in the fight on the Direct Primary bill.
The reform element - at the mercy of the Senate organization - was compelled to devote its whole attention to the Direct Primary bill. The machine was thus left to run committees and Senate at its own free will. It was an admirable situation from the machine standpoint.
But by the time the Wheelan bills had been hastened to the floor of the Senate, the reform Senators apparently awoke to the fact that some sort of a job was on the way. When the bills came up for final passage, however, the anti-machine Senators were apparently as much at a loss concerning them as the anti-machine Assemblymen had been.
Bill number 221 came up first, and even Senator Bell, the staunchest opponent of bad laws of them all, voted for it. With Senator Bell voted Caminetti, Estudillo, Rush, Thompson and Walker, who were ordinarily against the passage of bad bills. As the measure received but twenty-three votes, any three of these by voting no could have defeated it.
Price, who had voted for the bill, gave notice, at the request of a fellow Senator, that on the next legislative day he would move to reconsider the vote by which the bill had been passed.