Thus the objections to the amendment were easily disposed of.
Their arguments answered, the opponents of the amendment schemed to prevent its consideration until the closing days of the session or prevent consideration entirely.
In the Assembly, the amendment had been introduced by Drew of Fresno. It was referred to the Committee on Constitutional Amendments, where it was smothered to death. Although referred to the committee on January 11, the committee took no action upon it. Coghlan of San Francisco was chairman of the committee; associated with him were Legislators of the types of Johnson of Sacramento, McClelland and Baxter. In vain those advocating the adoption of the amendment urged the committee to act. Meetings were indeed arranged, at which the proponents of the reform would be present, but the committeemen would fail to attend.
A less exasperating, but no less effective fight was carried on in the
Senate.
On the Senate side, the amendment introduced by Black went to the Judiciary Committee. This committee was made up of the nineteen lawyers in the Senate, every lawyer going on the committee. But Warren Porter named the order of their rank, and the chairman and the four ranking members of the committee voted eternally with the Wolfe-Leavitt faction. On a straight vote the majority of the committee was against the machine, as was shown in the fight for an effective railroad regulation bill. But when it came to getting results in the Senate Judiciary Committee, craft and leadership, as has been shown in previous chapters, not infrequently overcame numbers.
On February 16, the reform element of the committee insisted that action be taken on the amendment. Chairman Willis was reluctant to put the question. Few machine members of the committee were in attendance. The anti-machine members were insistent. Willis was finally forced to put the question, and the amendment, after the percentage of voters required to sign a petition for the initiation of a law had been raised from eight to twelve per cent, was favorably reported back to the Senate.
But Senator Willis was able to do on the floor of the Senate what he had been unable to do in the committee, namely, secure further delay. He protested to the Senate at the "snap judgment" of his committee, with the result that it was re-referred to that body. The committee, however, for the second time sent it back to the Senate with the recommendation that it be adopted.
Then followed a series of delays in the Senate, so that the measure was not brought to vote until March 11th.
For the adoption of a Constitutional amendment, a two-thirds vote - twenty-seven - is required in the Senate. The proponents of the amendment had good reason to believe that that number of Senators would vote for its adoption. The Senators counted upon to vote for the amendment were: Anthony, Bell, Birdsall, Black, Boynton, Caminetti, Campbell, Cutten, Estudillo, Hare, Kennedy, McCartney, Reily, Roseberry, Rush, Sanford, Stetson, Thompson, Walker, Welch - 20, who actually voted for the amendment; Finn, Strobridge, Cartwright and Holohan, who were absent when the vote was taken, but who were pledged to the reform; Lewis, Bills, Curtin and Miller, who were counted on the side of the amendment until it came to a vote. This made twenty-eight votes, one more than enough for adoption.
Kennedy, Reily, Welch, Finn and Hare, usually against reform legislation, were counted for the Initiative because of convention obligations which could not well be ignored. Lewis, McCartney and Bills were counted for it because of their alleged promise of its support; Curtin and Miller because the Democratic State Convention had endorsed the Initiative, and for the further reason that Curtin and Miller were ordinarily for reform legislation.