Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/483

reduced 50%, the exemptions in favor of the structures and improvements and tools, implements and equipment of farmers. Thus far, the amended bill relates to the same subject as the original bill and the prime purpose of the original bill; namely, that of reducing exemptions from taxation is not altered. The amendment merely reflects a compromise from the extreme position of the original bill. But the amended bill also embraces a subject matter introduced in the Senate for the first time and after the bill had passed the House—that of the limitation of tax levies by political subdivisions. There is no direct relation between the provisions of law relating to the exemption of items of property from taxation and the limitation of levies by political subdivisions. So far as the subject matter is concerned, it would have been as appropriate to have tacked the levy limiting feature upon a bill providing for the taxing of itinerant venders as upon the bill in question. There was nothing in the original title to the hill to convey the remotest idea that under that title the legislature would attempt to restrict the power of governmental subdivisions in the matter of levying taxes. The title was specific, not general. It conveyed no more hint of legislation upon this subject than of legislation regulating the salaries of school teachers or policemen. If the limitation on the power of local subdivisions to levy taxes is embraced within the scope of the title of the original bill or within the purpose of the legislation sought to be enacted under that title, any subject, however remotely connected with the public revenues, could have been included. The constitutional requirements of singleness of subject and constancy of purpose exist and are favored to the end that the members of the legislature and the public may be apprised of the exact character of pending legislation and that every legislative proposition shall be considered on its own merits, rather than be compromised by an artificial attachment to a foreign subject matter. The meaning of these constitutional provisions is so well under- stood that discussion is not required to clarify it. We are clearly of the opinion that the act in question is void in so far as it relates to the subject of limitation of levies in political subdivisions, both for the reason that the purpose of the legislation was changed during passage and that the legislation deals with two distinct subjects. These subjects clearly are not related to a consistent single purpose reflected in the legislation itself, as was the case in Great Northern Ry. Co. v. Duncan 42 N. D. 346, 176 N. W. 992. These provisions of the constitution are mandatory and it is the sworn duty of the members of this court to uphold them. It follows that