LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT. 83

affairs relating to the public interest, and may direct all office bonds which
shall be made payable to the State to be sued for any breach thereof; and
with the view to the more certain prevention or correction of the abuses in
the expenditures of the money of the State, the General Assembly shall
create, at every session thereof, a Joint Standing Committee of the Senate
and House of Delegates, who shall have power to send for persons and
examine them on oath and call for public or official papers and records; and
whose duty it shall be to examine and .report upon all contracts made for
printing, stationery and purchases for the public offices and the library,
and all expenditures therein, and upon all matters of alleged abuse in
expenditures, to which their attention may be called by resolution of either
House of the General Assembly.

This section referred to in upholding the right of the grand jury to have the
ballot box and ballots before it in a judicial investigation of an election, and in
saying that the traverser was not injured by the presence in the grand jury room
for the purpose, and in the manner testified to, of the president of the board of
police commissioners, and of a member of the board of election supervisors. Cochran
v. State, 119 Md. 557.

Sec. 25. Neither House shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn
for more than three days at any one time, nor adjourn to any other place
than that in which the House shall be sitting, without the concurrent vote
of two-thirds of the members present.

Sec. 26. The House of Delegates shall have the sole power of impeach-
ment in all cases; but a majority of all the members elected must concur
in the impeachment. All impeachments shall be tried by the Senate, and
when sitting for that purpose the Senators shall be on oath or affirmation
to do justice according to the law and the evidence; but no person shall be
convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of all the Senators elected.
Sec. 27. Any bill may originate in either House of the General Assembly
and be altered, amended or rejected by the other, but no bill shall originate
in either House during the last ten days of the session, unless two-thirds of
the members elected thereto shall so determine by yeas and nays; nor shall
any bill become a law until it be read on three different days of the session in
each House, unless two-thirds of the members elected to the House where
such bill is pending shall so determine by yeas and nays, and no bill shall
be read a third time until it shall have been actually engrossed or printed
for a third reading.1

The legislature may not make the validity of a public general statute dependent
upon its approval by a majority of the voters of the state under a referendum;
hence the Soldiers' Bonus Act, act 1922, ch. 448, is void. The legislature may not
delegate its law-making power. The general assembly of Maryland has the
exclusive power of making laws, subject to certain veto powers of the Governor.
Other constitutional questions not passed upon. Brawner v. Supervisors, 141
Md. 600.

This section is not violated by amending a bill as follows: "Amend by striking
out all after the words A Bill and insert in lieu thereof the following." Thrift v.
Towers, 127 Md. 58.

This section referred to in construing art. 15 of the Declaration of Rights—see
notes thereto. State v. C. & P. R. R. Co., 40 Md. 53 (dissenting opinion).
See notes to secs. 28 and 30.

1 Thus amended by the act of 1912, ch. 497, ratified November 4, 1913.