64 CONSTITUTION OF MARYLAND [Art. 3]

Sec. 24. The House of Delegates may inquire, on the oath of witnesses,
into all complaints, grievances and offences, as the Grand Inquest of the
State, and may commit any person for any crime to the public jail, there
to remain until discharged by due course of law. They may examine and
pass all accounts of the State, relating either to the collection or expenditure
of the revenue, and appoint auditors to state and adjust the same. They
may call for all public or official papers and records, and send for persons
whom they may judge necessary, in the course of their inquiries, concerning
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 provision of this section requires that the bill be read not on three different
calendar days but on three different legislative days. Wyatt v. State Roads Comm.,
175 Md. 258.

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.

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