San Saba County v. McCraw (130 Tex. 54, 1937)

Mr. Justice Critz

delivered the opinion for the Court.

• This is a motion to file petition for mandamus. The motion is filed by San Saba County as relator and seeks to file petition for mandamus against William McCraw, Attorney General of Texas, as respondent. The petition accompanies the motion. The petition seeks to compel respondent to approve certain funding road and bridge bonds of relator aggregating $48,-500.00. The proposed bonds bear 4 1/2 per cent, interest, payable semiannually. They are numbered consecutively from 1 to 49, both inclusive. They are of the denomination of $1,000.00 each, except bond No. 1, which is of the denomination of $500.00, and they mature serially, beginning October 1, 1937, and ending October 1, 1963. The case has been fully briefed by both parties.

Before proceeding further, we deem it expedient to copy into this opinion the part of Section 9, of Article VIII, of our State Constitution which we deem pertinent here:

“ * * * and no county * * shall levy more than 25^ for * * * county purposes, and not exceeding 15^5 for roads and bridges, * * * and the Legislature may also authorize an additional annual ad valorem tax to be levied and collected for the further maintenance of the public roads; provided that a majority of the qualified property taxpaying voters of the county voting at an election to be held for that purpose shall vote such tax, not to exceed 15