Brooks v. Secretary of the Commonwealth

This is a petition for a writ of mandamus to compel thé respondent to omit from the ballot for the next State election a proposed law which he intends to print on the ballot under the initiative procedure provided by art. 48 of the Amendments to the Constitution.

1. The petitioners as citizens and voters have standing to maintain this petition. That is settled by Brewster v. Sherman, 195 Mass. 222, where Chief Justice Knowlton, after saying that the proposition, that in order to maintain a petition for a writ of mandamus one should have a private right or interest in the matter beyond the…