Article V.

Article LXXII of the amendments to the constitution providing for biennial sessions of the general court and a biennial budget is hereby annulled, and all provisions of this constitution and of the amendments thereto which were annulled or affected by said Article shall have the same force and effect as though said Article had not been adopted.

Section 1. The governor, lieutenant-governor, councillors, secretary, treasurer and receiver-general, attorney-general, auditor, senators and representatives, shall be elected biennially. The governor, lieutenant-governor and councillors shall hold their respective offices from the first Wednesday in January succeeding their election to and including the first Wednesday in January in the third year following their election and until their successors are chosen and qualified. The terms of senators and representatives shall begin with the first Wednesday in January succeeding their election and shall extend to the first Wednesday in January in the third year following their election and until their successors are chosen and qualified. The terms of the secretary, treasurer and receiver-general, attorney-general and auditor, shall begin with the third Wednesday in January succeeding their election and shall extend to the third Wednesday in January in the third year following their election and until their successors are chosen and qualified.

Section 2. No person shall be eligible to election to the office of treasurer and receiver-general for more than three successive terms.

Section 3. The general court shall assemble every year on the first Wednesday in January.

Section 4. The first election to which this article shall apply shall be held on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November in the year nineteen hundred and twenty, and thereafter elections for the choice of all the officers before-mentioned shall be held biennially on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November.

The political year shall begin on the first Wednesday of January instead of the last Wednesday of May, and the general court shall assemble every year on the said first Wednesday of January, and shall proceed at that session to make all the elections, and do all the other acts which are by the constitution required to be made and done at the session which has heretofore commenced on the last Wednesday of May. And the general court shall be dissolved on the next day preceding the first Wednesday of January, without any proclamation or other act of the governor. But nothing herein contained shall prevent the general court from assembling at such other times as they shall judge necessary, or when called together by the governor. The governor, lieutenant governor and councillors, shall also hold their respective offices for one year next following the first Wednesday of January, and until others are chosen and qualified in their stead.
The meeting for the choice of governor, lieutenant governor, senators and representatives shall be held on the second Monday of November in every year; but meetings may be adjourned if necessary, for the choice of representatives, to the next day, and again to the next succeeding day, but no further. But in case a second meeting shall be necessary for the choice of representatives, such meetings shall be held on the fourth Monday of the same month of November.
All the other provisions of the constitution, respecting the elections and proceedings of the members of the general court, or of any other officers or persons whatever, that have reference to the last Wednesday of May, as the commencement of the political year, shall be so far altered as to have like reference to the first Wednesday of January.
This article shall go into operation on the first day of October next following the day when the same shall be duly ratified and adopted as an amendment of the constitution; -- and the governor, lieutenant governor, councillors, senators, representatives and all other state officers, who are annually chosen, and who shall be chosen for the current year when the same shall go into operation, shall hold their respective offices until the first Wednesday of January then next following, and until others are chosen and qualified in their stead, and no longer -- and the first election of the governor, lieutenant governor, senators and representatives to be had in virtue of this article shall be had conformably thereunto, in the month of November following the day on which the same shall be in force, and go into operation pursuant to the foregoing provision.
All the provisions of the existing constitution inconsistent with the provisions herein contained are hereby wholly annulled.