Section 3. Assignment of functions to departments provided

Assignment of functions to departments provided

At the session immediately following the adoption of this article the legislature shall provide by law for the appropriate assignment, to take effect not earlier than the first day of July, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-six, of all the civil, administrative and executive functions of the state government, to the several departments in this article provided. Subject to the limitations contained in this constitution, the legislature may from time to time assign by law new powers and functions to departments, officers, boards or commissions continued or created under this constitution, and increase, modify or diminish their powers and functions. No specific grant of power herein to a department shall prevent the legislature from conferring additional powers upon such department. No new departments shall be created hereafter, but this shall not prevent the legislature from creating temporary commissions for special purposes and nothing contained in this article shall prevent the legislature from reducing the number of departments as provided for in this article, by consolidation or otherwise. The elective state officers in office at the time this article as amended takes effect shall continue in office until the end of the terms for which they were elected. Pending the assignment of civil, administrative and executive functions by the legislature pursuant to the directions of this section, the powers and duties of the several departments, boards, commissions and officers now existing are continued. Subject to the power of the legislature to reduce the number of officers when the powers and duties of any existing office are assigned to any department, the officers exercising such powers shall continue in office in such department, and their term of office shall not be shortened by such assignment.