Town of Glenarden v. Bromery

Decision Date11 February 1970
Docket Number321,Nos. 320,s. 320
Citation262 A.2d 60,257 Md. 19
PartiesTOWN OF GLENARDEN v. Geraldine BROMERY et al. James R. COUSINS, Jr., et al., v. Stanley D. BROWN et al.
CourtMaryland Court of Appeals

Alfred L. Scanlan, Washington, D. C. (Shea & Gardner, Washington, D. C., and Patricia A. Trivers, Glenarden, on the brief), for appellants.

Amicus curiae brief filed by The Maryland Municipal League, Joseph S. Casula, Riverdale, on the brief.

Charles A. Dukes, Jr., Hyattsville, for appellees.

Before HAMMOND, C. J., and BARNES, McWILLIAMS, SINGLEY and SMITH, JJ.

HAMMOND, Chief Judge.

By adopting a number of amendments to the town charter, the electorate of Glenarden replaced a mayor and a set of councilmen during their terms with another mayor and another set of councilmen. The displaced persons here challenge the effectiveness of the charter amendments to validly accomplish the change in terms and officials.

Glenarden is a municipality that sometime ago availed itself of the authorizations of Art. XI-E of the Constitution of Maryland (the Municipal Home Rule Amendment) and of Code (1957), Art. 23A, the implementing statute, its charter being in all significant respects one contemplated by Art. 23B of the Code, titled Municipal Corporation Charter.

At a regular election called for by the original charter held on May 5, 1969, Mayor Cousins who had served for some twenty-eight years was reelected over the appellee Trotter, and six councilmen aligned with the Mayor also were elected. Four members of the prior council became lame ducks, having failed of reelection. Perhaps for this reason the Town Council, after the election but before its successors took office, approved petitions of Glenarden citizens proposing ten amendments to the Town Charter, and on September 15, 1969, at an election ordered by Judge Digges, sitting in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County, the voters approved all the amendments. Number 2 provided that there be six councilmen to be elected for two-year terms (for no more than three consecutive terms), and Number 3 made the term of the mayor two years, with a limit of two consecutive terms. Under the original charter, the terms were for four years. Number 4 established regular town elections on the first Monday in May in odd numbered years, and amendment Number 7 set up a special election and directed that the mayor and councilmen elected at that special election should serve as such until the next regular election.

Various legal proceedings and counter-proceedings followed the adoption of the amendments. Finally, Judge Bowen in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County issued a mandatory injunction requiring the holding of a special election for all town offices on November 21, 1969.

Of 755 votes cast for Mayor at the November 21st election, the appellee Trotter, who had lost the May 5th election, received 354 while the incumbent Mayor Cousins who had won in May received 311. Two other candidates split the remaining votes. Since no candidate received a majority, a run-off election was held on December 22, in which Mr. Trotter beat Mayor Cousins. Six councilmen were elected in November, including two incumbents and two members of the Trotter faction who had been beaten in the May election, Messrs. Brown and Jackson.

The appellants are the Town, Mr. Cousins, and the six councilmen who were elected on May 5; the appellees include Mr. Trotter, Messrs. Brown and Jackson, and other citizens and taxpayers of the Town.

The appellants at the argument limited their contentions to the claims that the special election of November 21 was an exercise in the governmental process of recall of elected officials for which there is neither constitutional nor statutory authority in Maryland, and that the charter amendments reducing the terms of office of the mayor and the councilmen from four to two years, if construed to be applicable and effective prior to the regular town election of May 1973, are both unconstitutional and illegal until that time.

The appellants point out that the terms of those elected on November 21 were neither for two nor for four years, and that in the present posture of the matter the candidates elected of May 5 had enjoyed a five and one-half month term, those elected on November 21 will serve to early June 1971 or for a term of 19 months, while those elected at the next regular election in May 1971 will serve the newly prescribed term of two years. From this they argue that 'in every meaningful sense the special election represents an attempt by the Town electorate, for purely political reasons, to recall elected public officials prior to the expiration of the term of office for which they had been elected.' The argument goes on to urge that the recall in the sense here relevant is a governmental associative cousin of the initiative and the referendum, all representing mechanisms by which the electorate reserve to themselves powers ordinarily given without reservation to the legislators representing the voters. 1

Appellants next seek to find comfort in the fact that the referendum was made part of the Maryland governmental scheme by amendment to the constitution in 1915 (and since then often is found in municipal charters) but that the power to recall elected officials never has been made a part of the Maryland political scheme. They argue that the legislature lacks the inherent power to provide for recall and therefore could not delegate the right to provide for recall locally and that, assuming the legislature could so delegate, it has not seen fit to do so in Glenarden's case. Finally, they plead that 'the recall should not be introduced into Maryland in disguise' lest every mayor and councilman tremble ever in his boots in a continuous fear that the electorate at any moment will strip him of his powers, prestige and emoluments-a fear the Maryland Municipal League indicates in its brief as amicus that it shares.

The arguments of the appellants are well marshalled and skilfully presented. Their fatal weakness is, however, that the recall procedure has nothing to do with the case. By Art. XI-E of the Constitution and Art. 23A of the Code, the citizens of Glenarden were given the legal right and power to do exactly what a majority of them did-that is, amend the charter of their town to bring about a form of government contemplated by Art. XI-E of the Constitution and the statute, that is, Art. 23A of the Code. The fact that the exercise of the right to amend the charter of Glenarden resulted in shortening the terms of the mayor and councilmen of that town just as the exercise of a power to recall, had one existed, would have done is coincidental, and does not make the permitted process of amendment the withheld or forbidden process of recall. This is not a situation in which that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

In Hitchins v. Mayor & City Council of Cumberland, 208 Md. 134, 140-141, 117 A.2d 854, Chief Judge Brune for the Court made an elaborate analysis of Art. XI-E of the Constitution (the Municipal Home Rule Amendment) and Art. 23A of the Code, pointing out in the process, first, that §§ 3 and 4 of Art. XI-E provide that:

'Sec. 3. Any such municipal corporation, now existing or hereafter created, shall have the power and authority, (a) to amend or repeal an existing charter or local laws relating to the incorporation, organization, government, or affairs of said municipal corporation heretofore enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland, and (b) to adopt a new charter, and to amend or repeal any charter adopted under the provisions of this Article.

'Sec. 4. The adoption of a new charter, the amendment of any charter or local laws, or the repeal of any part of a charter or local laws shall be proposed either by a resolution of the legislative body of any such municipal corporation or by a petition containing the signatures of at least five per cent of the registered voters of a municipal corporation and filed with the legislative body of said municipal corporation. The General Assembly shall amplify the provisions of this section by general law in any manner not inconsistent with this Article,'

and, second, that § 11 of Art. 23A prescribes that 'Every municipal corporation in this State shall proceed as in this subheading provided in exercising and applying the powers for the amendment of municipal charters which are granted thereto by Article XI-E of the Constitution of Maryland,' and that §§ 12, 13 and 14 'contain provisions authorizing the adoption of...

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4 cases
  • Schisler v. State
    • United States
    • Court of Special Appeals of Maryland
    • September 14, 2006
    ...23 Md. 531, 627 (1865); Davis v. State, 7 Md. 151, 161 (1854); Little v. Schul, 118 Md. 454, 563-64[463-64], (1912); Town of Glenarden v. Bromery, 257 Md. 19, 27 (1970); and the statutory appointment process examples cited by defendant at pages 13-14 of its memorandum in opposition to the m......
  • Ritchmount Partnership v. Board of Sup'rs of Elections for Anne Arundel County
    • United States
    • Maryland Court of Appeals
    • June 26, 1978
    ...cantons. Lowell, The Referendum in Switzerland and in America, 73 Atlantic Monthly 517 (1894); See also Town of Glenarden v. Bromery, 257 Md. 19, 23 n. 1, 262 A.2d 60 (1970). Popular support for the direct legislation movement in the United States was short-lived, lasting only about 20 year......
  • Blackwell v. City Council for City of Seat Pleasant
    • United States
    • Court of Special Appeals of Maryland
    • September 1, 1992
    ...case as establishing that sections 11 through 18 occupy the "whole field" of amendments to municipal charters. Town of Glenarden v. Bromery, 257 Md. 19, 24-25, 262 A.2d 60 (1970); Mayor of City of Hagerstown v. Lyon, 236 Md. 222, 228, 203 A.2d 260 (1964); 58 Opinions of the Attorney General......
  • Harlow v. Blocher, 209
    • United States
    • Maryland Court of Appeals
    • February 11, 1970
    ... ... Cf., Funger v. Mayor and Council of Town of Somerset, 244 Md. 141, 149, 223 A.2d 168 (1966).' ...         In the case before us ... ...

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