City of Chicago v. Reeves

• Decision Date: 05 April 1906
• Citation: 220 Ill. 274,77 N.E. 237
• Parties: CITY OF CHICAGO v. REEVES.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

220 Ill. 274

77 N.E. 237

CITY OF CHICAGO

v.REEVES.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 15, 1906.

Rehearing Denied April 5, 1906.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Cook County; Julian W. Mack, Judge.

Bill by Edwy Logan Reeves against the city of Chicago. From a decree in favor of complainant, defendant appeals. Reversed.

James H. Lewis, Corp. Counsel, Hiram T. Gilbert, John P. Wilson, and John Barton Payne, for appellant.

John C. Richberg, Henry Schofield, John J. Herrick, William E. Church, George A. Mason, lackner, Butz & Miller, and Julius & Lessing Rosenthal (Richberg & Richberg, of counsel), for appellee.

HAND, J.

This was a bill in chancery filed by the appellee, a resident and taxpayer of the city of Chicago, in the circuit court of Cook county, for and on behalf of himself, as well as all other taxpayers in the city of Chicago who might choose to join therein as parties complainant, against the city of Chicago, for an injunction restraining the city of Chicago, its officers, and agents, including its city counsel, from appropriating or causing to be paid out of the treasury of said city any moneys whatever on account of the municipal court of Chicago, established by an act entitled ‘An act in relation to a municipal court in the city of Chicago,’ approved May 18, 1905 (Laws 1905, p. 158), and consented to by the legal voters of the city of Chicago at the general election held in said city on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November, 1905. A demurrer was interposed to the bill, which was overruled, and, the defendant having elected to stand by its demurrer, a decree was entered in accordance with the prayer of the bill, and the city of Chicago has prosecuted an appeal to this court to reverse said decree.

The main contention of the appellee is that said municipal court act is void by reason of the fact that the constitutional amendment of 1904, known as section 34 of article 4, in which must be found the legislative authority to pass said act, is invalid, because, as it is alleged, said constitutional amendment was not proposed by the General Assembly in accordance with the provisions of section 2 of article 14 of the Constitution, in this: that the General Assembly, in proposingsaid amendment, proposed amendments to more than one article of the Constitution at the same session, which is prohibited by said section 2 of article 14, which prohibition reads as follows: ‘The General Assembly shall have no power to propose amendments to more than one article of this Constitution at the same session.’ The amendment of 1904 is long and somewhat complicated; but it, in short, provides the General Assembly shall have power, subject to the conditions and limitations therein contained, (1) to pass any law, local, special, or general, providing a scheme or charter of local municipal government for the territory now or hereafter embraced within the limits of the city of Chicago; (2) to pass laws for consolidating in the municipal government of Chicago the powers now vested in the several municipal governments within said territory and for the assumption of their duties and liabilities, and in the event of the city's becoming liable for the indebtedness of said municipal corporations the city may become indebted in the aggregate not to exceed 5 per centum of the full value of the taxable property within said territory, to be ascertained by the last assessment either for state or municipal purposes; (3) and may provide for the assessment of property and for the levy and collection of taxes for corporate purposes in accordance with the principles of equity and uniformity prescribed by this Constitution; (4) may abolish all offices the functions of which shall be otherwise provided for; (5) may provide for the annexation of territory to or disconnection of territory from said city, by the consent of a majority of the legal voters thereof and of the territory affected; (6) may create municipal courts and provide for their jurisdiction and practice, and abolish the offices of justices of the peace, police magistrates, and constables in the city of Chicago, and limit the jurisdiction of justices of the peace in Cook county to territory outside the city of Chicago; (7) may pass all laws requisite to effectually provide a complete system of local municipal governmentin and for the city of Chicago; (8) provides for a referendum, and that nothing in the amendment shall be construed to repeal, amend or affect section 4 of article 11 of the Constitution.

It must be conceded that changes are wrought in at least two articles of the Constitution of 1870 by the amendment of 1904 in addition to the changes made in article 4, to which article the amendment is an express amendment-that is, the offices of justices of the peace, police magistrates, and constables, created by sections 1, 21, and 28 of article 6, may be abolished in the city of Chicago if municipal courts are created in said city and the jurisdiction of justices of the peace in Cook county limited to territory outside of the city of Chicago-and the uniformity in jurisdiction and practice in courts of the same grade, provided for by section 29 of article 6, is abrogated in the city of Chicago; and section 12 of article 9 is changed so that the city of Chicago may become indebted to an amount aggregating 5 per centum of the full value of the taxable property within its limits as ascertained by the last assessment, either for state or municipal purposes, previous to the incurring of such indebtedness, instead of not to exceed 5 per centum of the value of the taxable property therein to be ascertained by the last assessment for state and county purposes previous to the incurring of such indebtedness. The question is therefore presented for decision whether the changes made in articles 6 and 9 of the Constitution by the amendment of 1904 are, as is contended by counsel for appellant, such as may be made as merely incidental to the object sought to be accomplished by the amendment, or whether they are, as is contended by counsel for appellee, such amendments to those articles as are prohibited by section 2 of article 14 unless proposed by the General Assembly as express amendments to each of said articles.

The Constitution contains 14 articles, 3 special sections, and 1 schedule. Each article is devoted to a particularsubject; article 4 being devoted to the ‘Legislative Department,’ article 6 to the ‘Judicial Department,’ and article 9 to the ‘Revenue.’ We think it plain that the purpose of section 2 of article 14, that ‘amendments to more than one article’ shall not be proposed by the General Assembly at the same session, was incorporated in the Constitution by its framers to end that the people might not be misled and confused in voting upon a proposition to change the Constitution by having proposed to them by the General Assembly at the same session amendments to different articles of the Constitution; that is, that the amendments proposed at one session should be in express form and confined to some particular subject contained in some one of the articles of the Constitution, and that said section 2 was not intended as a prohibition upon the proposal of amendments to an article of the Constitution unless such amendments were of a character that they could, in their effect, be confined solely to the article sought expressly to be amended. In other words, that said section 2 of article 14 was intended to prohibit the proposal of express amendments to more than one article of the Constitution at the same session, and was not intended to prevent implied amendments or changes which were necessarily worked in other articles of the Constitution by the express amendments of a particular article of the Constitution. Any other view would be so narrow as to prohibit the General Assembly in many, if not in all, cases from proposing amendments to a particular article of the Constitution, as the several articles of the Constitution are so far connected and dependent upon each other that a change in any article, generally, if not universally, has the effect to produce changes of more or less importance in one or more of the articles of the Constitution other than that which is expressly amended.

In People v. Rose, 203 Ill. 46, 67 N. E. 746, in construing the constitutional provision fixing the time when changes in the Supreme Court districts might be made, which provision reads: ‘The boundaries of the districts may be changed at the session of the General Assembly next preceding the election for judges therein, and at no other time’-on page 50 of 203 Ill.,page 748 of 67 N. E., the court said: ‘The only limitation found in this provision as to the time when the boundaries of the districts may be changed is that the change must be made at the session of the General Assembly next preceding the election for judges therein. Under the Constitution a judge of the Supreme Court for the Fourth district is to be elected on the first Monday of June, 1903, and the act changing the boundaries of said district was passed at the session of the General Assembly next preceding the election for judge in said district, and as we view the matter the General Assembly at that session was authorized to make such change (People v. Rose, 166 Ill. 422, 47 N. E. 64), and it seems too plain for argument that, unless we are right in so holding, the boundaries of the Fourth district can never be changed unless the limitation that the change must be made at the session of the General Assembly next preceding the election for judges therein is to be entirely eliminated from the Constitution.’

In the amendment of statutes and constitutions a distinction between express amendments and amendments by implication has been repeatedly recognized by the courts, and such distinction is well understood. By section 13 of article 4 it is provided that ‘no law shall be revived or amended by reference to its...