Grinnell v. Hoffman

• Decision Date: 01 January 1886
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. GRINNELL v. HOFFMAN.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

116 Ill. 587

8 N.E. 788

PEOPLE ex rel. GRINNELL

v.HOFFMAN.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

1886.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HEREELECTIONS-CONSTITUTIONALITY OF ILLINOIS STATUTE OF 1885.

For majority opinion, see 5 N.E. 596.

SCHOLFIELD, J., ( dissenting.)

I am unable to concur in so much of the foregoing opinion of the majority of the court as holds that the law under consideration is not ‘local or special,’ within the meaning of those words as used in section 22, art. 4, of our constitution. That section provides: ‘The general assembly shall not pass local or special laws in any of the following enumerated cases; that is to say: * * * The opening and conducting of any election, or designating the place of voting. * * * In all other cases where a general law cna be made applicable, no special law shall be enacted.’ It is, in my opinion, plain, from the ordinary meaning of the words ‘local or special,’ that they are here used in contradistinction to the word ‘general.’ Bouv. Dict., and Webst. Dict. tits. ‘Local’ ‘Special.’ Within the contemplation of this section, all laws are either general, or local or special. There is no intermediate ground, and this, it seems to me, is put beyond all doubt by the concluding clause of the section: ‘In all other cases where a general law can be made applicable, no special law shall be enacted.’ And we have accordingly held that under this section there can be enacted, upon the enumerated subjects, none but general laws, (People v. Cooper, 83 Ill. 585,) and this is recognized, by implication at least, in Guild v. City of Chicago, 82 Ill. 472; Devine v. Commissioners, etc., 84 Ill. 590; and People v. Meech, 101 Ill. 200. Laws may be local, and yet in every sense public laws, (Levy v. State, 6 Ind. 282;State v. Webster, 29 Md. 516; Cooley, Const. Lim. [4th Ed.] 482;) but such laws are as clearly within the letter and the meaning of this section of the constitution as private local laws.

There has been upon the statute book, since the adoption of the present constitution, a general law regulating the opening and conducting of elections, and the designating of the places of holding elections, and that law, as amended from time to time, all concede, prior to the holding of the elections in the city of Chicago and the town of Lake for the adoption of this law, was in force in every part of the state, and is still in force in every part of it except where it may be superseded by the provisions of this act. Under the general law, the polls must be opened at 8 o'clock A. M., and closed at 7 o'clock P. M.; under this act, the polls must be opened at 6 o'clock A. M., and closed at 4 o'clock P. M. Under the general law, any one possessing the constitutional qualifications for voters, whose name is on the registry list, or whose name, not being on the registry list, shall be proved, by affidavit, in a manner specified, to be entitled to vote, shall be allowed to vote; under this act no one shall be allowed to vote whose name is not on the registry list 21 days before the election. Under the general law the county board fixes the limits of the election precincts, designates the places of voting, and, with certain exceptions, where they are designated by law by virtue of holding certain offices, appoints the judges of election; by this act all this is done by election commissioners appointed by the judge of the county court. Under the general law the offenses of illegal voting, bribery, etc., are punishable by fine or imprisonment in the county jail; by this act these offenses are punishable by confinement in the penitentiary. Under the general law the violation by judges of election of certain prescribed duties is punishable by fine or imprisonment in the county jail; by this act the same offenses are punishable by confinement in the penitentiary. There are still other matters of dissimilarity between the provisions of the general law and those of this act, equally as marked; but these are sufficient to show that this act is in no sense supplementary to the general law, and that it and the general law are not applicable to different conditions and states of fact, but that they contain radically different systems of law upon the same subject-matter.

I concede that a law may be general, and yet have practical operation only at rare intervals and in particular localities by reason of the peculiar subject-matter upon which it operates; as, for instance, a law applying to pilots would be the law in every part of the state, but it could only have practical application on water-courses at points where the vocation of pilots is called into operation. So, also, we have a law upon our statute book imposing penalties upon persons for failing to protect castor-beans from stock. In very many of the counties no castor-beans are ever raised, and so the law, in practical effect, applies to only a few counties. I also concede that the same general subject-matter may be so varied and changed by different combinations of circumstances that a general rule applicable in the one instance cannot be applicable in the other, and in such cases a law may be sufficiently general which lays down one rule as applicable to the subject-matter under the one combination of circumstances, and another rule as applicable to it as varied and changed by the different combination of circumstances. And so we have held that a town under the township organization law, having its limits coextensive with the limits of an incorporated city, is so essentially different, in the subject-matter of township law, from a town having its limits entirely in the country, that in many respects a different rule ought to be applied to the one from that applied to the other. But I deny that where there exists precisely the same subject-matter for a law, and where, in that subject-matter, or in the circumstances which can practically affect the application and enforcement of a law in regard to it, there is nothing to prevent a single uniform rule, it is competent to adopt and enforce, as respects the subjects enumerated in this section of the constitution, one rule in one locality and a different rule in another locality. I cannot believe that a law arbitrarily classifying the subject-matter of a law, and applying and enforcing different rules in conformity with such arbitrary classification, is general, or that it can be correctly denominated otherwise than ‘local or special.’ To justify classification the difference must be in the thing itself which forms the subject of legislation, and it must be substantial, and not simply fanciful. Hammer v. State, 44 N. J. Law, 667.

I assume that it is not questioned, for I do not see how it reasonably can be, that, if the general assembly had enacted that this act should apply to the city of Chicago and the town of Lake only, it would be ‘local or special,’ and therefore obnoxious to this section of the constitution. It is not possible that there can be any substantial reason why an election should be opened one hour earlier and closed three hours earlier in the town of Lake than in any of the other towns of Cook county outside of the city of Chicago,-why the county board should define the precincts and appoint the judges of election in the other towns of Cook county outside the city of Chicago, and that in the town of Lake this must be done by a board of commissioners appointed by the county judge. It is impossible to state a valid reason why illegal voting and malfeasance in office by judges of election are worse offenses in the city of Chicago or the town of Lake than they are in the village of Hyde Park, or, for that matter, in Peoria, Quincy, Bloomington, or Springfield, or in the rural voting districts. But the act does not assume to be based upon any difference in the subject-matter of the law, or in the local conditions or circumstances affecting it in different localities. It assumes, on the contrary, the subject-matter, and the local conditions and circumstances affecting it, to be the same in every city, village, or town having over 500 electors; and it is claimed to be general solely because any city, village, or town having over 500 electors may, by popular vote, adopt the act, and thus make its provisions applicable to it. What there is in the rural election districts, and in cities, villages, and towns with less than 500 electors, to distinguish them from the municipalities that are allowed to adopt the provisions of this act, justifying the classification here assumed, I am unable to ascertain.

Although the title of the act indicates an act in force in cities, villages, and incorporated towns, no portion of the act is that broad, and the scope of an act cannot be enlarged by its title. Potter, Dwar. 102, and notes. The first section only assumes to enact ‘that the electors of any city now existing in this state may adopt and become entitled to the provisions of this act in the manner following.’ Section 14 reads thus: ‘Any village or incorporated town in this state may adopt this act in like manner, and the same shall be submitted to a vote of the people of said village or town, upon written application to said county court, of five hundred electors in such village or town.’ And section 15 reads: ‘After and from the time of the adoption of this act, as aforesaid, the provisions of the same shall be applicable to such cities, villages, or towns.’ Section 1 of article 11 then starts off as follows: ‘In every city, village, and incorporated town so adopting this act,’ etc., and then follow the provisions of the act to be enforced in regard to elections. And so the act itself explicitly declares, without any circumlocution, that it applies and is the law in such cities, villages, and towns only, as a majority of the electors wish it to be the law, and so declare at an election held for that purpose, in conformity with the provisions of the act. If valid, its provisions in relation to the opening and conducting...