Montgomery Citizens League v. Greenhalgh

• Decision Date: 08 April 1969
• Docket Number: No. 339,339
• Citation: 253 Md. 151,252 A.2d 242
• Parties: MONTGOMERY CITIZENS LEAGUE et al. v. William GREENHALGH et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 151

253 Md. 151

252 A.2d 242

MONTGOMERY CITIZENS LEAGUE et al. v. William GREENHALGH et al.

No. 339.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

April 8, 1969.

Dissenting Opinion April 29, 1969.

Joe M. Kyle, Silver Spring (Heise, Kyle & Jorgensen, Silver Spring, on the brief), for appellants.

David L. Cahoon, County Atty. and Stanley D. Abrams Asst. County Atty., Rockville (Alfred H. Carter, Deputy Co. Atty., Rockville, on the brief), for appellees.

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

HAMMOND, Chief Judge.

After the decision in Scull v. Montgomery Citizens League, 249 Md. 271, 239 A.2d 92, cited hereafter as Scull, which held that the County Council of Montgomery County could enact laws only when sitting in legislative session and, therefore, that a fair housing law enacted when the Council was sitting in executive session was invalid and of no effect, the Council, sitting in emergency legislative session, again enacted a fair housing law, hereinafter sometimes referred to as Bill No. 18. The appellants, various individuals who alleged that they would be adversely and injuriously affected by the impact and operation of the new law, filed a bill (later amended), which alleged its invalidity and sought to enjoin the County Council, the executive secretary of the County's Human Relations Commission, the three members of the Commission's Panel on Housing, and the County Attorney from enforcing it. Judge Clapp sustained a demurrer to the bill, and later a demurrer to the amended bill without leave to amend.

Bill No. 18 prohibits discrimination on the basis of color, religious creed, ancestry or national origin in the sale or rental of housing and in the lending of money for the purchase, construction or repair of housing; it prohibits the practice commonly called 'blockbusting,' including attempts to induce the sale of housing by representations as to the proximity of dwelling units occupied by persons of any particular race, color or creed and it establishes enforcement procedures such as the receipt and investigation of complaints by the executive secretary of the Human Relations Commission and the hearing and disposition of such complaints by the three members of the Commission's Panel on Housing appointed by the Council.

Appellants raise and argue here only three contentions which we state in what to us is an appropriate and orderly sequence: (1) Bill No. 18 is invalid because the purported emergency session of the Council was not authorized by Art. XI-A of the Constitution of Maryland; (2) the Council did not declare a need for an emergency session on May 30, 1968, the day when Bill No. 18 was enacted; (3) the legislative powers delegated to the County Council did not embrace the power to pass a fair housing law.

When the Home Rule Amendment first became a part of the Constitution of Maryland in 1915, § 3 of Art. XI-A provided that in every home rule county there must be an elected legislative body 'in which shall be vested the law- making power of said * * * County,' a body given,

'subject to the Constitution and Public General Laws of this State, * * * full power to enact local laws of said * * * County, including the power to repeal or amend local laws of said * * * County enacted by the General Assembly, upon all matters covered by the express powers granted as above provided * * *.'

Section 3 went on to say:

'Provided, however, that the charters for the various Counties shall provide that the County Council of the Counties shall not sit more than one month in each year for the purpose of enacting legislation for such Counties, and all legislation shall be enacted during the month so designated for that purpose in the charter.'

In its first charter Montgomery County, obeying this constitutional mandate, named May as the legislative month. Although the Court of Appeals noted in Schneider v. Lansdale, 191 Md. 317, 327, 61 A.2d 671, 675, that 'Those who framed (Art. XI-A) were fearful of a lawmaking body in continuous session, and therefore the new authority to legislate was carefully restricted,' the restriction imposed was found to be unduly confining and frustrating and this led to the practice of the County Council of Montgomery County of enacting legislation while sitting in executive session, a practice found as illegal in Scull. The restriction also led the legislture in 1955 at the suggestion of the Baltimore County Charter Board to propose an amendment to Art. XI-A so that the County Council of Baltimore County could, under its proposed charter, meet at the call of the County Executive or any three councilmen on days other than those of the regular specified legislative session of the month of May. ¹

The amendment was ratified by the voters at the general election of 1956, the year the Baltimore County Charter was adopted. Under it, Art. XI-A, § 3 reads in pertinent part:

'Provided, however, that the charters for the various Counties shall specify the number of days, not to exceed forty-five, which may but need not be consecutive, that the County Council of the Counties may sit in each year for the purpose of enacting legislation for such Counties, and all legislation shall be enacted at the times so designated in the charter * * *.'

In 1966 the Charter of Montgomery County was amended to read:

'For the enactment of legislation, the county council shall sit in legislative session from the 5th day of January through the 3rd day of February of each year.

'If the council by a resolution approved by a majority vote of its members declares a need for an emergency extra session or sessions, such extra session or sessions may be held in addition to the aforementioned legislative session for a total period which does not exceed fifteen days. The said fifteen days may or may not be consecutive and may consist of one or more sessions.'

It was under this charter provision that the emergency session which produced Bill No. 18 was called and we think permissibly so.

The new provision continued to forbid the legislative body of a chartered County to remain in session indefinitely. The 1956 amendment to Art. XI-A required specification in the charter only of the number of days (up to forty-five a year) to be devoted to lawmaking. These days could be particularized by pre-identification in the charter as Art. XI-A originally had required or, in conformance with the adage that that is certain which can be made certain, later could be made identifiable by following a procedure prescribed in the charter. Montgomery County and Baltimore County each availed itself of the more flexible alternative, Baltimore County by the mechanics of a call by the County Executive or three members of the Council for extra legislative sessions, and Montgomery County by using a resolution by a majority of the Council. It is not without significance that the interpretation we give to the language of the 1956 constitutional amendment was presented as the true meaning of that language by the Baltimore County Charter Board which proposed the amendment to the legislature and was made generally available to the voters who ratified it.

We see little substance and no merit to the argument that Bill No. 18 is invalid because there was no express separate declaration by a majority of the Council that May 30, 1968, was a legislative day. On April 30, 1968, the Council adopted a resolution that the public interest required an 'emergency extra Legislative Session to commence at 7:30 o'clock p. m. on May 1, 1968.' Bill No. 18 was introduced after the emergency session began and was the subject of public hearings on May 22 and May 23 in sessions described by the Council as executive sessions. Judge Clapp, in rightly rejecting appellants' contention on this point, noted that the allegations of the bill were that between May 1 when the bill was introduced and May 30 when it was passed the Council had adjourned its legislative session to six various future days and had so held such meetings, as well as other executive sessions, but that the legislative session that began May 1 was never adjourned sine die until May 31, but rather the legislative meetings held after May 1 were interim meetings adjourned from the original May 1 date. Bond v. Baltimore City, 111 Md. 364, 369-370, 74 A. 14, 17, on which Judge Clapp relied, fully supports his holding. There the Court quoted with approval Roberts' Rules of Order as follows:

"A session is a meeting which, though it may last for days, is virtually one meeting; as, for instance, a session of Congress, which meets for months. The only way to terminate a session is to adjourn sine die, or without day. The intermediate adjournments from day to day do not destroy the continuity of the meeting-they, in reality, constitute one session. An adjournment to meet again at some other time terminates the meeting, but not the session. The next meeting, in such a case as the one last mentioned, would be an adjourned meeting of the same session." (111 Md. at 369, 74 A. at 17.)

The Court held that:

'Other important legislation has been passed by the City Council in the same way this ordinance was, and as, in order to sustain it, it is only necessary to construe the charter to mean that the session of the City Council extends from its organization at the beginning of the first legislative year to the end of the second legislative year, during which the same members remain in office, and especially as we can find no valid reason for the contrary, we adopt that construction.' (111 Md. at 370, 74 A. at 17.)

See also 4 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations (3rd Ed.) § 13.39, and 4 Antieau, Local Government Law: County Law § 32.06.

Appellants' argument that the Council lacked power to enact a fair housing or equal accommodation law, since it had not been delegated either the full police power of the State or a specifically enabling grant of such power, was found by Judge Clapp to be...