People ex rel. Attorney General v. Common Council of Detroit

• Decision Date: 30 January 1874
• Citation: 29 Mich. 108
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: The People on the relation of the Attorney General v. The Common Council of Detroit

29 Mich. 108

The People on the relation of the Attorney General v. The Common Council of Detroit

Supreme Court of Michigan

January 30, 1874

Heard January 29, 1874

Application for mandamus. Granted.

Mandamus issued as prayed.

D. C Holbrook, City Counselor, for the relator.

F. A Baker and Theodore Romeyn, for the respondents.

Cooley, J. Graves, Ch. J., Campbell, J. concurred. Christiancy, J., did not sit in this case.

OPINION

Cooley, J.

The relator in this case seeks to compel the performance by the respondents of the duty supposed to be imposed upon them to consider and act upon the nominations made by the mayor for their approval, under the act "to establish a board of public works in and for the city of Detroit," approved April 29, 1873. The respondents refuse to consider the nominations, and for cause assign the invalidity of the act because of its conflict with the constitution of the State.

It is not alleged that there is any defect of form in the act, or that there was any failure to observe the formalities which the constitution prescribes for the passage of laws. Neither is it claimed that anything in the act is distinctly opposed to any specific provision of the constitution, except as in its results it may have the effect to nullify to a greater or less extent, within the territory where it is to operate, one of the leading and most manifest purposes which was had in view when the constitution was adopted. The specific objection to it is, that it takes from the people of Detroit, in a highly important degree, that right of municipal self-government which is their vested and inalienable right while our institutions remain what they now are.

The constitutional right of municipal self-government we have in several instances been called upon to declare and protect, and our views have been so fully expressed that it would be quite superfluous to repeat them here. Nevertheless we cannot avoid feeling serious embarrassment when questions of the nature of the present are raised for our decision, because of the manifest impossibility of indicating any distinct boundary to the powers which may lawfully be exercised by the Legislature in matters of local concern; an embarrassment much more serious than can possibly exist in most cases where a distinct and specific inhibition of the constitution is supposed to be disregarded. For, while nothing within that instrument is more conspicuous than the purpose to preserve our local institutions, only a few of their features are indicated, and at almost every point where State regulations are made to affect in any degree the local government, it is possible for serious question to arise whether such regulations do or do not invade or obstruct the system the constitution designed to perpetuate, and do or do not for that reason become inadmissible. And under such circumstances, with no unmistakable signs to guide us between the domain of State and local powers, it becomes us to exercise more than the usual caution not to refuse the sanction of judicial authority to legislation which is supposed to have exceeded a boundary so difficult to locate and define.

In People v. Hurlbut, 24 Mich. 44, we held it not competent for the State to appoint for the city of Detroit its municipal officers, in whom was to be vested the management, regulation and control of municipal property rights. In that case the invasion of the local right was clear and palpable, and the act attempted was wholly unknown in the history of our State, not warranted by the history of municipal institutions to which we succeeded, and only supported by a few doubtful and mischievous precedents in another part of the Union. In that case the court endeavored to show that if the particular act then complained of could be supported, the same reasons must support other action that would take from the citizens of Detroit all valuable participation in its government. In People v. Common Council of Detroit, 28 Mich. 228, an act was held void which seemed to the court to have invaded the local rights with equal distinctness. In that case the State had taken local officers chosen for certain administrative and advisory purposes, and vested them with such powers as made their office essentially a new one; and as their authority was purely local, and related to the property rights of the city and its people, it seemed to the court only an indirect appointment by the State of officers whom the locality, if they were to have their interests committed to their care, had an unquestionable right to choose for themselves.

We should apply the principles of these cases without hesitation wherever we find them applicable, but we must first be convinced that they are applicable, and shall be solicitous in any case to avoid reaching the conclusion that it has become necessary. For, with an unquestionable right in the Legislature to prescribe the general features of local government in subordination to the constitutional purpose, there will not only be the presumption, which exists in every case, that the Legislature has purposed to keep within the limits of its authority, but there will be the undoubted fact of a general legislative authority over the particular subject, whose boundaries are so indistinct that more than the usual force should be allowed to the legislative judgment as to what is proper and admissible in the particular case.

In this instance the State has not attempted to exercise the power of appointing local officers, but in creating a new office has very properly left the filling of it to the mayor and common council. Neither has there been any attempt to remodel existing offices so as to vest the incumbents with authority which perhaps the people of the city might not consent to entrust them with. In no respect has the State taken to itself the local powers; and if the act is legally objectionable, it is not so because of the usurpation of local powers, but because the functions of local...