State ex rel. Smith v. City of St. Paul
| Decision Date | 24 December 1914 |
| Docket Number | 19,056 - (19) |
| Citation | 150 N.W. 389,128 Minn. 82 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. LYNDON A. SMITH v. CITY OF ST. PAUL and Others |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Upon the relation of Lyndon A. Smith, as Attorney General, this court issued its writ directed to the city of St. Paul, Winn Powers, S. A. Farnsworth, O. E. Keller, Henry McColl, Anthony Yoerg, M. N. Goss, J. J. O'Leary and W. C. Handy, to show cause quo warranto they claimed to exercise any authority in matters pertaining to schools and libraries in that city. Writ quashed.
City of St. Paul -- commission charter sustained.
The Commission Charter of the city of St. Paul, adopted in 1912 sustained as against the contention that, by reason of its educational features, its adoption, solely by the male voters or otherwise, was not authorized by Const. art. 4, § 36 relating to home-rule charters, and that such provisions contravene Const. art. 8, §§ 1, 3, relating to establishment and maintenance of public schools, and, both in themselves and in the manner of their adoption, violate article 7, § 8, enfranchising women in educational matters.
Lyndon A. Smith, Attorney General, Marcus D. Munn, Charles E. Otis, Francis B. Tiffany, W. H. Yardley, John F. Fitzpatrick, Frederick G. Ingersoll, Charles Bechhoefer, William G. Graves and Gustavus Loevinger, for relator.
O. H. O'Neill and John W. Bennett, for respondents.
This is a quo warranto proceeding commenced in this court on information of the attorney general, to test the constitutionality of certain provisions of the present Commission Charter of the city of St. Paul, and the individual respondents' right to exercise authority over its public schools and libraries. Respondents moved to quash.
The facts set out in the petition and writ will be accepted as true, and are as follows: The city has been a municipal corporation for more than 50 years. In 1900 it adopted, pursuant to Const. art. 4, § 36, a Home Rule Charter, which in terms included and adopted the provisions of Sp. Laws 1891, p. 268, c. 36, as amended, whereby the city was organized and incorporated as a special school district with the usual statutory powers, to be administered by seven school inspectors appointed by the mayor and authorized to exercise all the powers vested thereby or by any general law in any school district or in the city considered as a separate and independent one; and thereafter the special district thus created was so administered until the city's Commission Charter became effective. Similarly, up to that time, the city's library system, under the Home Rule Charter, was under the control of a board of directors appointed by the mayor, with authority to manage and supervise all public libraries, reading rooms, etc., and all property acquired for such use, and power, subject to other provisions of the charter, to control and expend all moneys received for such purposes. In 1912 the Commission Charter, which contained no provision concerning voting by women, was proposed, by way of an amendment to the Home Rule Charter, by petition of male voters, and was submitted to and adopted by the male electors at an election held for that purpose and at which women were not allowed to vote. This amendment attempted to substitute, in lieu of the special law of 1891, a different plan as to the management and control of public schools and libraries and the affairs of the school district, by placing them in control of the mayor and six councilmen, one of which latter was to be known as the Commissioner of Education, with the duty and power of establishing, controlling, maintaining and providing for such schools, the public school system, and the general educational interests of the city as a special school district, and of managing and controlling the property of the city used for educational purposes, with like control of its libraries, together with all property set apart for their use or maintenance and the expenditure of moneys in connection therewith. It is claimed that under the last charter women are in effect denied the right to vote for school and library boards, and are ineligible to hold office pertaining to the management of schools and libraries. The amendment became effective, if ever, in June, 1914, and, all the offices held by respondents being thereby made elective, respondent Powers was chosen mayor, Handy comptroller, and the others councilmen, at an election held thereunder. Thereafter they qualified and entered upon the performance of their respective duties, which they have since continued to perform, with Councilman Yoerg acting in the capacity of Commissioner of Education in accordance with the Commission Charter, to which position he was duly appointed by the mayor.
The provisions of the Home Rule Charter concerning the schools and libraries of the municipal school district, relator claims, have not been superseded by those of the Commission Charter relating to the same subjects, and the former and not the latter are in force in these regards. These contentions are based on the proposition that the provisions of the Commission Charter relating to schools and libraries variously violate our Constitution; and thus manifestly the whole controversy turns upon an answer to the question whether there was lawful right in the male electors only, to substitute the plan of controlling St. Paul as a special school district and its libraries, embraced in the Commission Charter, for that established by Sp. Laws 1891, p. 268, c. 36; relator's insistence being that the former violates Const. art. 8, §§ 1, 3; art. 4, § 36; and art. 7, § 8.
1. Sections one and three of article 8 are as follows:
These provisions were not grants of power, this being inherent, but are mandates prescribing the specified duty. Associated Schools of I.D. No. 63 of Hector v. School District No. 83 of Renville County, 122 Minn. 254, 142 N.W. 325, 47 L.R.A. (N.S.) 200. With us maintenance of public schools has always been a matter of state as distinguished from local concern. As has well been said in a recent decision, education Kuhn v. Thompson, 168 Mich. 511, 134 N.W. 722. In order, however, to effectuate the constitutional mandates, quoted above, and in pursuance of a settled public policy, the law-making body has, because itself unable to perform these duties directly, provided for common, independent and special school districts, all of which are usually public corporations; the two former being governed by general laws, and the latter by the special laws creating them, except as these are modified by general laws. The legality of these special districts is settled by a line of decisions commencing with Board of Education of Town of Sauk Centre v. Moore, 17 Minn. 391 (412), wherein it was held that the establishment of such districts by legislative acts did not contravene the uniformity clause of the Constitution. Nor can it be questioned. They are recognized as legal in all the cases about to be cited, and also in State v. Henderson, 97 Minn. 369, 106 N.W. 348, and in Curryer v. Merrill, 25 Minn. 1, 33 Am. Rep. 450, wherein it was claimed that the same rules applicable to ordinary common schools and districts in respect to text books had to be applied to independent and special districts. The court said at page 6:
Several of these special districts are directly identified by statute with municipalities, and are administered in connection with their affairs. One of such was involved in City of Winona v. School District, No. 82, Winona County, 40 Minn. 13 41 N.W. 539. By special law the territory within the corporate limits of the city of Winona was constituted one school district for the regulation and management of its schools, under the direction and control of a board whose members were to be elected at the charter election, two for each ward, and one for the city at large, to constitute the "board of education of the city of Winona." The city council was required to approve and ratify every contract made by the board for the purchase of a school-house site, and the board was required to submit to the city council annually an estimate of the necessary sums to defray the expenses of the schools, which was subject to the latter's approval and defrayed by a tax levy on the city property, to be collected as other city taxes and the money paid into the city treasury. The...
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