State v. Hine
| Citation | 59 Conn. 50,21 A. 1024 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. WALSH v. HINE. |
| Decision Date | 31 January 1890 |
| Court | Supreme Court of Connecticut |
Case reserved from superior court, Hartford county.
J. Walsh, for relator.
E. D. Robbins, for defendant.
By an act of the legislature of this state approved March 7, 1889, and taking effect from its passage, it was provided as follows: "The secretary of the state board of education shall ex officio be a member of the school committee of every town and school-district in which is situated a school whose teachers are appointed by the state board of education, and shall have all the powers and duties of the other members of such school committee." Pub. Acts 1889, c. 125. In the town of New Britain is situated the state normal school, whose teachers are appointed by the state board of education. The respondent is secretary of the board, and as such has, ever since the 11th of May, 1889, exercised, and claimed the right to exercise, under said statute, the office of a member of the school committee of the town of New Britain. The case at bar is an information in the nature of a writ of quo warranto to determine the right of the respondent to exercise such office. In his plea to the information the respondent set up the above facts in justification of his right to act as a member of the committee, to which plea the relator demurred on the ground that the act in question is unconstitutional and void, and the questions so arising upon the record are reserved for the advice of this court. The relator claims that the act is unconstitutional—First, because it violates certain express provisions of the constitution of this state; and, second, because it violates certain fundamental principles impliedly recognized. In and by that instrument which he claims are just as obligatory upon the legislature as if they were expressly contained therein. The only express provisions of the constitution which it is claimed the act in question violates are the two following: "Every town shall annually elect selectmen and such officers of local police as the laws shall prescribe." Article 10, § 2. "The rights and duties of all corporations shall remain as if this constitution had not been adopted, with the exception of such regulations and restrictions as are contained in this constitution." Article 10, § 3.
Under the first of these provisions it is claimed that the power to elect officers of local police is vested solely in the towns; under the second, that the right to elect their own town officers, which it is claimed had, prior to the adoption of the constitution, existed in the towns from the foundation of our government, remains to them as before. If we concede, for the sake of the argument, that, so far as officers of local police and ordinary town officers are concerned, these claims are well founded, it will not help the relator unless the members of school committees elected by towns, as is the case in New Britain at present, are either officers of local police, within the meaning of the constitution, or are ordinary town officers, which it is claimed the towns have always had the right to elect. If the right to elect members of a school committee was not a right which existed in towns at the time of the adoption of the constitution, then it was not one of the rights reserved to them under section 3 of article 10, above quoted. But at the time of the adoption of the constitution the towns in this state possessed no such right. For a long time prior to and at the time of its adoption the towns, as such, had nothing to do with the election of school committees or other officers having charge of educational matters within the town limits. These committees and officers were elected then, as they have to a large extent been elected since, by school societies and school-districts, formed at the will of the legislature, and frequently without regard to town lines. The claim, then, that the right to elect school committees was a right which existed in towns prior to the adoption of the constitution, and which therefore remained in the towns after its adoption by the express provision above quoted from section 3, art. 10, is without foundation in fact.
The other claim, that members of a school committee, when elected by a town, and not by a district or society, are officers of local police, within the meaning of the constitution, is equally without foundation. From the...
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...418, 420); local officer (People ex rel. Baird v. Nixon, 158 N.Y. 221, 227, 52 N.E. 1117, 1118); local police (State ex rel. Walsh v. Hine, 59 Conn. 50, 60, 21 A. 1024, 1025, 10 L. R.A. 83); local property (San Francisco & S. J. V. R. Co. v. Stockton, 149 Cal. 83, 90, 84 P. 771, 774); local......
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Stolberg v. Caldwell
...was no question that the legislature had the plenary power to create, consolidate and abolish school districts. State ex rel. Walsh v. Hine, 59 Conn. 50, 60, 21 A. 1024. Without distributing and dividing the powers of government so as to create a distinct, separate fourth magistracy, the st......
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Waterbury Teachers Ass'n v. Furlong
...Lucier v. Norfolk, 99 Conn. 686, 122 A. 711; State ex rel. Huntington v. School Committee, 82 Conn. 563, 74 A. 882; State ex rel. Walsh v. Hine, 59 Conn. 50, 21 A. 1024. The association interprets some of the broad language in these many decisions to hold that a board of education is virtua......
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Reg'l High Sch. Dist. No. v. Town Of Newtown
...2 The plenary power of the legislature to create, consolidate and abolish districts is not questioned. State ex rel. Walsh v. Hine, 59 Conn. 50, 60, 21 A. 1024, 10 L.R.A. 83; State ex rel. Huntington v. Huntington Town School Committee, 82 Conn. 563, 566, 74 A. 882; Voorhees, Law of Public ......