Case ID: fla_92/html/0187-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

State of Florida, ex rel., John B. Johnson, Attorney General, Relator, v. Paul R. Johns, David Fessler, R. A. Young, M. C. Frost, and I. T. Parker, Respondents.
    
    En Banc.
    Opinion Filed July 6, 1926.
    1. The principle of local self government is predicated upon the theory that the citizens of each municipality or governmental subdivision of a State should determine their own local public regulations and select their own local officials; but the extent to which and the manner in which the principle may be made applicable, depends' upon the provisions of controlling organic and statutory laws of the particular State.
    2. The legislature has plenary power over municipalities except as restrained by the Constitution.
    3. Municipal officers are statutory officers subject to legislative action; and the right to vote in municipal elections is controlled by statute and not by organic provisions relating to State elections.
    4. Municipal corporations have, in the absence of constitutional provisions safeguarding it to them, no inherent right of self-government which is beyond the legislative control of the State.
    5. The lawmaking power of the legislature of a State is subject only to the limitations provided in the State and Federal Constitutions; and no duly enacted statute should be judicially declared to be inoperative on the ground that it violates organic law, unless it clearly appears beyond all reasonable doubt that under any rational view that may be taken of the statute, it is in positive conflict with some identified or designated provision of constitutional law.
    
      6. A statute should be so construed and applied as to make it valid and effective if its language does not exclude such an interpretation. . .
    7. Where a statute does not violate the Federal or State Constitution, the legislative will is supreme, and its policy is not . subject to judicial review. The courts have no veto power and do not assume to regulate State policy; but they recognize and enforce the policy of the law as expressed in valid enactments, and decline to enforce statutes only when to do so would violate organic law.
    8. Whatever the phrase “local self-government” may mean in government, the Constitution of this State contains no express provision with reference thereto and there are no provisions of the organic law that so modify the express provision of Section 8, Article VIII of the Constitution that “the legislature shall have power to establish and to abolish municipalities, to provide for their government, to prescribe their jurisdiction and powers, and to alter or amend the same at any time,” as to withhold from the legislature the power to designate by statute the particular persons who shall exercise the powers of a municipality created by statute, such power to designate being a part of or incidental to the quoted organic power to establish municipalities, to provide for their government and to prescribe their jurisdiction and powers.
    9. The courts should not declare a statute to be void or inoperative on the ground that it is opposed to a spirit that is supposed to pervade the Constitution, or because the statute is considered unjust or unwise or impolitic.
    10. In exercising the powers expressly conferred by Section 8, Article VIII, the legislature must not violate any other provision of organic law.
    11. The principle of “local self-government” is not operative to nullify a legislative enactment that does not violate any express or implied provision of the State or Federal Constitution.
    A case of original jurisdiction.
    
      Vincent C. Giblin, for Relator;
    
      L. O. Casey, James M. Carson, McCune, Casey, Hiaasen á Fleming, and W. C. Hodges, for Respondents.
   Demurrer overruled and writ quashed.