Opinion ID: 1243449
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Title-Object Clause provides:

Text: No law shall embrace more than one object, which shall be expressed in its title. No bill shall be altered or amended on its passage through either house so as to change its original purpose as determined by its total content and not alone by its title. Const 1963, art 4, § 24. The question whether the title of the home rule cities act is sufficient to encompass annexation procedures was resolved in Village of Kingsford v Cudlip, 258 Mich 144; 241 NW 893 (1932), where this Court considered the question in the context of annexation of township territory to a village under a village governance act. [6] The Court observed that the title of the home rule cities act and the village act were identical  except that one speaks of the incorporation of cities and the other of villages  and declared: Both of these acts have been many times before this court, and, so far as we have been able to discover, this is the first time the sufficiency of the present titles has been assailed. Both the legislature and the courts have treated these titles as sufficient to sustain the provisions for change of boundaries. The necessity of such changes from time to time is apparent, and in our opinion the power conferred upon the legislature by the Constitution `to provide by a general law for the incorporation' may fairly be said to include the change of boundaries when needed. Id, 151-152. [7] Village of Kingsford was followed in Hall v Calhoun County Board of Supervisors, 373 Mich 642, 647; 130 NW2d 414 (1964), approving annexation pursuant to the procedures of the home rule cities act of one city by another against a contention that this would amount to a disincorporation of the annexed city, and the title of the [home rule cities act] has reference to the incorporation only: We have said that the act's title is broad enough to encompass annexation, Village of Kingsford v Cudlip, 258 Mich 144, 151, 152, and this being so we are not prepared to say that it is not broad enough to encompass annexation of a city. We are committed to a liberal interpretation of the constitutional provision concerning titles of legislative enactments. Id, p 648. Acknowledging that Village of Kingsford and Hall establish that the title of the home rule cities act is sufficient to encompass annexation procedures, the townships contend that those cases have been superseded by Alan v Wayne County, 388 Mich 210; 200 NW2d 628; 67 ALR3d 1079 (1972), where this Court declared that if it were intended by the building authority act, [8] as amended, as defendants claim, to permit taxation without limitation to pay fixed rentals, then [the body of that act] exceeds the scope of the title, because the title of that act limits the body to the issuance of revenue bonds by such authorities. Id, pp 257, 358. The Title-Object issue in Alan was different from the issue here presented of the sufficiency of the title. The issue in Alan was whether the body of the act exceeded the scope of the title, speaking, as expressed in People v Stanton, 400 Mich 192, 195; 253 NW2d 650 (1977), more broadly than its restrictively-speaking title. Similarly, see Maki v East Tawas, 385 Mich 151; 188 NW2d 593 (1971). Where the issue is the sufficiency of the notice provided by the title, it is established that the title need not serve as an index of all that the act contains. People v Milton, 393 Mich 234, 246-247; 224 NW2d 266 (1974). An abridgment of all those sections is not essential to a sufficient title. While it contains various related provisions not directly indicated or enumerated in the title, under the construction of this constitutional requirement, as many times reviewed by this court, if the act centers to one main general object or purpose which the title comprehensively declares, though in general terms, and if provisions in the body of the act not directly mentioned in the title are germane, auxiliary, or incidental to that general purpose, the constitutional requirement is met. Loomis v Rogers, 197 Mich 265, 271; 163 NW 1018 (1917) (emphasis supplied). As with codifications, [9] an act providing for the functioning of a city covers many subjects which might have been dealt with in separate acts. The object of such an act is necessarily broad-ranging and comprehensive. The home rule act and other acts providing for the incorporation of cities and other units of local government have been interpreted as having as their object anything germane to their functioning. Detroit Board of Street Railway Commissioners v Wayne County, 18 Mich App 614, 623; 171 NW2d 669 (1969).