Opinion ID: 853063
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Subsection (g) is Special Legislation

Text: The decisions of the trial court and Court of Appeals in this case reflected both the reasonable classification approach and the view that population classifications are per se permissible under Article IV as general legislation. As both courts pointed out, any county could theoretically move into the 200,000-to-300,000 person population category defined by subsection (g), from above or below those points, and thus the statute, being susceptible of uniform application to any county in the State meeting the population criteria, was general, not special, legislation. Kimsey, 751 N.E.2d at 811-12. The Court of Appeals also stated: Notwithstanding Section 23, the legislature may make classifications of subjects of legislation, provided the classification is reasonable and the statute operates equally on all within the class. The statute is then considered to be general. Id. at 810 (citations omitted). As explained in Part III, these considerations are relevant if not controlling on the issue of whether a general law can be made applicable. But neither of these points addresses the threshold issue whether subsection (g) is general or special under Moseley, Hoovler, and Williams. As in Hoovler, the circumstances surrounding the enactment of subsection (g) leads to the conclusion that this statute is special legislation. State v. Hoovler, 668 N.E.2d 1229, 1234-35 (Ind.1996). Public Law No. 257 was introduced as amendatory legislation in 1993 by a Representative from St. Joseph County, and sponsored in the Senate by a Senator whose district included both St. Joseph and Elkhart Counties. The bill declared an emergency requiring immediate effect. 1993 Ind. Acts 257 § 4. Because Section 3 of the bill applied only to St. Joseph County at the time of its enactment and for the foreseeable future, and immediate effect was required, the legislature necessarily intended it to address some issue peculiar to St. Joseph County. Thus the evidence is clear that, at the time it was enacted, subsection (g)'s population classification served no purpose other than to identify St. Joseph County. This is no different than had the legislature simply named St. Joseph County in the statute, as was the case in Williams, where the statute specifically stated that it governed the courts of Lake County. Moreover, later amendments did not change the special status of St. Joseph County. In Moseley, it was apparent that the statute at issue was special legislation because it affected Lake County differently from other counties allowed to permit dockside gambling, and also rendered most Indiana counties unable to participate in dockside gambling. Ind. Gaming Comm'n v. Moseley, 643 N.E.2d 296, 301 (Ind.1994). Here, the singling out of St. Joseph County is just as severe. Section 36-4-3-13 now requires the opposition of sixty-five percent of landowners to defeat annexation in every other county in the State, but retains the majority requirement for St. Joseph County. Ind.Code § 36-4-3-13(e) (2002).