Opinion ID: 842332
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: analysis

Text: Const. 1963, art. 8, § 9 states: The legislature shall provide by law for the establishment and support of public libraries which shall be available to all residents of the state under regulations adopted by the governing bodies thereof. Defendant argues that a public library is available for purposes of our constitution when it is subject to entry and its resources subject to use on site. We disagree. Instead, we agree with plaintiff that a public library is only available when a person enjoys reasonable borrowing privileges. In particular, we agree with plaintiff that, in construing our constitution, available must be assessed specifically in conjunction with public libraries. Although this may not necessarily be true with regard to research libraries or private libraries, we believe that the common understanding is that public libraries are only available to a person if he has reasonable borrowing privileges. [2] However, we disagree with plaintiff's premise that Const. 1963, art. 8, § 9 requires that each individual public library facility in Michigan must be available on identical terms to all residents of the state. Rather than addressing the obligations of individual library facilities, this provision is better understood, in our judgment, as assuring the availability of public libraries in general. [3] That is, the Legislature shall make public libraries available, not necessarily each individual library facility. Const. 1963, art. 8, § 9 does not refer to each and every public library or to individual public library facilities, but refers only to the legislative obligation to provide for the establishment and support of public libraries. By this use of the plural, as well as the use of the broad terms establishment and support, we believe that the constitution refers to public libraries as an entity, i.e., public libraries as an institution. It is this entity, this institution  the public library  that must be made available to all residents, not each individual library facility. [4] By way of example, the very same article of the constitution reads, [r]eligion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. Const. 1963, art. 8, § 1. Such encourage[ment] of schools, to continue forever, does not, we believe, prohibit the cities of Detroit or Saginaw, for example, from ever closing an underutilized or an out-of-date school, for individual school facilities are simply not the subject of this provision. Rather, it is schools as an entity, as an institution, that must forever be encouraged. [5] Likewise, in Const. 1963, art. 8, § 9, it is not each individual library facility that must be made available, but rather public libraries as an entity or as an institution that must be made available. And this is precisely what the Legislature has done. Acting pursuant to its constitutional obligation to provide by law for the establishment and support of public libraries which shall be available to all residents of the state, the Legislature has enacted numerous laws. [6] The premise of these laws appears to be that the mandate of the constitution can best be achieved by (a) the encouragement of local control of public libraries; [7] and (b) the establishment of a system in which communities with public libraries can enter into agreements with communities without public libraries in order to extend access to such libraries. [8] By these principles local control and the encouragement of interjurisdictional agreements the Legislature has sought to satisfy its constitutional obligations by incentivizing communities both to build and to maintain libraries, and to extend their availability to communities that lack a library. Had the Legislature acted unwisely in the adoption of these principles, it nonetheless would be entitled to considerable deference from this Court, for it is the Legislature explicitly that has been given primary responsibility by the constitution for the establishment and support of public libraries. However, it seems clear that the Legislature, with the support of the public library community, has acted wisely. Justice Cavanagh acts considerably less wisely in seeking to substitute his own judgment for that of the Legislature. He would undo the incentives enacted by the Legislature for the establishment and maintenance of public libraries. He would disincentivize communities from building libraries by making them identically available to persons who had and who had not paid for them; he would disincentivize communities from maintaining libraries by making improvements and new accessions identically available to persons who had and who had not paid for them; he would disincentivize non-library communities from entering into cooperative agreements with library communities by allowing persons to enter into individual agreements; and he would deprive library communities of the revenues that would be lost as a result of the combination of these disincentives. [9] As a result, over time, Justice Cavanagh would almost certainly produce an environment in which fewer new libraries are constructed, fewer new books are purchased, fewer cooperative agreements are reached, and local support of public libraries declines. Public libraries would become less, not more, available, although Justice Cavanagh doubtless would take solace that every resident would have absolutely identical access to the dwindling and outworn library resources of the state. Pursuant to Const. 1963, art. 8, § 9, it is the Legislature that is empowered to exercise judgments concerning how to provide by law for the establishment and support of public libraries. Although Justice Cavanagh is free to disregard economic realities and to ignore the logic of incentives and disincentives, the Legislature is not obligated to proceed along these same lines. The Legislature, altogether reasonably we believe, has determined that the availability of public libraries is best achieved through the institutions of local control and the encouragement of cooperative agreements. We defer to this judgment. Indeed, it appears from statistics offered by the Michigan Department of History, Arts, and Libraries that less than 1/5 of 1 percent of the population of Michigan does not have a public library available either directly through their communities or through a cooperative agreement. [10] This is to be contrasted with the history of the predecessor provision to Const. 1963, art. 8, § 9, which mandated that the Legislature establish public libraries in every township and city. After 125 years of such a mandate in 1962, a public library had been established in only 7 percent of the cities and townships of Michigan. [11] Particularly against this historical backdrop, the Legislature's judgment that public libraries can best be made available by encouraging local control and cooperative agreements, and thereby incentivizing their establishment and support, appears to be an entirely reasonable and responsible judgment that should not be upset by this Court. [12]
Plaintiff also argues that the township library's policy of not offering nonresident book-borrowing privileges violates his First Amendment right to receive information under the United States Constitution, [13] and his right not to be deprived of the equal protection of the laws under the United States and Michigan constitutions. [14] We disagree. Plaintiff cites four cases to support his argument that the township library's policy of not offering nonresident book-borrowing privileges violates the First Amendment. The first case  Martin v. City of Struthers, 319 U.S. 141, 63 S.Ct. 862, 87 L.Ed. 1313 (1943)  held that a municipal ordinance that prohibited people from knocking on doors to distribute leaflets violated the First Amendment. The second case  Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965)  held that a state statute prohibiting the use of contraceptives violated the right of marital privacy. The third case  Kreimer v. Morristown Bureau of Police, 958 F.2d 1242 (C.A.3, 1992)  held that a public library's rule prohibiting disruptive behavior and offensive bodily hygiene did not violate the First Amendment. The fourth case  Salvail v. Nashua Bd. of Ed., 469 F.Supp. 1269 (1979)  held that a school board's removal of a certain magazine from the library based on its content violated the First Amendment. First, we must note that we are, of course, not bound by either Kreimer or Salvail. Abela v. Gen. Motors Corp., 469 Mich. 603, 606, 677 N.W.2d 325 (2004). Second, and most importantly, not one of the cases that plaintiff cites held, or even remotely suggested, by implication or otherwise, that the First Amendment requires a public library to offer nonresident book-borrowing privileges. The most relevant case cited is Kreimer, supra at 1255, which merely held that the First Amendment protects the right to some level of access to a public library. In this case, the township library indisputably allows nonresidents some level of access to a public library. Therefore, even under Kreimer  the most relevant and the most favorable case that plaintiff has cited in support of his argument, although we emphasize again not a case that is controlling or that has been adopted in this state  it is clear that a township library's policy of not offering nonresident book-borrowing privileges does not violate the First Amendment. Plaintiff's equal protection challenge likewise fails. Plaintiff alleges no discrimination here based on race, national origin, ethnicity, gender, or illegitimacy. Accordingly, this Court applies a rational basis analysis. [15] See, e.g., Crego v. Coleman, 463 Mich. 248, 259-260, 615 N.W.2d 218 (2000). Under such an analysis, courts will uphold legislation as long as that legislation is rationally related to a legitimate government purpose. Crego, supra at 259, 615 N.W.2d 218. In order to have a law declared unconstitutional, a challenger must demonstrate that it is arbitrary and that the law is `wholly unrelated . . . to the objective of the statute.' Id., quoting Smith v. Employment Security Comm., 410 Mich. 231, 271, 301 N.W.2d 285 (1981). No showing of this sort is possible here. The purpose of the township library's residency requirement is to create a viable means of establishing and maintaining a local public library; it is a means consistent with the Legislature's constitutional direction to make public libraries available to the residents of this state. For the reasons discussed in this opinion, the library's regulations are a reasonable way to achieve its purpose, and, thus, there is no equal protection violation.