Court Opinion

ID: 9727497
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:40:03.113582+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:39.020802
License: Public Domain

Baldwin, J.
(dissenting). General Statutes, Cum. Sup. 1951, §§ 118b and 119b, give to the electors of towns, cities and boroughs the power to make, *213amend, add to or replace the charters or special acts under which their local governments are established and operate. These statutes purport to prescribe the manner in which such power shall be exercised.
I am in complete agreement with the home rule principle of this legislation. These statutes, however, are so lacking in essential specific direction concerning how the broad powers given are to be exercised as to make their successful operation very uncertain and the subject of future litigation which may defeat their laudable purpose. Witness the instant case. The majority concede this by making it clear that their opinion is confined to the particular facts of this case.
Section 118b states that any action taken pursuant to its provisions shall not be valid and effective “until approved at a general election of such town, city or borough or at a special election called by a majority vote of the legislative body of such town, city or borough and warned and held for that purpose.” The term “general election” means any state or municipal election, while the term “special election” means any election not a general election. General Statutes § 1030. A general election is one established by constitution, statute or special act, while a special election is one warned and held at a time designated for a specific purpose by some agency of government authorized to call it. The statutes under discussion are completely silent on the vitally important matter of who determines whether the proposed action under the statutes is to be submitted to a general or a special election and how the determination is to be made. The majority opinion assumes it to have been the intent of the legislature that, if the action under the statutes is inaugurated by a petition of the elec*214tors, the electors in the petition eonld designate the general election on November 4 as the time when the question would be submitted to a vo'te. By the same token, it could as well be assumed to have been the intent of the legislature that the electors could designate a special election and set the time when that election should be called. If that be so, then the petitioners could set a date for a special election or designate a general election so near in the future as to make it impossible for the election machinery to function properly or so distant as to make it absurd. The actual casting of ballots by the electors is often spoken of as the election. In fact, it is only a part of it. There are many important and essential preliminary steps required. If, for example, in the instant case, this vital question of the change of the charter of the city of New Haven is to be passed upon at the election on November 4, there will be a large number of electors who might be entitled to vote by absentee ballot who will be completely disenfranchised on the important issue of a fundamental change in the government of their city. An election is a process whether it be the choice of candidates for public office or the adoption of a constitution or charter or amendment thereto. The major steps in that process should be set forth clearly in the enabling legislation. Those steps must be followed to make the election a legal one. State ex rel. Morris v. Bulkeley, 61 Conn. 287, 359, 23 A. 186. The statutes under discussion are ineffective to permit a vote on this petition on November 4.
In my opinion the decision of the trial court was correct.