Court Opinion

ID: 9650888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:54:13.370664+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:26.837041
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, J.
(concurring in result).
I agree that the two-year residency requirement of the Walsh Act should be stricken, but would do so on the ground that in this day and age a two-year period no longer subserves the purpose of a residency requirement as outlined in Stothers v. Martini, 6 N.J. 560 (1951). In 1911, when the Walsh Act was originally enacted, the pace of life was slower, means of transportation and travel were not what they are today and persons did not change their residences as frequently as they do at the present time. The increasing transience of the average individual today, however, calls for reconsideration of extended residency requirements such as the one here involved. I would hold that a two-year period, such as the Walsh Act calls for, is unduly burdensome and restrictive.
I do not consider that equal protection is involved. When Atlantic City established its present form of government in 1912, it did so by vote of its electorate. It could have adopted another form of government, one which did not have a two-year residency requirement for its elected governing body. It chose to incorporate under the provisions of the Walsh Act. At all times it has retained the right to change its form of government and thereby eliminate the two-year residency requirement. Indeed, as recently as February 26,1980, the electorate in Atlantic City, at a special election, rejected an effort to have the Walsh Act form of government changed. Under these circumstances, I do not see an equal protection basis for invalidating the two-year residency requirement. See Jamouneau v. Harner, 16 N.J. 500, 521 (1954).