Court Opinion

ID: 9458834
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:02:46.98551+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:54.535252
License: Public Domain

O’SULLIVAN, Senior Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Respectful to my brothers, I dissent. Article IV, Section 4, of the United States Constitution provides:
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, * * *.”
Employing the prerogatives that are part of a republican form of government, the Legislature of Michigan by Act 279 of the Public Acts of 1909, provided for what are commonly known as Home Rule Cities. M.S.A. § 5.2071, et seq., M.C.L.A. § 117.1 et seq. By Section 3 of this Act, § 5.2073, M.C.L.A., §§ 117.3, 117.4a, it is provided that:
“Each city charter shall provide:
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(a) for the qualifications, duties and compensation of its officers.”
Pursuant to the authority of the Constitution of the United States and the mentioned Act of the Michigan Legislature, the people of Plymouth adopted a Charter which provides:
“Section 4.4. Except as otherwise provided in this charter, an elector of the city shall be eligible to hold elective or appointive office, if he shall have been a resident of the city for two years immediately prior to the date of his election or appointment to *886office, and shall not be in default to the city, the County of Wayne, or to any school district located within the city.”
This Section was included in charters of the City of Plymouth in 1918, 1982, and 1951.
This charter provision is struck down because, it is said, Plymouth has failed to demonstrate that there was some “compelling state interest” that prompted the people of Plymouth to adopt the quoted charter provision. I am not at all sure that I understand what inherent wrong there is in the Plymouth charter provision which can survive only if Plymouth can show that its interest compelled it to adopt it. I do not read this “compelling state interest” rule to come into being unless the action of a state, or any of its subdivisions, is otherwise offensive to the United States Constitution or its Amendments. I cannot find that the Plymouth charter provision here involved is “invidiously discriminating” against any person or any right.
The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution provides that,
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
I believe that the right of the people of the State of Michigan to permit its Home Rule cities to provide for the non-discriminatory qualifications of their officers is, and was, one of such non-delegated powers.
There is growing public concern arising from the ever-increasing taking over by the United States Courts of the prerogatives of the State Legislatures. In one of the principal cases relied on by the majority — Mogk v. City of Detroit, 335 F.Supp. 698, 699 (E.D. Mich. 1971), (a three judge, District Court case), the opinion deals with a charter provision of the City of Detroit which had to do, as here, with the residential requirement of a candidate for municipal office under the Michigan Home Rule Act. The opinion says:
“The residential requirement here in question originated in the 1909 Home Rule Act of Michigan. We point to these dates to suggest that vast changes have taken place in our way of living between the turn of the century and 1971. What may have been a rational and justifiable classification of eligibility for public office in 1909 may not necessarily be so regarded in the 1970’s.” 335 F.Supp. at 699.
If, as this quotation recites, “vast changes have taken place in our way of living between the turn of the century and 1971,” which suggest some revision of the law, such can and should be accomplished by the people through their elected legislative representatives, and not summarily ordered by judicial command.
I believe that the Plymouth charter provision cannot be viewed as unreasonable, or beyond the legitimate power of the Plymouth City Council. The “compelling state interest” rule is not applicable to the case before us. Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. 134, 142-143, 92 S.Ct. 849, 31 L.Ed.2d 92 (1972).
I would reverse and vacate the judgment of the District Court.