Court Opinion

ID: 9638312
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:40:21.436141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:05.483539
License: Public Domain

George Rose Smith, J., dissenting. The majority seem to overlook the fact that Act 273 created not a county school but a State institution. This institution was to be built with State funds and to be operated under the supervision of the State Department of Education. Section 6 of the Act requires that the rules for admission to the school be uniform throughout the State. We must conclude that the Legislature, for reasons which do not concern the courts, decided that there was a need for another State vocational school. We must further assume that the Legislature knew that Perry County was the only county having a population of less than 6,000 according to the 1950 census. Not to make that assumption would be to say that the members of the General Assembly voted for Act 273 without knowing how many schools they were creating, nor how much money they were appropriating. Hence Act 273 states in effect that the only school being created is to be located in Perry County. The question is whether that designation of the school’s site violates Amendment 14. It seems plain to me that it does not. No one doubts the Legislature’s authority to establish a new State institution of learning. Over the years there have been created a State university, a medical school, a school for the deaf, a school for the blind, several agricultural colleges, etc. Each new institution must obviously be located somewhere, and there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent the Legislature from making that determination. A matter of this kind does not lend itself to general legislation in the sense that every county must be provided with a State university of vocational school of its own, and for that reason the ban against local legislation is inapplicable. There is no more basis for condemning Act 273 as a local law than there is for taking the same position with respect to statutes authorizing the construction of new buildings at the University of Arkansas, the State Hospital, or any other State agency. As we said in Matthews v. Bailey, 198 Ark. 830, 131 S. W. 2d. 425; “The State may legislate with respect to its own affairs. Amendment No. 14 to the Constitution has no application here.” Since the majority have not found it necessary to say whether Act 273 required a three-fourths vote for its passage I express no opinion on that question. Ward and Robinson, JJ., join in this dissent.