Court Opinion

ID: 9727057
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:18:40.161663+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:33.195770
License: Public Domain

Fairchild, J.
(dissenting in part). I dissent from the part of the court’s judgment which declares the veto provision and part of the appointment provision of ch. 327, Laws of 1959, unconstitutional.
We must presume that the legislature had in mind all constitutional requirements, including sec. 23, art. IV. We should view the departures from uniformity which it provided for counties with more than 500,000 inhabitants as modifications which the legislature deemed necessary in order to make the government of a metropolitan county practicable. The legislature concluded that the special needs of a metropolitan county required not only that there be an administrative officer elected at large, but that he have the appointive and veto powers provided.
The only question before the court is whether the legislative finding on practicability is so fanciful or completely unfounded in reality that it could not have been made by reasonable men. In my opinion the size and concentration of the population of the county, the size and complexity of its governmental machinery, and the multiplicity of its special problems all reasonably tend to support the conclusion that the modifications made by ch. 327, Laws of 1959, were necessary in order to provide a practicable county government in a metropolitan county. Ch. 327 should not *226be viewed as the creation of a second system, but as an adaptation of the existing system to special needs.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Chief Justice Martin and Mr. Justice Broadfoot join in this opinion.