Court Opinion

ID: 3304785
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-05 17:20:07.829552+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:58:04.837906
License: Public Domain

I dissent. The constitution (art. XI, sec. 11) makes a direct grant to every county of the power to "make and enforce within its limits all such local, police, sanitary, and other regulations as are not in conflict with general laws." This grant to the counties of the power of local legislation is, of course, a grant to the people of the respective counties. How they are to exercise the power, whether in their primary capacity by voting at the polls, as in the case of the adoption of a state constitution or of amendments thereto, or by their chosen representatives in boards of supervisors, is purely a matter of legislative regulation, and I cannot see how it is possible, upon any recognized principle of constitutional construction, to deny to the legislature the power to confer upon the qualified voters of the respective counties the right to make local laws which will be valid and effective within their territorial limits.
That the legislature did intend by the act of 1897 to enable the people of the respective counties to enact local ordinances by popular vote is not, and cannot be, denied; but their intention is held to have failed, because they have left it in the power of the boards of supervisors to repeal or alter or supersede the ordinances ratified by popular vote. I do not agree with this construction of the act; but if it were conceded to be correct, or if the legislature had incorporated in the act, in express terms, what the court construes it to mean, — if, in other words, the legislature, instead of stopping with the declaration that "such ordinance, thus adopted, shall have the same and equal force and effect as though adopted and ordained by the board of supervisors," had added an express proviso that the board of supervisors might, in their discretion, alter or repeal ordinances so adopted, — I am not aware of any rule of construction or principle of constitutional law upon which a court could declare the law invalid. It might well be argued that such a law would be inexpedient, or even foolish, but laws canot be invalidated upon that ground. They are only invalid when the legislature has exceeded its powers in attempting to enact them. Here, upon the construction given to this law, there is no excess of power, — only an absurdity, or supposed absurdity, in the possible consequences to which it may lead. This, however, I conceive to be a more potent argument against the construction placed upon the act, than against the power of the legislature to pass it. *Page 76 
And finally, are the possible consequences of the court's construction of the law so very absurd? Suppose the board of supervisors has the power to repeal an ordinance which has been ratified by popular vote. It is a power which, it may be presumed, will not be exercised in any case of doubtful expediency. The expression of the popular will would have a moral and practical force in any event, and in many cases would operate permanently. As to the confusion and uncertainty which it is feared might result, I see no reason for apprehension. It is conceivable, of course, that there would sometimes be found a board of supervisors determined to thwart the will of the people of their county, and that they would repeal ordinances as fast as the people could pass them, but this, it may be safely asserted, would rarely occur, and in such rare instances the mischief would be less in degree than frequently follows when the legislature undoes what its predecessors have done.
I think the ordinance is in every respect valid, and the prisoner should be remanded.