Court Opinion

ID: 9693713
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:58:03.418214+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:08:17.600696
License: Public Domain

MURPHY, Chief Judge,
dissenting:
While I am in full accord with Part II of the Court’s opinion, I disagree with the holding in Part III that the proposed “property tax limitations” charter amendments constitute a fundamental aspect of the “form and structure of government” and are, therefore, proper charter material. I share the view of the two circuit courts below, each of which held that the proposed amendments violated Art. XIA of the Maryland Constitution. I, therefore, respectfully dissent from the Court’s determination that the proposed charter amendments were valid and were properly submitted to the voters at the 1990 general election.
Art. XI-A, § 2 of the Maryland Constitution requires the General Assembly, by public general law, to provide a grant of express powers to counties which adopt a charter form of *249government. Pursuant to this constitutional provision, the Express Powers Act, Maryland Code (1990 RepLVol.), Art. 25A, § 5, was enacted and enumerated the express powers granted to the charter counties. Under § 3 of Art. XI-A, a county charter must provide for an elective legislative body, to be known as the county council; vested in it by this section is “full power to enact local laws” for the county upon all matters covered by the express powers granted under Art. 25A. Section 5(0) of Art. 25A authorizes the county council to assess, levy, and collect taxes through the enactment of local laws “as may be necessary for the support and maintenance of the county government.”
Section 5 of Art. XI-A permits voter-initiated petitions to amend a county charter which, if adopted, become part of the charter. It is clear from our cases that a charter amendment authorized by this section “is necessarily limited in substance to amending the form or structure of government initially established by adoption of the charter.” Cheeks v. Cedlair Corp., 287 Md. 595, 607, 415 A.2d 255 (1980). A charter amendment, therefore, “differs in its fundamental character from a simple legislative enactment”; its content, we have said, “cannot transcend its limited office and be made to serve or function as a vehicle through which to adopt local legislation.” Id. Thus, under § 3 of Art. XI-A, the elected county council, and not the electorate, is given the power to enact local laws upon “all matters covered by the express powers granted” to the county in Art. 25A. Consequently, the voters cannot by charter amendment divest the county council of its granted power to make laws governing the imposition of taxes by placing a property tax limitation in the county charter. As we said in Cheeks, 287 Md. at 610, 415 A.2d 255, “to allow the voters, through the charter initiative, rather than the legislative process, to exercise the full range of the [county’s] express powers would plainly involve an excessive exercise of those precisely limited powers granted to the [county], and specifically to the [county council] in its representative capacity.” The exercise of the charter initiative *250power to limit the amount of taxes that may be collected to support the county government preempts the county council’s law-making power in its determination of the tax imposition necessary to maintain and operate the county government.
A charter form of government establishes the agencies of local government and provides for the allocation of powers among them. Cheeks, 287 Md. at 606, 415 A.2d 255. We there explained that a charter is a permanent document providing a broad organizational framework establishing the form and structure of government in pursuance of which the political subdivision is to be governed and local laws enacted. Id. at 607, 415 A.2d 255. It establishes basic principles governing relations between the government and the people and among the various governmental branches and bodies. Id.
As I see it, the proposed amendments are not addressed to the form or structure of the county government in any fundamental sense and are not, therefore, charter material within the contemplation of § 5 of Art. XI-A of the Maryland Constitution. The substance of what is now before us, under the guise of charter amendments, constitutes nothing more than local laws, which the charter properly entrusts to. the law-making body of the county, and not to the voters through a charter initiative; in other words, it is to the lawmaking body, and only to that body, which the charter commits the power, in that body’s representative capacity, to determine the amounts essential to support and maintain the county government. See also Griffith v. Wakefield, 298 Md. 381, 470 A.2d 345 (1984). If the electorate is dissatisfied with the performance of members of the legislative body, the remedy is through the ballot box at the next ensuing popular election.