In the aftermath of the American Revolution, the relationship between local governments and their states could have been conceptualized in terms of four competing models of legitimacy: (1) custom and practice, (2) community autonomy, (3) corporate status, and (4) subordination to the sovereign. The implications for local autonomy and state-local relations of accepting each of these models is discussed in this article. Historically, the triumph of the theory of state hegemony over local government was reflected in judicial adoption of Dillon's Rule, the doctrine of implied preemption, and the idea that local governments have no rights under a state constitution. Recent state-court cases recognizing the capacity of local governments to assert procedural, dignitary, and substantive claims against the state, however, may signal the demise of the theory that local governments are merely creatures of their states and may herald a reconceptualization of the meaning of local autonomy.
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References
1.
1. James E. Herget, “The Missing Power of Local Government: A Divergence between Text and Practice in Our Early State Constitution,”Virginia Law Review, 62(5): 999, 1001 (June 1976).
2.
2. Ibid.
3.
3. J.G.A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law (New York: Norton, 1967), pp. 30-55.
4.
4. Oscar Handlin and Mary F. Handlin, Commonwealth: A Study of the Role of Government in the American Economy: Massachusetts, 1774-1861, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1969), pp. 87-88.
5.
See generally H. Trevor Colbourn, The Lamp of Experience: Whig History and the Intellectual Origins of the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965).
6.
6. People v. Hurlbut, 24 Mich. 44, 109 (1871).
7.
7. Joseph Canning, The Political Thought of Baldus de Ubaldis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 64-65, 67-68, 93-158.
8.
8. Attorney General ex. rel. Booth v. Mc-Guinness, 78 N.J.L. 346, 355 (1909).
9.
9. C. Dallas Sands and Michael E. Libonati, Local Government Law (Wilmette, IL: Callaghan, 1981), chap. 3.
10.
10. Richard Briffault, “Localism in State Constitutional Law,” this issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
11.
Forrest McDonald , Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1985), pp. 71-72, 289-291.
12.
12. Hitchcock v. Town of Litchfield, 1 Root 206(1790).
13.
13. Stetson v. Kempton, 13 Mass. 272, 274 (1816).
14.
14. Ibid., p. 284.
15.
15. R. Jackson Wilson, In Quest of Community: Social Philosophy in the United States, 1860-1920 (New York: John Wiley, 1968), pp. 26-31.
16.
16. Ohio Const. art. XVIII, §§ 3, 7.
17.
17. Gordon L. Clark, Judges and the Cities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 6.
18.
18. California Const. art. XI, § 5(a).
19.
Sho Sato , “ `Municipal Affairs' in California,”California Law Review, 60(4): 1055 (June 1972).
20.
20. Clark, Judges and the Cities, p. 6.
21.
21. William E. Nelson, Americanization of the Common Law: The Impact of Legal Change on Massachusetts Society, 1760-1830 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 6.
22.
22. Jon C. Teaford, The Municipal Revolution in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), pp. 16-34.
23.
23. Judith M. Diamondstone, “Philadelphia's Municipal Corporation, 1701-1776,”Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 90:183 (Apr. 1966).
24.
24. Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. (17 U.S.) 518, 4 L.Ed. 629 (1819).
25.
25. Trenton v. State of New Jersey, 262 U.S. 182 (1923).
26.
26. Hendrik A. Hartog, Public Property and Private Power: The Corporation of the City of New York in American Law, 1730-1870 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983).
27.
27. Philadelphia v. Fox, 64 Pa. 169, 180-81 (1870).
28.
28. Martin J. Schiesl, The Politics of Efficiency (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977).
29.
29. Peter J. Steinberger, Ideology and the Urban Crisis (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), pp. 28-36.
30.
30. Ibid., p. 133.
31.
31. Otto Gierke, Associations and the Law (Buffalo, NY: University of Toronto Press, 1977), pp. 43-44.
32.
32. Ibid., p. 5.
33.
33. Otto Gierke, Natural Law and the Theory of Society 1500 to 1800 (Boston: Beacon, 1960), p. 67.
34.
34. Clinton v. Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad, 24 Iowa 455 (1868).
35.
35. State v. Thompson, 149 Wis. 488, 505, 137 N.W. 20 (1912); Sands and Libonati, Local Government Law, sec. 13.05.
36.
36. The fallacious reasoning underpinning the doctrine of implied preemption as conventionally formulated is discussed in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of General Services v. Ogontz Area Neighbors Association, 505 Pa. 614, 483 A.2d. 448 (1984).
37.
37. Iowa Const. art III, § 40. The state constitutions of Alaska, New Jersey, Michigan, and Montana contain similar provisions that require local government powers to be liberally interpreted. Sands and Libonati, Local Government Law, sec. 13.05, n. 23.
38.
38. Ill. Const. art. VII, § 6(g), (h), (i).
39.
39. Ibid., § 6(m).
40.
40. Kennecott Corporation v. Salt Lake County, 702 P.2d 451 (1985).
41.
41. Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U.S. 528 (1985).
42.
42. The skeptical reader is invited to peruse the statutes pertinent to local government units in his or her own jurisdiction. Unless he or she has some familiarity with the field, the reader will be astonished to note the utter absence of annotations to judicial decisions glossing an enormous body of law except, of course, insofar as the statute speaks to powers affecting the private rather than the public sector. Many annotations emerge out of controversies submitted to the attorney general or the comptroller concerning the construction of statutes bearing on local public administration given that a judicial forum for the resolution of such disputes is not normally available because of the law of standing.
