Reutener v. City of Cleveland

107 Ohio St. (N.S.) 117
CourtOhio Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 6, 1923
DocketNo. 17599
StatusPublished

This text of 107 Ohio St. (N.S.) 117 (Reutener v. City of Cleveland) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Reutener v. City of Cleveland, 107 Ohio St. (N.S.) 117 (Ohio 1923).

Opinions

Allen, J.

The plaintiff in error challenges the amendment enacted in the election of November, 1921, as a part of the home-rnle charter of the city of Cleveland, on two grounds:

1. That the amendment was adopted in violation of the terms of the Ohio constitution.

2. That the proportional representation provision of the amendment is invalid because it violates Section 1, Article Y, of the Ohio Constitution; that this provision is inseparable from the rest of the amendment, and therefore the amendment as a whole falls to the ground.

Taking these alleged grounds of error in their order, we shall proceed to examine whether the amendment conforms to the provisions of the Ohio constitution in the manner of its adoption.

Three objections are urged to the method of submitting the amendment. The first is that the amendment is not merely a change in the form and substance of the original charter, but that it abrogates all of the original charter, completely discarding the structure and the organization of the present city government and setting up an entirely new and distinct charter in its stead. The second objection is that complete copies of the amendment were not placed upon the ballot at the election at which the amendment was adopted. The third objection is that the amendment contains many distinct sections, which were submitted, not separately, section by section, but as a whole.

The first objection involves two questions:

(a) Does the amendment adopted in 1921 constitute a new charter rather than an amendment?

[127]*127(b) If so, does this fact invalidate the method of the proposal’s submission, requiring that it be submitted in conformity with Section -8, Article XVIII of the Ohio Constitution, instead of in conformity with Section 9 of the same article, under which it was submitted?

An examination of the new amendment, in order to determine whether it constitutes, as is claimed, a completely new charter, discloses that this contention cannot be sustained upon the facts. While it is true that all but two sections of the old charter were repealed, for the purpose no doubt of submitting the proposition as a whole, the amendment submitted retained verbatim sixty sections of the original charter, only the section numbers being changed. The amendment repeated one hundred and five sections with only editorial revisions, and changed substantially thirty-five sections of the original • charter. This fact disposes of the contention that the amendment is invalid because it constitutes a new charter instead of an amendment, and that it should have been submitted to vote under the constitutional provision as to charter elections rather than under the constitutional provision as to charter amendments.

Even if this amendment did constitute a new charter, however, shall it be said that the people of a charter city, exercising all powers .of local self-government, have less power than their representatives in the legislature, who are permitted to strike out all but the enacting clause of a law and completely change it by way of amendment?

One of the holdings that amendments which even vitally change the substance of a law are to be con[128]*128sidered amendments for purposes of submission is to be found in Cantini v. Tillman, 54 Fed. Rep., 969, at page 976, as follows:

“Nothing is more common than to amend by striking out one section and by inserting another, or by striking out several sections and by inserting one or several; and if it be competent to amend by striking out and inserting one, two, three, four sections, clearly it is competent to strike out all the sections and to insert others in pari materia. Striking out all after the enacting words and inserting, is nothing but an amendment, and is governed by the same rules as other amendments.”

Among cases applying this rule to city charters are the following:

‘£ The power given by Article XI, Section 2, of the Constitution, as amended June 4, 1906, to the voters of a city to amend their municipal charter includes the power to repeal or strike out provisions. ’ ’ State, ex rel., v. City of Portland, 65 Ore., 273, syllabus 5.

“Amendments to a special charter of a city of the first class that may be submitted at a special election are not confined to those that are only revisory or supplemental, but include those which alter or annul the basic principle upon which the city government is founded.” State, ex rel. Hindley, v. Superior Court of Spokane County, 70 Wash., 352, syllabus 3.

See also the opinion in Wade v. City of Tacoma, 4 Wash., 85, 87.

Counsel for plaintiff in error argue, however, that although the amendment repeated within its specific terms much of the original charter of the city of Cleveland, since the proposal adopted constitutes an [129]*129instrument complete within itself it cannot be considered an amendment. It is plain, however, that this instrument, in which only 35 sections of the original charter have been changed, as compared with 105 sections which were editorially revised, and 60 sections which were retained verbatim, would not be a charter complete within itself unless the old measures were included; that is, the retention of the original charter within the present amendment at once gives the amendment its completeness, and makes it, not a new measure, but an amendment.

The majority of the court hold, therefore, that the amendment does not constitute a new charter, and that it was properly submitted to the voters under Section 9, Article XVIII of the Constitution.

Is this amendment invalid in its submission because copies thereof were not placed upon each ballot?

It is conceded that a digest of 86 lines purporting to explain the tenor of the amendment was printed upon the ballot used at the election. Plaintiff in error claims that the printing of this digest upon the ballot was not a sufficient compliance with the constitution in that regard.

The section of the Ohio constitution which covers amendments to home-rule charters, Section 9, Article XVIII, reads:

“Amendments to any charter framed and adopted as herein provided may be submitted to the electors of a municipality by a two-thirds vote of the legislative authority thereof, and, upon petitions signed by ten per centum of the electors of the municipality setting forth any such proposed amendment, shall be submitted by such legislative authority. The sub[130]*130mission of proposed amendments to the electors shall be governed by the requirements of section 8 as to the submission of the question of choosing a charter commission; and copies of proposed amendments shall be mailed to the electors as hereinbefore provided for copies of a proposed charter. If any such amendment is approved by a majority of the electors voting thereon, it shall become a part of the charter of the municipality. A copy of said charter or any amendment thereto shall be certified to the secretary of state, within thirty days after adoption by a referendum vote. (Adopted September 3, 1912.)”

This section provides that the submission of proposed amendments to the electors shall be covered by the requirements of Section 8, Article XVIII, as to the submission of the question of choosing charter commissions. Section 8 reads:

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Wade v. City of Tacoma
29 P. 983 (Washington Supreme Court, 1892)
State ex rel. Hindley v. Superior Court
126 P. 920 (Washington Supreme Court, 1912)
State v. Portland
133 P. 62 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1913)
State ex rel. Gibson v. Monahan
84 P. 130 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 1905)
Wattles ex rel. Johnson v. Upjohn
179 N.W. 335 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1920)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
107 Ohio St. (N.S.) 117, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/reutener-v-city-of-cleveland-ohio-1923.