grant of all power pertinent to local government subject only to certain exceptions. The formal rights of the city are thus radically altered. Yet in substance these rights are dependent upon the spirit in which the legislature carries out the new constitutional provisions. As a mere question of legal power, the legislature has lost only the capacity of passing special acts relating to cities. It may still interfere to the full extent of its former authority so long as it is able to encompass its object by means of a general act. This is a substantial limitation. Yet it is far from guaranteeing to the cities that exclusive sphere of local activity inaccessible to legislative inroads, that is usually associated with the idea of municipal home rule. Subject only to the older limitations laid down by Judge Cooley under his doctrine of an unwritten constitutional right of cities to certain powers of local self-government, it would seem that the legislature of Michigan could lay down in any detail it saw fit by a general act the organization and powers of all cities of the state. It could add in the same way prohibitions of all kinds. The legislature has therefore the power to destroy the substance of home rule, leaving to the cities only its empty form. It has exercised its discretion as it has seen fit through both positive and negative injunction in the Home Rule Act. It is fortunate that instead of abusing its opportunities under the constitutional provisions to dominate the cities, the legislature of Michigan has treated the cities fairly in the spirit intended by the framers of the constitution. The cities of Michigan, then, are in present enjoyment of substantially increased powers of self-government. The constitution of 1908 required the legislature to "provide by a general law for the incorporation of cities and by a general law for the incorporation of villages." As amended in 1913, the constitution further provided that "under such general laws, the electors of each city and village shall have power and authority to frame, adopt and amend its charter and to amend an existing charter of the city or village heretofore granted or passed by the legislature for the government of the city or village and, through its regular ly constituted authority, to pass all laws and ordinances relating to its municipal concerns, subject to the constitution and general laws of the state." The legislature promptly executed the mandate of the constitution by passing the Home Rule Act. That act provides for the incorporation of territory as a city or village by the vote of its inhabitants under certain specified conditions, as density of population. It allows any existing city or village to expand in the same manner. Each is permitted to frame its own charter and to frame amendments. Each may then adopt these fundamental laws by vote of the local electors, the only obligation being to submit them to the governor, without, however, the necessity of receiving his approval. Each city may set up such authorities as it sees fit and clothe them with such powers as it chooses, "subject to the constitution and general laws of the state." The only limitations laid on the cities in the constitution relate to suffrage, finances and franchises. The limitations contained in the Home Rule Act are more numerous. They require every city charter to provide certain officers and to meet certain general duties, as for example the collection of taxes, or holding of elections, or preservation of the public peace, health and safety. The prohibitions of the act, beyond setting up certain rules for elections, relate exclusively to measures designed to safeguard the financial integrity of the city. Quite as fully, then, as if the legislature were bound by the most rigid constitutional limitations, the essential opportunities of home rule are allowed to Michigan cities. Owing to judicial construction which required ultimately a constitutional amendment for its correction, the position of the cities under the new constitution was in such doubt until 1913 that few efforts were made to exercise the new powers. Most of the action under the home rule provisions has occurred, therefore, during the past five years. The way in which cities have availed themselves of these privileges throws some light on the wisdom of their adoption. A complete record of measures passed by the hundred and eight cities of Michigan under home rule powers is not available, but they number over one hundred and fifty. Of these, about thirty were acted on before 1913. In the subsequent years there has been a very uniform activity resulting in close to twenty-five measures successfully passed each year. Something like sixty other proposals actually voted on have been rejected. These figures take no note of villages. Five communities have incorporated under the general provisions of the Home Rule Act. There have been eleven extensions of boundaries. The five newly incorporated cities have, of course, adopted their own charters. In addition, twenty-six previously incorporated cities have completely revised their charters. About one hundred and twenty-five amendments to charters have been adopted by the cities covering a variety of matters. Of these about one hundred have been amendments to old legislative charters, and the remaining twenty-five to new. The changes through both revision and amendment make manifest certain notable tendencies. Of the new charters, only two are of the old mayor and council type. Nineteen cities have adopted the commission type. Ten others have provided for a manager. Among the latter is Grand Rapids, the second city in the state, and the largest city in the country yet adopting the manager form. Detroit, a city of over half a million, has elected a commission to revise its charter. Other indications of a movement toward simplification and centralization of organization are evident. This is shown by provisions increasing the supervisory powers of the mayor and, in the case of Detroit, giving him effective control through the power of dismissal of all his appointees at will, by lengthening the terms of elective officers; by reduction of the Detroit school board and election of its members at large; and by abolishing unnecessary officers and combining their work, as for actual instances the city clerk, the board of estimates and the board of public works have been abolished in particular cities. A desire for more businesslike methods is shown by providing improved accounting. Nonpartisan primaries have been adopted in a number of cities. In one instance a majority of the primary vote has been declared an election. Preferential ballots have been provided in two instances. City elections have been separated from national and state elections. A very remarkable expansion of city activities has taken place. Provision has been made for city hospitals, for city planning, and for recreation. Municipal control has been extended to billboards. One city has altered its charter to permit it to make its own public improvements. Municipal ownership has found much favor, being extended to all utilities, and to functions of an even more private character. Some inclination has been shown to disregard the injunctions of the Home Rule Act as to incorporation of certain provisions by cities in their charters. It is perhaps fortunate that at a moment of such broad relaxation by the legislature of its domination of the cities, the executive of the state is steadily increasing state administrative control over local officials. Public opinion in Michigan nine years after adoption of the home rule principle appears convinced that its advantages have been fully demonstrated. HERMAN G. JAMES, J.D., Ph.D. CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRICTION ON POWER OF LEGISLATURE OVER CITIES The first constitutional restrictions imposed upon the legislature of Texas with reference to cities were contained in an amendment to the constitution of 1868, adopted in 1873. This amendment provided that the legislature should not pass "local or special laws regulating county or town affairs, incorporating cities or towns, or changing or amending the charter of any city or village." Prior to that time it had been customary to incorporate municipalities by special law. The present constitution adopted in 1876 reincorporated these provisions in the section dealing with the limitations on the power of the legislature to pass local or special laws, but in a special article on municipal corporations the constitution further provided that while cities and towns of less than ten thousand inhabitants might be chartered alone by general law, cities having more than that number of inhabitants might have their charters granted or amended by special act of the legislature. The same article of the constitution also contained other provisions relating to cities and towns, but these were in the nature of restrictions on their taxing and borrowing power and on their power to subscribe to private corporations, rather than limitations on the legislature in dealing with cities, and they need not therefore concern us here. By an amendment adopted in 1909 the power of the legislature to grant or amend city charters by special law was extended to include cities of five thousand inhabitants or over, and that was the situation in Texas until the adoption of the so-called "home rule amendment" in 1912. THE HOME RULE AMENDMENT In November 1912 there was adopted the amendment to the constitution known as the home rule amendment which reads as |