COUNTY HOME RULE
Some counties indeed are awakening to a sense of their identity and are
asserting with much vigor their ability to organize and manage many
concerns which have been conspicuously mishandled either by the state
authorities or by the smaller local units.
Nowhere has the need for “readjustment” to meet this demand been more
keenly appreciated than in California. Elsewhere in these chapters
we have referred to the great diversity in the underlying social and
physical conditions in that state. To meet this situation fifty-six
“general” laws (that were not general at all) had been enacted, for as
many counties. No other method of individualizing county government
had been resorted to until 1911. At that time the progressive leaders
in the legislature wished to bring government, all down the line,
into sympathy with standards of simplicity and efficiency that were
then beginning to be accepted. For a time county government seemed to
present an insuperable obstacle: how could a state system be devised
that would square with these new ideas? Then it was remembered that
for upwards of thirty years the _cities_ of California had been
determining for themselves what municipal officers should be chosen,
how they should be chosen and what powers they should exercise.
California was a pioneer in municipal home rule and the system had
worked pretty much to everybody’s satisfaction.
Inasmuch, however, as counties have much more intimate relations with
the state government it seemed impracticable to allow them quite so
large discretion as the cities, in determining the powers they should
enjoy. And so, the California amendment gives the people of the county
freedom to determine the form and detail of the county organization,
subject to the proviso that each of the necessary county officers such
as sheriff, district attorney, etc., must be maintained to execute the
state law within the county. Members of the county board of supervisors
must be elected, but not necessarily by districts. All other county
officers, except the superior court judges, may be either elective or
appointive in a manner set forth in a county charter.
The procedure by which California counties may take advantage of the
home-rule privilege is as follows: A board of fifteen freeholders is
elected, either in pursuance of an ordinance adopted by three fifths of
the members of the board of supervisors, or of a petition signed by
fifteen per centum of the qualified electors of the county, computed
upon the total number of votes cast therein for all candidates for
governor at the last preceding gubernatorial election. Within one
hundred and twenty days from the time their election is declared the
board of freeholders must prepare and cause to be published a charter
for the government of the county. Within sixty days after its first
publication (unless a general election intervenes) the charter is
submitted to the voters of the county for adoption or rejection. It is
then submitted to the legislature at its next session for approval or
rejection but not for amendment. But since a California legislature
in thirty-seven years has never been known to reject a charter or
a charter amendment of a city, the outlook for a policy of county
non-interference would seem to be good.
It may be, however, that the California plan is too radical a change
for states which have not yet granted freedom to their cities. A less
sweeping way of affording relief from iron-clad forms of government is
found in the statutes of Illinois, New Jersey and other states, through
which it is possible for any county to pass from one prescribed form to
another by petition and popular election. Similar laws are in operation
in a number of states permitting cities to adopt the commission plan,
and in four states the cities may make a choice between three or four
forms under an optional law.
Following the passage of such a city law in New York, the County
Government Association and the official commissions on the
reorganization of government in Nassau and Westchester counties
memorialized the constitutional convention of 1915 for amendments which
would authorize the counties to adopt a plan of organization suited to
their local needs. These associations formulated the question of county
adjustment for “up-state” New York counties in these words:
First: That the Legislature should be required by the Constitution
to provide optional plans of county government, any one of which any
county may adopt by a vote of the people.
Second: That the Legislature should in such plans confer upon the
Board of Supervisors or other governing body in such county such
powers of local legislation as the Legislature may deem expedient.
Third: That the Constitution should require that no such plan of
government should be imposed on any county until approved by the
electors thereof and that no amendment to any plan of government
should affect any county which has previously adopted such plan,
unless such amendment is accepted by such county, or unless such
amendment relates to some state function.
Fourth: That the Constitution should require that all laws relating
to the government of counties should be general both in terms and in
effect, except that special or local laws relating to such government
may be passed, but shall take effect only on approval of the county
affected.
The California amendment has been put to use in the four counties of
Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Tehama, and Butte, all of which have their
special “home-rule” charters. Its early use is contemplated in Alameda,
Napa and Santa Barbara counties. Since 1911 the scope of the amendment
has been broadened so as to permit of considerable latitude in the
consolidation of city and county governments.
Such is the counter-movement to centralized state control. In no wise
are the two in the least inconsistent, for the latter tendency is to
limit the subjects in which the county acts in the capacity of a local
state agent while the former concerns itself simply with _methods_
of performing service under local popular control.
The home-rule movement, if it may so be indicated, is practical
evidence that people are regarding counties as something more than mere
geographical expressions. Counties are _thinking_ units. They are
capable of framing local policies. Therefore they would extend their
opportunities to think and to express themselves.
This idea seems to be at the bottom of the local option policy of the
organized anti-liquor forces throughout a great portion of the country.
Shrewd tactics, of course, has a good deal to do with it, for county
and other forms of local option are but the thin side of a wedge to
state-wide and even nation-wide prohibition. But for the present
at least, organizations like the Anti-Saloon League realize that
counties are very handy and convenient units of public sentiment and
have been instrumental in securing county option laws in many states,
including Idaho, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota,
Montana, Oregon, Texas. Incidentally, the county option plan makes the
public policy district in liquor matters coincide with districts for
enforcement, thus minimizing the danger of nullification.