 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
City of Enid7/5/2005
ed with the salaries of city officials such as the city attorney, police judge, and treasurer in cities with a population in excess of 25,000. Id. at § 839. The Legislature was also concerned with the public contracts of cities with a population in excess of 25,000. Id. at §§ 844-847. Many examples may be found of our Legislature using population of cities for application of particular statutes. For example, in Isaacs v. City of Oklahoma City, 1966 OK 267, 437 P.2d 229, cert. denied, 389 U.S. 825, 88 S.Ct. 63, 19 L.Ed.2d 79 (1967), this Court upheld the constitutionality of urban renewal laws that applied to cities with a population in excess of 100,000.
In summary, if the Court wants to follow Reynolds, it should discuss the classifications historically recognized in the law for cities for the purpose of legislation, and one of these is the classification of population.
VI. CONCLUSION
Art. 5 § 46 was meant to work with the long-held dichotomy of local (municipal) versus general (state) interests. When Dr. Merrill explained the division of authority between matters of municipal and state concern, he contemplated the power of the Legislature constrained by Art. 5 § 46. Merrill, Constitutional Home Rule for Cities: Oklahoma Version, 5 Okla.L.Rev. 139, 158 (1952). Why is a matter of state concern as opposed to a matter that is merely an affair of cities or towns?
Labor relations and the conditions of industrial employment may be of more than local significance. There are elements, such as competition between localities, the effect of conditions in one locality upon the general economy, the impact of industrial disturbance and strife upon the public order, which seem to bring the "wider interest" of the state into dominance in this area. What few cases there are in Oklahoma support the claim of the state to superiority. Thus a home rule city has been held incompetent to forbid peaceful picketing, as an incident to a labor dispute, in the face of a state law permitting such picketing. Even in respect to the conditions of labor upon municipal public works, state regulation has been upheld on the ground that "regulation of the hours of labor is a state function, designed to promote the general welfare of all the people of the state, which has not been and possibly cannot be delegated to a municipality."
Id. at 171-172.
Certain labor relations are a matter of state significance. See State v. Tibbets, 21 Okla.Crim. 168, 205 P. 776 (1922), where a statute fixing the hours of labor performed on public work, and providing that the compensation paid shall conform to the wage paid for like labor in that locality was held not to violate the Constitution. Certainly, the statute at issue pertains to municipalities, but whether it regulates the affairs of a municipality versus implementing the affairs of the State is a question the Court should address.
The opinion today will tie the hands of the Legislature when it seeks to protect "state interests" involved in labor relations. The Court's opinion denies to the Legislature the power to make rational classifications based upon municipal population for the purpose of protecting these interests, despite the fact that state legislatures have been making population classifications since before the creation of our Constitution. The Framers of our Constitution knew of these population classifications that protected state interests.
I respectfully dissent from the Court's opinion because it is contrary to the intent of the Framers of the Constitution and contrary to the Constitution; because the common-law classifications for cities are not considered and thus Reynolds v. Porter
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Oklahoma Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|