City of Enid7/5/2005
rs and the majority opinion errs in ruling otherwise.
OKLA. CONST. art 5, § 46 provides in pertinent part, that " he Legislature shall not, except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, pass any local or special law authorizing: ... egulating the affairs of counties, cities, towns, wards, or school districts." Boiled down and as pertinent here, § 46, unless otherwise allowed somewhere else in the Oklahoma Constitution, prohibits the Legislature from passing local or special laws regulating the affairs of cities. OKLA. CONST. art. 5, § 59 provides: " aws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation throughout the State, and where a general law can be made applicable, no special law shall be enacted." Under both provisions, after a determination is made that the challenged law concerns one of the twenty-eight (28) subjects, the next question necessary to address is whether the legislation at issue is a special or local law. If it is, § 46 is violated. If it is not, and, instead, the determination is made that the law is a general law, § 46 does not prohibit the law. Thus, one must delineate and then apply the proper test for deciding what is or is not a local or special law. The majority opinion does not do so.
In Territory ex rel. Taylor v. School Dist. No. 83, 1901 OK 22, 64 P. 241, the following was stated:
The word "local," as a word of constitutional or statutory prohibition, signifies belonging or confined to a particular place, and relates only to a portion of the people of a state or their property. When applied to legislation, it signifies such legislation as relates to only a portion of the territory or state, or a part of its people, or to a fraction of the property of its citizens.
Id. at 241 (First Syllabus by the Court). In Fenimore v. State ex rel. Comm'rs of the Land Office, 1948 OK 93, 194 P.2d 852, the Court stated the following:
Special laws, prohibited by Sections 32, 46 and 59, Article 5, of the Constitution of Oklahoma, are those which apply to less than the whole of a class of persons, entities or things standing upon the same footing or in substantially the same situation or circumstances, and hence do not have a uniform operation.
Fenimore, 194 P.2d at 852-853 (Third Syllabus by the Court). Although either one or both of the terms, special or local, taken out of context or improperly understood might be thought to ban or prohibit all population-based legislative regulation of city affairs, as the terms are used in § 46 of article 5 of the Oklahoma Constitution, neither was intended to do so.
In 1924 in the case of Key v. Donnell, 1924 OK 996, 231 P. 546, the Court said the following in regard to city population-based legislation:
We think it is well settled from an examination of the authorities, which are almost unanimous, that the Legislature may legislate upon certain subjects, and in the act make a classification of its application to cities, towns, or counties, upon the basis of population, and the law will be construed as a general law not within the inhibition of the Constitution against local and special legislation, provided the classification as made is a legitimate one, and not arbitrary and capricious, and bears some reasonable, rational relation to the subject-matter. The first question for consideration is whether the classification made by the Legislature in this act, upon the basis of population, was arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, and used as a subterfuge for the purpose of passing an act general in form, but in reality a local and special act, and applicable only to Oklahoma City.
Id. at 547. In Key it was further stated succinctly:
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