Special Municipal Legislation in Iowa

Frank Edward Horack

American Political Science Review, 1920, vol. 14, issue 3, 423-445

Abstract: The Iowa constitution of 1857 was one of the first to prohibit the passage of special laws for cities and towns. Section 30 of Article III of the constitution enumerates six subjects upon which the legislature is forbidden to pass any special act; the fourth of which proscribes the passage of any act “For the incorporation of cities and towns.” The same section also declares that “In all the cases above enumerated, and in all other cases where a general law can be made applicable, all laws shall be general, and of uniform operation throughout the state.” In addition to these provisions Section 6 of Article I of the Bill of Rights requires that “All laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation; the general assembly shall not grant to any citizen or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens.”Just what prompted the convention which drafted the constitution of 1857 to declare against special legislation for cities and towns is not clear. The proceedings of the convention do not disclose any debate upon the provision when adopted. The experience of other states may have impressed the constitution makers of Iowa with the evils arising from the unlimited exercise of powers over municipalities by legislative bodies, but that these evils had manifested themselves seriously in Iowa as early as 1857 is almost beyond belief. In 1856 the total population of Iowa was only 517,875 and this was largely rural. The federal census of 1860 shows but two cities in the state with a population above 10,000 and these were both under 15,000.

Date: 1920
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:14:y:1920:i:03:p:423-445_01

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Political Science Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().