Article 4, Section 23 of the Indiana Constitution reads, “In all cases enumerated in the preceding section, 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.” But just how far does this extend?
Limits on “special legislation” are found “in some form or other, in most state constitutions.” City of South Bend v. Kimsey, 781 N.E.2d 683 (Ind. 2003) (citing Osborne M. Reynolds, Local Government Law 85-86 (1982)). Their purpose is “to prevent state legislatures from granting preferences to some local units or areas within the state, and thus creating an irregular system of laws, lacking state-wide uniformity.” Id. at 685.
This “irregularity” is not in itself the only perceived evil. In the view of the proponents of the these provisions, if special laws are permitted, the result is perceived to be “a situation in which it [becomes] customary for members of the legislature to vote for the local bills of others in return for comparable cooperation from them (a practice often termed ‘logrolling’) Id. at 686. In simple terms, these anti-logrolling provisions are grounded in the view that as long as a law affects only one small area of the state, voters in most areas will be ignorant of and indifferent to it. As a result many legislators will be tempted to support the proposals even if they deem the proposal to be bad policy that they could not support if it affected their own constituents.
Although the text of Section 23 has remained unaltered since it was placed in the Constitution in 1851, it has been subject to a variety of interpretations over the intervening years. For purposes of this essay we need only to concern ourselves with its present, modern day interpretation.
A statute is “general” if it applies “to all persons or places of a specified class throughout the state.” Id. A statute is “special” if it pertains to and affects a particular case, person, place, or thing, as opposed to the general public.” Id. In sum, if there are characteristics of the locality that distinguish it for purposes of the legislation, and the legislation identifies the locality, it is special legislation. Id. at 692. Any proposal specific to a county, or specific to counties within specific population ranges, are typically going to be considered a “special” statute. However that does not make them automatically, or even per se, unconstitutional, of course.
In South Bend v. Kimsey, the Indiana Supreme Court explained that special legislation is permitted if it is “accompanied by legislative findings as to the facts justifying the legislation’s limited territorial application.” 781 N.E.2d at 691. In Kimsey the court found an annexation law specific to St. Joseph County unconstitutional. In the conclusion of their decision, the court said:
Despite its facial generality, this Court finds that subsection (g) does, and was intended to, specifically target St. Joseph County. Thus, subsection (g) is special legislation. Although reasons have been advanced to explain why annexation in St. Joseph County must be handled differently than it is in every other county in the state, no facts supporting those reasons have been set forth in the record by the proponents of the special legislation, and we are directed to judicial notice of none.
781 N.E.2d at 697. The law’s “defining characteristics” limited the application of the law to particular places. This is acceptable if the law’s “justifying characteristics” show that there are feature of the place that make a special law necessary. Id. That justification didn’t exist in Kimsey.
In Williams v. State, 724 N.E.2d 1070 (Ind. 2000), the Indiana Supreme Court found that the specific needs of Lake County – a large county with a larger case docket – supported special legislation providing the appointment of magistrates only in Lake County courts. In Ind. Gaming Comm’n v. Moseley, 643 N.E.2d 296, 299-301 (Ind. 1994), the court upheld a statute that applied only to counties eligible to vote to adopt riverboat gambling, and provided for city-by-city voting in counties bordering Lake Michigan with more than 400,000 people, while other counties eligible to adopt dockside gambling did so on a countywide basis.
The most recent case on the subject is SMDfund, Inc. v. Fort Wayne-Allen County Airport Authority, 831 N.E.2d 725 (Ind. 2005). In that case residents brought an action challenging the constitutionality of legislation that resulted in city-county authority and sought to keep the airport authority from closing an airport. The Court held that laches barred the claim the “special” legislation claim. But in dicta the Court did reaffirm the Kimsey holding and state, “a special legislation may be constitutional if it is based on distinct characteristics of the affected locality.” Id. at 731.
