Category Legislative Powers

Entries 3 Total

Motor City Madhouse

Aug 25, 11 10:25 AM

Detroit lost so much population between 2000 and 2010 that “more than 70 laws — covering issues from racetracks to operating a health department — were thrown into limbo,” reports Metro News, the city’s alternative newsweekly. As the article notes, some of the laws relate to programs that no longer exist, but others were directly related to the city’s finances, including the ability to tax and receive and spend Federal funds. The laws don’t specifically mention Detroit by name, but instead apply only to a city with a population of 750,000 or more. According to the most recent census, Detroit has 713,777 residents.

These kinds of laws, known as “bracket bills” in Texas, are necessary because many state constitutions, including both Michigan’s (art. IV, sec. 29) and Texas’s (art. III, sec. 56), forbid the Legislature from enacting “local or special acts”, or laws that apply only to one city or one person. By referring only to a locality’s population, the legislature can pass a bill that skirts the constitutional prohibition while addressing the specific needs of that community. Usually, so long as it is theoretically possible for any city to grow into or out of the bracket, the bracket is valid.

One view of bracket bills is that they allow the legislature to address a public policy issue unique to one locality without having to take a “one-size-fits-all” solution that may prove unworkable for other localities. Another view is that they impermissibly allow a legislator or group of legislators to micromanage a locality’s affairs; legislative courtesy often demands that members not delay or defeat another member’s local legislation.

Finally, from a drafting perspective, the situation facing Detroit could have been avoided if the initial legislation provided that “this Act continues to apply to a municipality described by this Act and continues to operate regardless of any change in the municipality’s population” or similar language reflecting local drafting conventions. As the Metro News noted, the next largest city in Michigan is Grand Rapids with a population of about 188,000, there’s still no danger of any other city catching up to Detroit soon if such language is added.

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I’ve Been in this Movie Before

Oct 7, 10 11:12 AM

Paul Burka, Texas Monthly columnist and BurkaBlog author, asks whether the current Texas budget crisis mist be better managed thru annual budget sessions. The Texas Legislature only meets for 140 days in odd-numbered years; the Texas Constitution generally requires the Legislature to pass a balanced budget (any deficit spending requires a super-majority of each House of the Legislature and, as a practical matter, hasn’t ever happened). As the 2011 session looms on the horizon, Burka notes that “most people involved in writing the state budget have no idea about the size of the shortfall,” yet state agencies are being told to cut their budgets by 10 percent with another 15 percent on top of that estimated to be necessary. Burka thinks that a “thirty-day budget session in June 2012, three months before the end of the biennium, would allow budget writers to prepare a budget based on the latest economic information” and that the Texas constitution should institutionalize annual budget sessions.

This is an idea that comes up regularly in the political science literature and just about every time the Legislature faces huge deficits. Budget writers don’t like it for reasons unknown; when House Appropriations Chairman Rob Junell proposed a wholesale revision of the Texas Constitution in 1999, he tellingly did not include a provision for annual budget sessions. One reason may be that legislators don’t want to have to come back; since they only make $600 per month, plus a per diem when in session, they would have to take away more time for their everyday jobs that pay the bills. Employers don’t look too kindly on Members always taking off to go to Austin; at least they can be assured it’s only every two years. To expect employers, business partners, clients, etc., to understand that you’re going to be gone for the first three months of every year might be a little too much.

The only time in modern history that the idea has been seriously forwarded was the proposed Constitution of 1975, which failed at the ballot box. So while Burka’s idea makes some sense, I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

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Purse Power

Sep 20, 10 1:15 PM

The Wall Street Journal reports today that the House Republicans in D.C. “are planning to chip away at the White House’s legislative agenda—in particular the health-care law—by depriving the programs of cash” in anticipation of electoral gains this November that may hand them control of the House. Although it doesn’t appear that either house of Congress would have veto-proof Republican majorities–if, indeed, they obtain the majority at all–but they appear ready to fully wield the power of the purse. “Some Republican aides and advisers say if Republicans controlled the House, they could wedge wide-ranging provisions into appropriations bills that would choke off future funding for the core of the [health-care] law.” As former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin notes, “By having the capacity to block funding for it, you get to very much shape how it turns out.” Appropriations law is arcane and ripe for use by both sides to shape policy; it is the subject of the General Accountability Office’s three-volume Redbook (formally “Principles of Federal Appropriations Law”), which notes that the power of the purse is “the most important single curb in the Constitution on Presidential power.” We perhaps shall soon find out.

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