CHAPTER XV
COUNTY HOME RULE
Some counties indeed are awakening to a sense of their identity and are asserting with much vigor their ability to organize and manage many concerns which have been conspicuously mishandled either by the state authorities or by the smaller local units.
Nowhere has the need for “readjustment” to meet this demand been more keenly appreciated than in California. Elsewhere in these chapters we have referred to the great diversity in the underlying social and physical conditions in that state. To meet this situation fifty-six “general” laws (that were not general at all) had been enacted, for as many counties. No other method of individualizing county government had been resorted to until 1911. At that time the progressive leaders in the legislature wished to bring government, all down the line, into sympathy with standards of simplicity and efficiency that were then beginning to be accepted. For a time county government seemed to present an insuperable obstacle: how could a state system be devised that would square with these new ideas? Then it was remembered that for upwards of thirty years the cities of California had been determining for themselves what municipal officers should be chosen, how they should be chosen and what powers they should exercise. California was a pioneer in municipal home rule and the system had worked pretty much to everybody’s satisfaction.
Inasmuch, however, as counties have much more intimate relations with the state government it seemed impracticable to allow them quite so large discretion as the cities, in determining the powers they should enjoy. And so, the California amendment gives the people of the county freedom to determine the form and detail of the county organization, subject to the proviso that each of the necessary county officers such as sheriff, district attorney, etc., must be maintained to execute the state law within the county. Members of the county board of supervisors must be elected, but not necessarily by districts. All other county officers, except the superior court judges, may be either elective or appointive in a manner set forth in a county charter.
The procedure by which California counties may take advantage of the home-rule privilege is as follows: A board of fifteen freeholders is elected, either in pursuance of an ordinance adopted by three fifths of the members of the board of supervisors, or of a petition signed by fifteen per centum of the qualified electors of the county, computed upon the total number of votes cast therein for all candidates for governor at the last preceding gubernatorial election. Within one hundred and twenty days from the time their election is declared the board of freeholders must prepare and cause to be published a charter for the government of the county. Within sixty days after its first publication (unless a general election intervenes) the charter is submitted to the voters of the county for adoption or rejection. It is then submitted to the legislature at its next session for approval or rejection but not for amendment. But since a California legislature in thirty-seven years has never been known to reject a charter or a charter amendment of a city, the outlook for a policy of county non-interference would seem to be good.
It may be, however, that the California plan is too radical a change for states which have not yet granted freedom to their cities. A less sweeping way of affording relief from iron-clad forms of government is found in the statutes of Illinois, New Jersey and other states, through which it is possible for any county to pass from one prescribed form to another by petition and popular election. Similar laws are in operation in a number of states permitting cities to adopt the commission plan, and in four states the cities may make a choice between three or four forms under an optional law.
Following the passage of such a city law in New York, the County Government Association and the official commissions on the reorganization of government in Nassau and Westchester counties memorialized the constitutional convention of 1915 for amendments which would authorize the counties to adopt a plan of organization suited to their local needs. These associations formulated the question of county adjustment for “up-state” New York counties in these words:
First: That the Legislature should be required by the Constitution to provide optional plans of county government, any one of which any county may adopt by a vote of the people.
Second: That the Legislature should in such plans confer upon the Board of Supervisors or other governing body in such county such powers of local legislation as the Legislature may deem expedient.
Third: That the Constitution should require that no such plan of government should be imposed on any county until approved by the electors thereof and that no amendment to any plan of government should affect any county which has previously adopted such plan, unless such amendment is accepted by such county, or unless such amendment relates to some state function.
Fourth: That the Constitution should require that all laws relating to the government of counties should be general both in terms and in effect, except that special or local laws relating to such government may be passed, but shall take effect only on approval of the county affected.
The California amendment has been put to use in the four counties of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Tehama, and Butte, all of which have their special “home-rule” charters. Its early use is contemplated in Alameda, Napa and Santa Barbara counties. Since 1911 the scope of the amendment has been broadened so as to permit of considerable latitude in the consolidation of city and county governments.
Such is the counter-movement to centralized state control. In no wise are the two in the least inconsistent, for the latter tendency is to limit the subjects in which the county acts in the capacity of a local state agent while the former concerns itself simply with methods of performing service under local popular control.