Key Terms:
Inherent versus Delegated power
● Cities do not have natural or inherent power to do anything, they can only
exercise powers
... [Show More] delegated
● state/fed have inherent powers (from const), cities have delegated (from states)
● States and the federal government actively interfere in local decision-making,
because they have delegated powers
● Local decision-makers exercise discretion within strict constraints
○ e.g., no foreign policy capability, no control over monetary policy, little
ability to prevent outsiders from entering, few controls over local business
activity
○ Lacking formal authority, cities are reduced to enticing capital, labor to
locate, stay
● “Cities have no natural or inherent power to do anything. They exercise only
those powers delegated to them by state governments. In areas explicitly
delegated to cities, states retain absolute control.”
Home rule
● With Home Rule, municipalities take themselves out from under Dillon’s Rule –
the prevailing legal doctrine which states that municipalities only have the powers
given to them explicitly by the state – and instead allows them to create a form
and structure of governance of their choosing, so long as they do not conflict with
state or federal law
Public / Private Distinction
○ Analogy of cities like private-sector firms seeking to maximize their
economic position. Since cities lack many formal authorities, they are
reduced to entiseing capital and labor to locate and stay.
○ Tiebout Hypothesis: People vote with their feet, choosing to live where the
package of public service and taxes suits their preferences.
○ In the beginning most cities were like associations ruled by groups of
merchants. Private corporations became right-holders and public
corporations came to be identified with the State.
Dillon’s Rule
● “Municipal corporations owe their origin to, and derive their powers and rights
wholly from, the legislature. It breathes into them the breath of life without which
they cannot exist. As it creates so it may destroy ... Unless there is some
constitutional limitation on the right, the legislature might, by a single act, if we
can suppose it capable of so great a folly and so great a wrong sweep from
existence all of the municipal corporations of the state, and the corporations
could not prevent it ... They are, so to phrase it, the mere tenants at the will of the
legislature.”
● Essentially, municipal corporations owe origin and derive power/rights from the
larger legislatures above them. The legislation can destroy the municipal
governments just as they can give them life.
● Those opposed to this (in favor of local self-government) argued on the right of
the people to have a local self-government
○ Local governments existed before the state governments did, and have
implied protections within the constitution
○ State supremacy should only apply to powers given to the city by a state
(only can act/restrict the powers that they themselves give, not ones
derived from the individual)
● 1880s, private corporations had become persons with protected rights
○ Yet, cities toiling under state ripper laws and other forms of interference
■ Ripper clauses: prohibit state government from establishing
commissions that usurp power from local governments; prevent the
legislature from taking some essential municipal functions and
giving it to a state agency, take control over services like pol/fire
from local municipalities to the states
■ Constitutional prohibition on the creation of special commissions to
act in the area of municipal affairs
William Mulholland
● He is the father of LAs water system and basically LA. He worked for the private
water company and when LA created a public water corp, they hired WM
because he had the only map of the cities underground pipe network (IN HIS
HEAD)
● He embodies the transformations that cities have undergone in the U.S. Massive
expansions, annexations, and the transition from private to public services.
Dartmouth College v. Woodward
● Charter issued to Dartmouth in 1769, 1816 wanted to revise charter to get rid of
federalist trustees, change private board to have president appointed by
governor, state board hold veto power
● Old trustees sue, maintaining that this act is unconstitutional because Webster
argued that the amending of the old charter would “impair the obligation of
contracts”, State legislature took away rights and given to another, contract
clause should be a interposed barrier to state activity and protect private
property/private charters [Show Less]