upholding right of town council to authorize a bond issue when nearly identical bond issue was previously disapproved by the town’s voters at a referendum because no constitutional, statutory, or charter provision explicitly prohibited such action
How later courts described this case
- upholding right of town council to authorize a bond issue when nearly identical bond issue was previously disapproved by the town’s voters at a referendum because no constitutional, statutory, or charter provision explicitly prohibited such action
- where voters had explicit referendum power to overrule certain orders or resolves authorizing bond issues, the town's resolve to issue a bond was rejected in a subsequent election
- “municipalities in local and municipal affairs may exercise any power or function granted them by the State Constitution, the general law or the municipal charter, not otherwise prohibited or denied expressly or by clear implication by the constitution, the general law, or the charter itself”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
NICHOLS, Justice,
concurring.
All power is inherent in the people, proclaims the Declaration of Rights of Maine’s Constitution. 1 The power of referendum should be regarded as the exercise of a power retained by the people, and not as one granted to them.
*377 After the people in referendum have rejected an ordinance, the legislative body cannot nullify the power of referendum by promptly passing again the same ordinance. 2
While I concur in the judgment reached by the majority this day, I am unwilling to brush aside as mere dictum this important rule.
It is unsatisfactory, I submit, to suggest that the electors have an adequate remedy at the polls by waiting for the members of the local legislative body to come up for reelection.
Rather than conjuring up inclement weather or inadequate publicity to explain away the people’s rejection of a costly measure, the courts should be vigilant to guard the right of referendum retained by the people against any legislative action which would abrogate that right.
A legislative body, such as the town council in the case before us, is not prevented from dealing at once with the subject matter of the rejected ordinance so long as it acts in good faith and with no intent to evade the effect of the electors’ vote in the recent referendum. 3
To deal with the same subject matter and to reenact essentially the same ordinance are, however, two different concerns.
The central fact in the case before us, as I see it, was that almost thirteen months elapsed between the date on which the first ordinance was rejected in referendum and the date on which the town council passed a very similar ordinance, the validity of which is challenged on this appeal.
Upon the record before the Superior Court, it was not error to conclude that such action by the town council was not taken with any design of circumventing a referendum.
. Me. Const. Art. I, § 2: Cf. U.S. Const., Amend. X. See also Baxter v. Waterville Sewerage Dist., 146 Me. 211, 215 , 79 A.2d 585, 588 (1951).
. “Such is unquestionably the law in principle.” Eagle v. Corbin, 275 Ky. 808 , 122 S.W.2d 798, 802 (1938); Re Megnella, 133 Minn. 98 , 157 N.W. 991, 992 (1916); 5 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 16.53 at 208 (3d ed. 1969). See also 1 Antieau, Municipal Corporations § 4.36 at 4-68 (1980).
. See Trumbull v. Ehrsam, 148 Conn. 47 , 166 A.2d 844, 847 (1961).