Attorney General of Michigan Ex Rel. Kies v. Lowrey
199 U.S. 233, 26 S.Ct. 27, 1905 U.S. LEXIS 1025 (1905)
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Rule of Law:
A state legislature possesses the absolute power to create, alter, or dissolve its political subdivisions, such as school districts, and to apportion their property and debts. Such legislative action does not violate the U.S. Constitution's Contract Clause or Due Process Clause because these subdivisions are public agencies of the state, not private entities holding contractual or property rights against the state.
Facts:
- In 1881, four school districts were organized in the townships of Somerset and Moscow, Hillsdale County, Michigan.
- In 1901, the Michigan legislature passed Act Number 315, which created a new, single school district known as 'the public schools of the village of Jerome.'
- The new district was formed by incorporating one entire former district and portions of three others.
- The act transferred all property belonging to the old districts that was located within the new district's boundaries to the new district.
- The act also mandated that the new district assume and pay the debts and obligations of the old districts from which it was created.
- The act appointed the initial trustees for the new school district, including the defendants in error.
Procedural Posture:
- The Attorney General of Michigan filed an information in the nature of a quo warranto in the Circuit Court for Hillsdale County against the trustees of the newly created school district.
- The Circuit Court, as the trial court, rendered a judgment of ouster, invalidating the new district and removing its officers.
- The trustees (defendants in error) appealed to the Supreme Court of Michigan, the state's highest court.
- The Michigan Supreme Court partially reversed the trial court, upholding the validity of the act but affirming the ouster of any officers who held their position solely based on the legislative appointment.
- The relators (plaintiffs in error) sought a writ of error from the United States Supreme Court to review the decision of the Michigan Supreme Court.
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Issue:
Does a state law that dissolves existing school districts, creates a new one from their territory, and transfers the old districts' property to the new district violate the U.S. Constitution's Contract Clause or the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice McKenna
No. A state law that alters or creates school districts does not violate the Contract Clause or Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The court reasoned that municipalities like school districts are auxiliaries or agencies of the state, created for the purpose of governance. They do not possess contractual rights against the state legislature that created them, nor do they hold property in a private capacity. Citing its precedent in Laramie County v. Albany County, the Court affirmed that a state legislature has absolute power over its subordinate municipalities, including the power to create, destroy, and modify them at will and to apportion their common property and burdens as it sees fit. Because no contract exists between the school districts and the state, the Contract Clause is not implicated, and because the property is public, its reapportionment by the state is not a taking of private property without due process.
Analysis:
This decision reaffirms the well-established legal principle of plenary state power over its political subdivisions, often referred to as 'Dillon's Rule' in a broader context. It solidifies the doctrine that municipalities are 'creatures of the state' and possess no inherent rights of self-government or property that are protected by the U.S. Constitution against state legislative action. The ruling clarifies that constitutional protections like the Contract Clause and the Due Process Clause primarily apply to private individuals and corporations, not to public governmental entities in their relationship with their sovereign creator. This precedent grants states broad authority to reorganize local governments, which has ongoing implications for school consolidation, municipal annexation, and the redrawing of county lines.
