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51 Nw. U. L. Rev. 27 (1956-1957)
Municipal Revenue Powers in the Context of Constitutional Home Rule

handle is hein.journals/illlr51 and id is 37 raw text is: Municipal Revenue Powers in the Context of Constitutional Home Rule By Rubin G. Cohn* N the most recent comprehensive analysis of constitutional home rule provisions for municipal corporations,1 constitutional home rule is characterized a paradoxical enigma, attractive and appeal- ing, yet unattainable to any significant degree.2 This gloom ridden conclusion was not inspired by what is often alleged to be the unen- lightened and even hostile predilections of the legal mind toward municipal home rule, but by a realistic survey of constitutional home rule provisions in theory and in action-a survey which leads to the readily demonstrable conclusion that the gap between the ideal political conception of home rule and its constitutionally ex- pressed concepts is both wide and deep, and that no effective means of bridging the gap has yet been discovered.3 The problem, however, is much more involved than merely striv- ing for a technique to attain a well defined and completely under- stood objective. The essential difficulty is that the objective itself has never been defined in terms free of crippling ambiguity and that there is no substantial consensus as to the meaning of munici- pal home rule. Whether phrased in academic terms as the com- plete or partial transfer of a portion of government power from the state to the city,4 or the right of self-government5 or the power given to cities to make and change their own charters and to govern themselves in accordance therewith,6 or in constitutional terms as all powers of local self-government,17 or as power to frame a charter for its own government,8 the inherent uncer- tainty of meaning of such terms, when placed in the hard context of power distribution among the state and its cities, creates more doubt than clarity. * Professor of Law, University of Illinois. Legislative Consultant and Draftsman, City of Chicago. Staff Co-Director, Chicago Home Rule Comm'n, 1953-54. B.A., Univ. of Illinois, 1932, LL.B., 1934. 1. CHICAGO'S GOVERNMENT-REPORT OF THE CHICAGO HOME RULE COMMISSION (1954). Also published as CHICAGO HOME RULE COMmissIoN, MODERNIZING A CITY GOVERNMENT (1954). 2. Id. c. 15. The author, as staff co-director for the Chicago Home Rule Com- mission, was primarily responsible for the analysis and preparation of the chapters dealing with constitutional home rule in the areas of municipal revenue and police powers. 3. For a similar conclusion as to the failure of present techniques of constitu- tional home rule to effect any significant degree of municipal autonomy, see Walker, Toward a New Theory of Municipal Home Rule, 50 Nw. U.L. REv. 571 (1955). 4. McGOLDRICK, THE LAW AND PRACTICE OF MUNICIPAL HOME RULE, 1916-1930 at 2 (1933). 5. KNE IER, CITY GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 85 (1934). 6. Ibid. 7. OHIo CONST. art. XVIII, §3. 8. MINN. CONsT. art. IV, §36.

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