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37 Tex. L. Rev. 682 (1958-1959)
Legislative Jurisdiction of Texas Home Rule Cities

handle is hein.journals/tlr37 and id is 710 raw text is: Legislative Jurisdiction of Texas Home Rule Cities MILLARD H. RUUD* When is a charter or ordinance inconsistent with... the general laws enacted by the Legislature of this State? Texas Constitution, article XI, section 5. Home rule is both a political symbol and a legal doctrine. Political symbols, even those which serve as rallying flags in vigorous controversy, often have an uncertain content and, of course, have a considerable emo- tional content.' As a political symbol, home rule expresses the ideal of local self-government. It seems related to its contemporary in the higher political arena-the Wilsonian doctrine of self-determination. The purpose of this paper, however, is to give content to certain aspects of the legal doctrine as it exists in Texas.2 A half century ago Judge Dillon of Iowa, arguing the case for legislative supremacy, and Judge Cooley of Michigan, arguing the case for the inherent right of local self- government, were locked in the classic debate over the legal question of the existence and extent of municipal autonomy, with Judge Dillon fi- nally carrying the day. This dispute is duplicated in Texas by the historic disagreement between the Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals.3 The first blow in this battle was that struck on behalf of the inherent right of local self-government by the Court of Criminal Appeals, when it decided Ex parte Lewis.4 The 1901 legislative charter for Galveston, passed in the wake of the Galveston disaster, provided that three of the * Professor of Law, University of Texas. 1 The more abstract the word, the greater the risk that any proposition in which it is used will not be true of all the persons and things within the class denoted by the word, and the more liable we are to forget that at bottom we are talking about persons and things.... Men are stirred to frenzy by words like 'democracy', 'un-American', 'New Deal' without taking the trouble to specify to themselves the individual persons and practices they purport to admire or hate. Chafee, The Disorderly Conduct of Words, 41 CoLUm. L. REv. 381,390 (1941). 2 The following studies will prove very useful to anyone interested in home rule in Texas: BLODGETT, MUNICIPAL HOME RurE CHARTER ELECTIONS IN TsXAs (1950);- KEITH, CITY AND CourrT HOME Ruiz IN TExAs (1951); WEB, MUNICIPAL HOME Rur. CATERs IN TEXAs (1947); Comment, ii TE As L. REv. 530 (1933); Comment, 6 TExAs L. REv. 497 (1928). 3 For a summary of this judicial history see Judge Wilson's dissent in Bennett v. Brown County Water Impr. Dist. No. One, 153 Tex. 599, 610-13, 272 S.W.2d 498, 505-07 (1954); KEITH, Op. Cit. supra note 2, at 11. 4 45 Tex. Grim. 1, 73 S.W. 811 (1903).

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