Jones v. Broening, Mayor

Adkins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from the refusal of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City to enjoin the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore from continuing the publication of an advertisement of a proposed amendment to the Charter of said City relating to the exemption of merchandise and the lower taxation of buildings, and the Supervisors of Election of said City from placing upon the official ballot to be used at the general election to be held in said City on November 4th, 1919, and from using any public money or funds for defraying the costs of such advertisement or of printing said proposition on the official ballots. The said amendment was proposed as a new sub-section to Section 6 of said Charter to follow immediately after SubSection 28 (B), to be known as Sub-Section 28 (BB) and is as follows: “ ‘BB’ — Exemption of merchandise and lower taxation • of buildings. “In order to encourage the growth and development of commercial enterprises in Baltimore City and to lessen the cost of goods therein, beginning with the assessment and levy of City taxes for the year 1921, and thereafter, all merchandise held for sale shall be exempted from taxation for all ordinary municipal purposes.” “To stimulate the erection of buildings and general City development and to encourage home owning it is hereby provided that for the year 1922 no building shall be taxed by the City for ordinary municipal purposes at more than ninety per cent, of the regular City rate prevailing in the same taxing district; for the ²³⁹ year 1923 no building shall be taxed at more than eighty per cent, of the regular Oity rate in such district; for the year 1924 no building shall be taxed at more than seventy per cent.; for the year 1925 at more than sixty per cent., and for the year 1926 and thereafter no building shall be taxed at more than fifty per cent of the regular Oity rate prevailing in said district. Any and all portions of this Charter in conflict or inconsistent with this sub-section are hereby repealed.” The right to submit the proposed amendment is contested by the appellants on the following grounds, as alleged by them: 1.

The Charter of Baltimore Oity supposed to have been adopted under Article XI-A of the Constitution, known as the Home Rule Amendment, was never validly adopted because : (a) It was not advertised by the Mayor as requested by said Constitutional Amendment- in two newspapers of general circulation published in the City of Baltimore within thirty days after it was reported to him by the Charter Commission. It was advertised in the Daily Record and in the Municipal Journal and the contention of appellants is that neither of these papers was a newspaper of general circulation. (b) It was not submitted to the voters of said City at the next general or Congressional election after the repeal of said Article XI-A, in that the four new wards added by the Act of 1918 were not included with the rest of the City in the vote on the proposition. 2. Even if the Charter were validly adopted the proposed amendment is beyond the powers of the voters of Baltimore City, contrary to the Constitution and .Declaration of Rights, and therefore void.

The first objection was considered and disposed of in the opinion filed at this term in the case of Lucy J. Williams et ²⁴⁰ al. v. W. F. Broening, Mayor, et al. * and it is not necessary to repeat here what was. said in that opinion. There remains for consideration only the second objection. It will be noted that the “proposed amendment to the Charter undertakes to exempt wholly from taxation for all ordinary municipal purposes all merchandise- held for sale, and to partially exempt from such taxation all buildings in Baltimore City. It is contended by appellees that the full grant of the taxing power was given to- Baltimore City by the Act of the Legislature of 1874, Chapter 39, and that under said Act City acquired all the powers and rights in regard to taxation within its limits that the State itself then had; that the power to tax includes, the power to exempt and classify except as modified or restrained by Constitutional limitations; that when the people of Maryland on Kovember 2nd, 1915, adopted an amendment to Article 15 of the Declaration of Bights they removed the only restriction to the power of the State to exempt and classify property and that by the Home Buie Amendment to the Constitution the way was cleared for the City to exercise the same unrestricted power.

If it be true as a general proposition that