Smith and Ridout v. Mayor, Counsellor and Aldermen

Opinion per curiam ⁷³⁶ The appeal in this case was taken under sec. 29, Art. 5 of the Code, and is from an order of the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County refusing to grant an injunction to restrain the municipality of Annapolis from holding an election on the second Monday of July for the choice of a Mayor and other city officers. The ground upon which the injunction is asked is this, that the section of the charter which provided for the holding of municipal elections has been repealed and consequently that there is no law, general or local, permitting such an election to be held. ⁷³⁷ Under the local Code, Art. 2, sec. 28, the boundaries of the city were defined and it was declared that elections for mayor and other city officers should be held every second year on the second Monday of July. In 1898 the Legislature undertook to amend that section. By chapter 370 of the Acts of that session it was enacted that the municipality should have authority to issue bonds for certain specified purposes and that sec. 28 of Art. 2 of the Local Code should be repealed and re-enacted with amendments.

The title of the Act reads as follows : An Act to authorize and direct the Mayor, Counsellor and Aldermen of the city of Annapolis to issue bonds to an amount not exceeding thirty thousand dollars, to pay the present floating indebtedness of the city, and certain anticipated indebtedness conpected with the building and furnishing of the public school buildings in said city, without submitting the question of the issuance of said bonds to a vote of the legal voters of said city, and to repeal and re-enact sec. 28 of Art. 2 of the Code of Public Local Laws, title “Anne Arundel County,” sub-title “City of Annapolis,” and relating to the boundaries of said city of Annapolis. The body of the Act is distinctly divided into two separate subjects.