Popular Law-making: A study of the origin, history, and present tendencies of law-making by statuteStimson, Frederic Jesup
History
Popular Law-making: A study of the origin, history, and present tendencies of law-making by statute
Stimson, Frederic Jesup
Legislation -- United States
Thus, in 1890 North Dakota limits the debt of cities to five per
cent.; but permits county loans to raise seed grain for needy farmers;
other States extend the principle of socialism to electric lighting,
gas, natural gas, water, sewers, agricultural drainage, irrigation,
turnpikes, and cemeteries. That is to say, all may be built,
maintained, or run at the municipal expense, or under municipal
control. In 1895 Wisconsin, North Carolina, Texas, and other States
carefully limit State, county, town, or city taxes to prescribed
rates. Texas requires a two-thirds vote on the issue of municipal
bonds, and fixes the debt limit at five per cent. In 1896 Missouri
rejects a constitutional amendment permitting municipal gas and water
socialism on majority vote of the voters. The same year the failure
of such enterprises begins to show itself in a statute of Iowa
authorizing municipal plants to be sold upon a popular vote. The
socialist town of Hamilton, Ohio, actually went into the hands of a
receiver; a similar result followed the English experiments in the
towns of Poplar and West Ham.
In 1897 many other States adopted a limit for State, city, county, or
town taxes. Indeed, it may be stated generally, without going into
further details, that such laws are practically universal throughout
the South and West, and prevail to some extent as to cities only in
New England, and the same may be said of laws fixing a debt limit
which States, counties, cities, or towns may not exceed. Such laws are
very generally evaded, as by leasing desired improvements of a private
company, or (in Indiana at least) the overlapping of municipal
districts; thus there may be (as formerly in England) city, town,
school district or poor district, each separate and not conterminous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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