Mayor Milton Lundstrom, Rockford, Chairman. Members: Village President J. R. Christianson, Oak Park; Village President John Noel, Mundelein; Village President Dan Kulie, Brookfield; Mayor Ernest L. Hoagland, Jacksonville; Mayor Nelson O. Howarth, Springfield; Mayor Clarence Sablotny, Decatur; Mayor Lloyd Welsh, Bloomington; Mayor Leo Morrison, Galesburg; Mayor Paul Johnson, Moline. Ex-Officio Members: Mayor Leo Struif, Alton, President, Illinois Municipal League; A. L. Sargent, Executive Director, Illinois Municipal League. Consultant to Committee: Gilbert Y. Steiner, Research Associate Professor, Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois. Approved by the Executive Committee of the Illinois Municipal League Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, on Friday, August 31st, 1956.

The 42nd Annual Convention of the Illinois Municipal League, meeting in Springfield in November, 1955, adopted a resolution providing for the appointment of a committee of ten members of the Executive Committee to undertake a study to develop a program of "Home Rule for Illinois Municipalities." The resolution further stipulated that the study include a consideration of the various State constitutions which provide greater freedom to their cities than does Illinois in the matter of self-government. In order to emphasize the constancy of purpose with which the League intends to face this problem, "Home Rule for Illinois Municipalities" was simultaneously adopted as the League slogan for 1956 and all League printed matter bears this slogan.

Pursuant to the terms of the resolution, the President appointed a committee of which Mayor Milton Lundstrom of Rockford served as chairman, and charged it with responsibility for preparing a report. This Committee has taken its charge seriously, has studied the literature made available to it by the League office and others, has consulted with specialists in this field, and now offers a report with recommendations which it believes are best designed to "obtain a greater degree of self-rule and responsibility" for the cities and villages of Illinois.

In the deliberations of the Committee, every effort has been made to consider the home rule question realistically. Legal problems and political problems have been evaluated and weighed together in a manner which the Committee feels avoids any tendency towards idealism at one extreme and over-cynicism at the other. We have started with a determination to unify theoretical and practical considerations in approaching "home rule" for Illinois municipalities. We are hopeful that our proposals will benefit both the State and city and village governments. We earnestly invite support—on the basis of what seems to us to be a rational study of the record—from municipal and State officials and from civic groups, business, labor and taxpayer organizations, and from the great mass of citizens of Illinois who share our interest in finding an appropriate distribution of powers between State and local governments in a working democratic system.

The first thoroughgoing examination in at least two decades of the meaning and current status of home rule was completed by the staff of the Chicago Home Rule Commission in the fall of 1954 and published at that time as "Chicago's Government." The work of the present Committee has been significantly simplified by the contribution of the Chicago group, and our obligation to them is cheerfully acknowledged. Our conclusions are our own.

The Municipal League Committee has studied carefully the survey made by the Chicago Commission staff of the constitutional home rule provisions found in Michigan, Minnesota, Louisiana, New York, Ohio, California, Colorado, and Maryland. In no case is an unlimited grant of municipal autonomy either expressed or implied. The kinds of limitations on municipal power of these "home rule" States include, in one or more cases, (1) language that makes the grant of constitutional home rule, in the words of Howard Lee McBain, "A matter of legislative grace rather than of constitutional right;" (2) failure to designate particular municipal powers, which are granted; (3) reservation of concurrent legislative power to act in matters of municipal concern; (4) requirements that local ordinances not conflict with State statutes; (5) constitutional debt and tax rate limits applicable to municipalities despite "home rule" grants; (6) requirements of legislative or executive approval of locally framed charters.

In each case, the problem is substantially the same. The limitation is made necessary by an initial inability to agree on what constitutes "all powers of local self-government" (Ohio), or local laws "relating to its property, affairs, and government" (New York), or "acts pertaining to its local affairs, property and government which are necessary or proper in the legitimate exercise of its corporate powers and municipal functions" (Louisiana). Constitutional home rule grants, by necessity, are loaded with ambiguous words and specific reservations. A formula has not been found which will settle, by a single act of the legislature, or by a single amendment to a State constitution, the problem of State-local power distribution.

Home rule is not a governmental technique that is absent today and present tomorrow like permanent voting registration or central purchasing. Although there has been a tendency on the part of municipal officials to talk of home rule States and non-home rule States as though the former signified a heavenly existence and the latter a kind of hell, the facts suggest that cities everywhere are actually in a kind of permanent limbo. There is no municipal home rule in the sense of total separation from control of the State—and we doubt that there is any real desire for such total "freedom" on the part of our cities.

No State-city relationship in any of the forty-eight States is a home-rule relationship that fits the definition of the American Municipal Association: "Home rule would permit cities to amend their own charters by action of the local electors, to choose the activities they wish to perform, and to raise their revenue as they see fit." This suggests a kind of municipal sovereignty that is demonstrable unrealistic because it fails to account for the resolution of conflicts of interest between State and city over "the activities they wish to perform," or over ways in which "to raise their revenue as they see fit." The examination of experiences with constitutional home rule in other States is not encouraging. Indeed, Chicago's investigators concluded that "the concept of home rule is beset with a multitude of meanings and implications, with little or no unanimity of agreement in respect to its basic component factors but with a predominant, though inconclusively, defined, central idea that its objective is to secure greater powers of local government to municipalities."

ILLINOIS municipalities, working through their Municipal League, have been increasingly successful in the last few years in expanding the scope of activities permitted cities and villages and in limiting the imposition of restrictions and requirements on cities and villages. The most important manifestations of this success are seen in the permissive sales and utility taxes, and in the veto of legislation requiring minimum salary payments to certain classes of municipal employees.

It remains our unshaken belief that wages and working conditions of municipal employees are matters for local negotiation and determination.

In commending this recent liberal State action, the League has consistently characterized it as action "in support of the home rule principle." By so doing, the Illinois Municipal League has demonstrated its awareness of the fact that home rule is not a black or white affair. We have approached it as a kind of philosophy of government whereby State officials tend to restrain themselves from imposing requirements or restrictions on municipal governments and tend to maximize the freedom of choice granted municipal governments in making policy decisions. Every decision affecting municipal government that is made by the State legislature or by the Governor accepts or rejects that philosophy depending on how great a conflict there is between the interests of the municipalities and the interests of other groups in the State. We recognize that other groups have legitimate interests which may conflict with those of the cities and villages, and that the role of the State is to resolve those conflicts.

We have considered municipal objectives in four major areas with a view to assessing the present adequacy of local freedom of choice and the likelihood of State imposed restrictions on such freedom. Our "home rule" legislative objectives flow logically from this assessment.

1. The structure and form of municipal government. Local freedom of choice is at a high level in this field. Illinois municipalities, other than Chicago, may organize under any of the four popular forms of municipal government: aldermanic, village, commission, or manager, and may change from one form to another at the will of the voters. The enabling legislation in each case is generally liberal; the General Assembly has shown no reluctance to respond to requests for needed amendments and improvements.

An improvement favored by the Committee is legislation authorizing the mayors and presidents of non-manager cities and villages to delegate limited administrative authority to a professional assistant. A relatively minor problem in the Committee's consideration of the State-local relationship in the area of structure and form of city government was some dissatisfaction with State-imposed limits on salaries of certain city officials. We are confident that ordinary legislation can improve this situation, and see no reason to feel that "home rule" is either seriously lacking in this area or is likely to be expanded by constitutional amendment.

2. Service powers of municipal governments. The multiplicity of local units of government and Illinois' large variety of special districts cut significantly into the service powers required by Illinois cities and villages. The local governments concerned with services which are not provided by cities and villages—e.g., school districts, park districts, sanitary districts—will not benefit from an expansion of city and village home rule powers. The cities and villages themselves do not now appear to be anxious for an expansion of powers in the service field, although we firmly oppose any lessening of such powers.

The record of those cities in other States "enjoying" constitutional home rule in the area of service powers would not justify any major effort to achieve such status for Illinois cities even if the numerous special districts did not virtually pre-empt the service area. State courts interpreting constitutional home rule provisions have declared such important service functions as education, public housing, public utilities, and public health to be matters of State concern rather than local or municipal affairs and, therefore, within the continuing control of the State legislature. For example, in New York, the courts have held public education to be essentially a State and not a city function, and that the State's education law is controlling in case of conflict with a city charter.

The public housing field, although not a matter of special concern to downstate Illinois municipalities, furnishes an important, clue to the scope of municipal service powers in as model a constitutional home rule State as Colorado. The Supreme Court of Colorado has held that the State legislature was not foreclosed from creating a housing authority for Denver, despite the fact that the city was operating under a constitutional home rule charter, which, by express constitutional provision, is supposed to supersede State law in local and municipal matters.

Neither the public utility nor public health service functions would be subject to increased local control by the adoption of constitutional home rule in this State. The Illinois Supreme Court has held that the creation of the Illinois Commerce Commission removed from municipalities all regulatory power over the instrumentalities of a public utility or the public utility business. In the considered judgment of the Chicago Home Rule Commission expert staff, "A constitutional grant of home rule . . . would probably not disturb the dominance of the State so clearly established in this field."

In the public health service area, constitutional home rule was of no avail in Juneau, Wisconsin, when the State of Wisconsin ordered the city to provide a sewage treatment system.

The language of the Wisconsin Supreme Court made short shift of Wisconsin's home rule provision:

"While it is provided by section 3 of the same article, that cities and villages organized pursuant to State law are empowered to determine their local affairs and government subject only to the constitution and such enactments of the legislature of State-wide concern, there can be no question that the promotion of a protection of public health is a matter of State-wide concern."

In summary, we find no important service powers which Illinois cities are disabled from performing by the absence of constitutional home rule, and are pessimistic, on the basis of experience elsewhere, about the possibility of liberalization even if there were service powers which we feel we should exercise but now cannot.

3. Police powers of municipal governments. Existing statutory grants provide Illinois cities and villages with a substantial measure of police power, that is, power to enact laws for the promotion of the health, comfort, safety, morals and welfare of their residents. The Chicago Home Rule Commission analysis concluded that it is "difficult to find any major area of municipal concern in the exercise of its police-power functions for which statutory authorization has not been given." The major impediment to free municipal activity in the police power field has not been legislative or gubernatorial reluctance to grant power, but rather the tendency of the courts to construe such power very strictly, because of the inevitable clash between exercise of the police power and constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection of the laws. A narrow view has been taken of broad, undefined delegations of police power, and where there is any reasonable doubt concerning the particular application of such broad delegations, the doubt will often he resolved against the municipality.

Unhappily, however, this is again a deficiency in muncipal powers for which constitutional home rule is not specific. Consider, for example, the New York Multiple Dwelling Law, enacted by the State legislature, and, by population classification applicable only to New York City. The law dealt with the problems of tenements and the prevention of unsanitary and dangerous living conditions, plainly a proper subject of police power legislation. Under the home rule section of the New York Constitution, if the subject matter dealt with the "property, affairs or government" of the city, the legislature should not have been able to act without a request from New York City's mayor and council. No such request had been made. Nevertheless, the New York Supreme

Court sustained the act, holding that it dealt with a matter of State concern, and was therefore beyond the limitations of the home-rule amendment. Although this decision is more than twenty-five years old, it has been characterized recently as "a blow . . . from which home rule has never recovered."

Experiences in the exercise of municipal police powers in other constitutional home rule States are not much more encouraging. Despite apparently generous home rule grants, the police power has been sharply curtailed in Oklahoma, California, Ohio, and Missouri. The conclusion seems inescapable that in this area of municipal activity, as in the field of service powers, constitutional home rule, in and of itself, no matter how carefully drawn will not do the job that seems necessary.

In the view of the Committee, the police power job that seems necessary, and for which authority is presently lacking, is in the field of licensing for regulation (as distinguished from licensing for revenue). An inability to secure such power has been the major municipal difficulty in the police power area. The Illinois courts apply a strict construction of legislative intent in the police power field, a point noted above. The consequence appears to be a need to spell out each business or occupation which may be subjected to regulatory licensing. For example, statutory authority to regulate dealers in "junk, rags, and any secondhand articles whatsoever" has been construed to exclude power to regulate dealers in secondhand motor vehicles, trailers, tires and parts. Secondhand stores of many kinds, certain appliance repair services, and a limited number of other businesses would be licensed, strictly for regulation, by many Illinois municipalities if they had the power to do so. We think it is important that such power be granted, but are doubtful that any generalized kind of grant will achieve the objective.

4. Revenue powers of municipal governments. There is no question but that the action of the Illinois legislature in its 1955 session in granting authority to cities and villages to impose a 1/2c sales tax without referendum and to impose a consumers utility tax represented a significant forward step in the home rule movement. It should be understood, however, that although these sources, when added to other available revenue sources like the wheel tax and amusement tax, ameliorate the municipal revenue problem, they do not answer the need for home rule in the revenue field. Home rule in revenue requires the elimination of tax rate limits, and an opportunity for municipalities to choose between broad based non-property taxes. Despite the success of the municipal sales tax—a success that is admitted by its most vehement opponents—some of our cities would be better off if they could impose a low flat rate tax on income and eliminate the sales tax. We are not now arguing for such a tax, but rather taking our stand with those members of the Illinois Legislative Commission on Municipal Revenue who, in 1953, said that such choice constituted home rule, and that "Home rule of this kind is the essence of decentralized, representative government."

An appropriate inquiry in the revenue field, as in the areas of form and structure of government, police powers, and service powers, is whether a constitutional grant of home rule is a useful technique to minimize State control and maximize local authority over municipal revenue policy. With the exception of California, broad municipal autonomy in the tax area has not been sustained consistently in any of the constitutional or legislative home rule States. Admittedly, the liberal approach in California where municipal taxation has been deemed a matter of municipal concern, has made it possible for California cities to levy a variety of business, occupational, privilege, and excise taxes. In such celebrated home rule States as New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan, West Virginia, and Oklahoma, municipal revenue autonomy does not exist. Rather, the taxing power of cities and villages is circumscribed either by the need for specific legislative authority to enact a particular tax, or by the power of the legislature to pre-empt a tax field, or by the power of the legislature to restrict or deny the imposition of a tax by a municipality.

Professor Jefferson Fordham, one of the handful of real legal authorities in the home rule field, finds little cause for encouragement in considering constitutional home rule and municipal revenue:

"Without financial independence, it is a question whether high sounding grants of home rule powers are very meaningful. Yet, it is in this very area that home rule municipalities enjoy least advantage. They are usually subject to constitutional or statutory property tax and debt limits. The property tax is still, with some exceptions, their chief source of revenue. Generally speaking, moreover, it cannot be said that there is wide municipal freedom in imposing excises."

Writing in the Northwestern University Law Review during the period of this Committee's study, Professor Rubin Cohn reached a similar conclusion:

"In almost every State in which constitutional provisions express some form of municipal home rule, the reservation of legislative control over municipal revenues belies the concept of local autonomy, making illusory the political idealistic conception of home rule. Until a reconciliation is effected which bridges or narrows this gap between the political ideal and the constitutional reality, municipal autonomy in revenue will depend largely upon legislative grace."

In short, it appears to be the judgment of informed specialists, confirmed by our consideration of the evidence, that constitutional home rule, as traditionally understood, is likely to have little impact on Illinois municipal revenue problems. There is a good likelihood of the adoption of a pre-emption doctrine or of explicit or implicit reservations of legislative power to restrict or amend exercise of municipal autonomy in the revenue field. As a consequence, we cannot recommend, as an appropriate way to safeguard recent revenue gains or to extend local freedom, support for a constitutional amendment which makes broad grants of power to municipal governments.

The Report of the Chicago Home Rule Commission characterized constitutional municipal home rule as a "paradoxical enigma, attractive and appealing, yet unattainable to any significant degree." Does this mean that there is no hope for a happy resolution of the persistent claims of the cities and villages for recognition of their status as responsible governments? On the contrary, we think that there is a good reason to believe that important progress has been made in that direction, and that there is equally good reason to anticipate future progress. Such progress, however, is dependent not only on the continuing willingness of the governor and the legislature to view municipal problems as matters of paramount concern, but is also dependent on a realistic scheduling and determining by the Illinois Municipal League to attain its municipal goal.

We are doubtful that home rule, in the loose sense in which the term is traditionally used, can be completely achieved. We know of no jurisdiction where it has been completely achieved. More important, we are satisfied that the approach to the problem has not been a fruitful one.

Heretofore, in Illinois as in other States, the home rule approach has been through an effort to amend the constitution, and thereby change the nature of the State-city relationship. The essential failing in this approach is that it assumes that the State-city relationship is static, and that once the relationship is defined as either home rule or non-home

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rule, occasional adjustments will keep things in working order. That such a proposition is invalid on the non-home rule side, is attested to by the very persistence of the home rule movement. Recent researches and our own observations and experiences as city officials convince us that even with the most carefully phrased constitutional home rule amendment, the State-city relationship would not be static. It would remain dynamic, constantly in need of re-examination as to particulars, constantly in need of interpretation to officials at both levels, constantly in need of adjustment that will enable both levels of government better to discharge their responsibilities to the people of the State.

In attempting to relate this conclusion about the nature of the problem to a specific method of implementation, the Committee has given careful attention to certain other dynamic relationships involving the State of Illinois and its educational subdivisions, and the State and its employees' pension rights. This line of inquiry yields fruitful results.

For years, the question of State aid to schools has been a vexing problem. At what level of assistance does the local school district need to be sustained in order to provide appropriate schooling? At the same time, at what point does State aid simply relieve the local taxpayer of his proper obligations? Again, what is the relationship between local property tax administration and the school problem? How about the adequacy of the State tax program in terms of the needs of the schools? The answers to these questions changed from biennium to biennium. Indeed, the questions themselves sometimes changed or, at the least, required refinement. They were not and are not propositions that lend themselves to off-the-cuff answers.

A similar situation exists in the

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public employee pension field. What level of economic security is required to equalize the positions of public and private employees? What is the likely cost to the State of a new pension system? Are employees at various governmental levels being equally treated? Are employee contributions adequate? This line of questioning recurs every biennium, and the whole area must be re-explored every biennium in order to be sure that pension laws are actuarially sound and fair to both the employee and the governmental unit involved.

In dealing with these two basically dynamic problem areas—school problems and pension laws—we have found an admirably effective technique in the continuing interim commission. The work of the School Problems Commission and of the Pension Laws Commission is justifiably respected by all members of the General Assembly and by persons interested in the respective problems.

We think that the question of city and village government and powers lends itself to this kind of continuing scrutiny by a commission composed of representatives of the governmental agencies involved, the State and the cities.

Accordingly, we recommend that the 1957 session of the General Assembly be asked to create a permanent Commission on City and Village Affairs to be composed of members of the General Assembly, nominees of the Governor of Illinois and representatives of the cities and villages. We would tend to favor a Commission composed of three members of the House of Representatives, three members of the Senate, three members appointed by the Governor, and three members from the cities and villages. Of the latter, one should be named by the Mayor of the City of Chicago and two by the President of the Illinois Municipal League. Such an arrangement would put spokesmen for the cities and villages in a minority, but we are confident that the essential wisdom of encouraging and supporting legislation to increase local powers and local responsibilities will eliminate divisions between the various representatives.

For its initial operations, we would urge that the Commission on City and Village Affairs be asked to consider the following problem areas which we find to be of current major importance in the State-municipal relationship:

1. Both a short run and a long range solution to the difficult problem of fixing salaries for municipal employees and officers. We consider State imposed minima or maxima for policemen, firemen or aldermen to be inconsistent with local self-government and local assumption of local responsibilities. On the other hand, it would be fanciful to pretend that the assertion of this principle solves the problem.

2. The adequacy of local authority to license businesses and occupations for purposes of regulating such businesses and occupations in the interests of public health, welfare, safety and morals.

3. The extent to which the permissive sales and utility taxes have ameliorated the revenue problems of the municipalities. At a later time, the Commission should consider the effects of the constitutional five per cent bonded indebtedness limitation, and of the even more restrictive 2 1/2 per cent statutory limitation.

4. The wisdom of tax rate limits with special attention to the question of whether they really do what they are supposed to do. In this connection, we call attention to the fact that in 1955, the General Assembly permitted the rate limit on Chicago's corporate fund to expire. The City of Chicago was legally authorized to levy an unlimited property, tax for corporate purposes in 1956 and in 1957. Nevertheless, Chicago levied at the same rate in 1956 as it had in 1955 and 1954. Responsible governmental officials required no State legislation to insure that they would act in a sensible fashion.

5. Mechanisms which will make it possible for cities and villages to exercise broader annexation, zoning, planning and subdivision control powers. This may well be the most pressing of all problems in the State-municipal area.

These five points plainly do not exhaust current home rule type problems. They happen to be of special importance at this time. This listing will surely be different four or six years hence.

Our conclusion is that home rule is attainable, and, in fact, that it is probably desired as much by many State officials as it is by city officials. It has heretofore been unattainable in Illinois and elsewhere at least partly because we have failed to think through the real goal. That goal is not a paragraph in a constitution. Rather, the goal is a cooperative relationship wherein the State government and the city governments will strive together to meet their ever-changing responsibilities to the sovereign people of Illinois. Our work and our recommendations are directed toward the fulfillment of such a goal.