HOME RULE

The Status of Home Rule in New Jersey Today

Special Legislation

laws are made but that too many laws are necessary. It is against the interest of both the Legislature and the municipalities to place the complete burden of making such decisions in the Legislature.

It is evident that the constitutional provision against local legislation has lessened this burden. General laws have been encouraged and considerable home rule in respect to city activities has been granted.

General Laws

General laws, however, cannot provide for the special needs of different municipalities. The Princeton Local Government Survey in 1937 pointed out that “whether a municipality is a rural hamlet or a metropolitan center, the law gives it almost the same complete powers of local government.”15 Readjusting Local Government and Services, Princeton Local Government Survey (1937).

The report raised the question of whether communities of such widely different characteristics as Newark with nearly 450,000 population and North Cape May with a population of five, Hamilton Township with an area of 115 square miles and East Newark with an area of one-tenth of one square mile, Hoboken with a density of 46,000 per square mile and Pahaquarry with a density of four per square mile, all needed exactly the same powers.

New Jersey has never made the experiment of requiring uniform charters for all municipalities. Other states have, but nowhere successfully. Such provisions have been repealed wherever tried.

General laws work best in matters in which the needs of localities are the same. They work worst when they treat of matters which concern only one or only a few municipalities.

Classification of Municipalities

The classification of municipalities is probably a necessary development where a prohibition against special legislation is not accompanied by substantial home rule powers.

Where classification has been ruled out, it has had serious consequences. In Ohio the classification system was declared unconstitutional and the legislature was forced to adopt a general code for all cities. As a result, “the larger municipalities complained that they were undermanned in officials and deficient in powers – that they could not handle their big problems within the rigid terms of the general law. * * * The smaller cities, on the other hand, found themselves burdened with much administrative machinery which they did not want and provided with many powers which they could not use.”16 Munro, William B., The Government of American Cities, pp. 75 – 76, New York, 1926.

The Home Rule Commission of 1917 pointed out that the classification system was “quite arbitrary and without logical reasoning

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