Reutener v. City of Cleveland

Citations

• 107 Ohio St. (N.S.) 117

Syllabus

<p>Municipal corporations — Home rule — Amendment or repeal of charter provisions — Section 9, Article XVIII, Constitution— City manager plan — Hare system of proportional representation — Method of submitting amendments and form of ballot — Hew charter not adopted by amendment, when — Right of elector to vote for candidate for each office.</p> <p>1. The power given by the Ohio Constitution, Section 9, Article XVIII, to the electors of a city to amend their municipal charter, includes the power to repeal or strike out provisions.</p> <p>2. Under Section 9, Article XVIII of the Ohio Constitution, empowering the electors of a city to amend their municipal charter, each section of a proposed amendment need not be submitted separately at an election. An amendment amounting to a general revision, having for its principal purpose to provide for the so-called city manager plan of government, together with a system of voting by the so-called Hare System of Proportional Representation, comprising numerous separate sections, may be voted upon as a whole.</p> <p>3. In a proposed amendment to the home-rule charter of the city of Cleveland, all but two sections of the original charter were repealed. The amendment repeated verbatim 60 sections of the original charter, only the section numbers being changed, repeated 105 sections of the original charter with editorial revisions, and changed substantially 35 sections of the original charter. Held: That this proposal constituted an amendment, and not a new charter.</p> <p>4. A proposed amendment, covering 67 printed pages and comprising 181 sections, was submitted to the voters of the city of Cleveland at the election of November, 1921, for their approval. Copies of the proposed amendment were mailed to the electors prior to the election, as provided by the constitution. A digest of the substance of the amendment, consisting of 86 lines, which digest substantially expressed the purpose and terms of the amendment, was printed on the