SB 115 – Decennial Special Legislation Update

SB 115 is a decennial effort, modifying the population parameters used to identify particular localities for the purpose of implementing legislation specific to particular places in the state. For example,instead of using “Tippecanoe County,” the legislation will say something like, “a county having more than 148,000 but less than 170,000 people.” (And, with the 2010 census, apparently that range is changing to 170k – 175k). So, every ten years, the parameters have to be changed throughout the Indiana Code. Why not just use the name of the place? Excellent question.

It’s sort of a workaround for Art. 4, sec. 22 and 23 of the Indiana Constitution which provides:

Section 22. The General Assembly shall not pass local or special laws:
Providing for the punishment of crimes and misdemeanors;
Regulating the practice in courts of justice;
Providing for changing the venue in civil and criminal cases;
Granting divorces;
Changing the names of persons;
Providing for laying out, opening, and working on, highways, and for the election or appointment of supervisors;
Vacating roads, town plats, streets, alleys, and public squares;
Summoning and empaneling grand and petit juries, and providing for their compensation;
Regulating county and township business;
Regulating the election of county and township officers and their compensation;
Providing for the assessment and collection of taxes for State, county, township, or road purposes;
Providing for the support of common schools, or the preservation of school funds;
Relating to fees or salaries, except that the laws may be so made as to grade the compensation of officers in proportion to the population and the necessary services required;
Relating to interest on money;
Providing for opening and conducting elections of State, county, or township officers, and designating the places of voting;
Providing for the sale of real estate belonging to minors or other persons laboring under legal disabilities, by executors, administrators, guardians, or trustees.

Section 23. In all the cases enumerated in the preceding section, and in all other cases where a general law can be made applicable, all laws shall be general, and of uniform operation throughout the State.

On the face of the laws, anyway, they aren’t “special” legislation. “Hey, this applies to any county that’s within those population parameters.” But, the population parameters were specifically targeted at particular places, and the laws were changed when the census numbers changed. And everybody knew these bills were intended as special legislation.

Prior to 2003, the Indiana Courts had been mostly willing to look the other way at this pretense. But, then the Indiana Supreme Court decided South Bend v. Kimsey. (Here is a decent primer on the subject.) I haven’t followed the issue very closely in quite some time, but my sense is that not a lot of laws have been successfully challenged under Kimsey. Nevertheless, it looks like with this legislation, the General Assembly is going to drop the pretense on a lot of statutes and just use the place name.