152 Mich. 28 | Mich. | 1908
(after stating the facts). The act, in my opinion, embraces an object not expressed in its’ title. There may be ground for differences of opinion upon the point that the provision for a new board, created by the act, to make contracts and to disburse the fund, is within the general purpose of the act. There can be no differences of opinion upon the point that the title to the act does not indicate, or intimate, that the contracts to be let and the fund to be disbursed shall be under the control, not of the regularly elected township officers, but of a new board, created by the act itself, three members of which are appointed by the township board. Some reference to existing legislation will aid us. In 1903 (Act No. 231, Pub. Acts 1903), the legislature empowered .townships, upon conditions set out in the act, to borrow money to improve highways and to issue township bonds. The commissioner of highways was, by the act, given charge and supervision, under the direction of the township board, of the improvements proposed to be made; This legislation was amended in 1905 (Act No. 124, Pub. Acts 1905), but in a manner not here important. Under either act, the commissioner of highways issued the orders upon which the moneys provided to pay for the improvement were expended. Under the act of 1903, the orders were required to be countersigned by the township clerk and the supervisor, and, under the act of 1905,
“As the legislature may make the title to an act as restrictive as they please, it is obvious that they may sometimes so frame it as- to preclude many matters being included in the act which might with entire propriety have been embraced in one enactment with the matters indicated by the title, but which must now be excluded because the title has been made unnecessarily restrictive. The courts cannot enlarge the scope of the title; they are vested with no dispensing power; the constitution has made the title the conclusive.index to the legislative in
It is sometimes a difficult, always a delicate, task to determine that the constitutional restriction has been disregarded. Without considering whether the legislation is invalid because it is an invasion of the right of the community to control its internal affairs, I am impressed that no one reading the act by its title, or informed of the purpose thereof expressed in the title, would suppose that the act created a new, and to the' law, and to history, a nondescript board to superintend a purely local improvement and to disburse moneys raised upon the faith and credit of the local community. Whether or not it was strictly within the legislative power to do so, the significant fact is that the legislature has, in the body of the act, denied the community the usual control of local affairs. Counsel for appellants, in his argument, assumes that the title of the act is not broad enough to include the object expressed in section 4, but contends that with that section eliminated the act is effectual and should be held to be valid. The question is, whether we can say that the legislature would not have passed the act with this section omitted. It seems to me that in this connection we are obliged to consider, in view of existing general law, why the legislature should have passed this act at all if not for the purpose expressed in section 4. In all other respects, the variations from the general law, so far as the record makes them apparent, are slight. Imagination would be little exercised in arriving at the conclusion that the main purpose of the statute was the one expressed in section 4; a purpose which the title, I assume by inadvertence, does not disclose.
The conclusion is that the act must be held to be invalid, and the decree of the court below affirmed. An opinion concerning the legal effect of the practices indulged in by