Lesson 48 of 1524
State and Local Government
Cities are creatures of the state. Their power is delegated, not sovereign.
Practice this chapterA mayor-council city elects a mayor who runs the administration and a council that legislates. A council-manager city hires a professional manager to run day-to-day operations.
Term limits on state legislators are state choices. The federal Constitution does not impose them, and not every state has them.
Where local power comes from
Dillon’s rule: a city has the powers the state gives it
If the charter and the statutes are silent, the city does not get to invent the power.
Worked example
A city wants to ban a business that state law expressly allows and licenses. The city charter does not mention this power. The state follows Dillon’s rule. May the city ban the business?
- 1Under Dillon’s rule, local power must be granted by the state, in the charter or in a statute, or be fairly implied by a grant.
- 2The charter is silent. Silence is not a grant.
- 3State law goes further: it expressly allows and licenses the business. A local ban would contradict that choice.
- 4The city does not have the power. The state rule controls.
Result: No. Dillon’s rule plus the state licensing law blocks the ban.
Why. Local governments are not a third sovereign in the federal system. They exercise power the state lends them, and they cannot use that loan to cancel the state’s own policy.
Home rule is a grant of broader local authority. It is not independence from the state constitution or from state laws that still apply.
Practice margin
This chapter
A fresh set from this chapter only. Choose 10 or 20. Multiple choice and fill-in, with no repeat inside the set.