According to Jim Hoeft at Bearing Drift, during a conference call today Dem. Gov. hopeful Terry McAuliffe has come out for revising or eliminating the Dillon Rule. I have written on my opposition to the Dillon Rule for more than two years now. Here are some key excerpts:
Down with Dillon!!!
Posted on December 5, 2006 by RileyWhy do we continue to let an Iowa judge from 1865 hamper Virginia’s progress at the local level? It is time to do away with the Dillon rule and go to Home Rule in Virginia.
The Dillon rule acts as a sort of anti-10th Amendment:
This is no longer a workable system in today’s day and age as we witness county after county submit lists to their delegations to the General Assembly in preparation for the 2007 session, hoping that the state will grant them the authority to do the simplest of things. It is time to bring the Commonwealth into the 21st century in this regard, kicking and screaming if we have to.
And this…
Bringing VA into the 21st Century
Posted on December 28, 2006 by Riley. . .
Perhaps there is no better example of why the Dillon rule is outdated today than Judge John Forest Dillon’s very own reasoning 150 years ago:
We’re letting THIS guy define the relationship between Virginia localities and the Commonwealth?
Dillon had it exactly backwards. Municipalities are not in essence creations of the state. It is the state that derives its power from the governed and the closest representatives to the citizens are their locally elected leaders. If one is to trust the people to make the best decisions for themselves, then one must reject the very premise of Dillon.
Judge Dillon died May 16, 1914. Virginia should lay his outdated rule to rest before the 100th anniversary of his death and continue moving into the 21st century.
Frankly, I’m pleasantly surprised that McAuliffe would raise this issue. I hope that AG Bob McDonnell also decides to take up this issue as well and that Gov. McDonnell presides over the demise of Dillon.
Filed under: 2009 Elections, Dillon Rule, Terry "Global Crossing" McAuliffe
Can’t disagree more, Riley. The Dillon Rule is an important instution in Virginia like the Right to Work. Without it, local officials are free to trump all over the rights of the citizenry. The government of Virginia as expressed by the Virginia Constitution (voted on by the people, i.e. why we’re a Commonwealth) is the closest connection to the individual citizens of Virginia, not the local town council.
I agree that the Commonwealth does exist at the consent of the governed, but the BoS of Prince William County is no more a direct embodiment of the ‘will of the people’ than any government. For example, some counties have a large population, and the will of the individual–under the logic of your second reposted blog entry–is more diluted in those localities than, say, Buckingham County where there are relatively few people. Does that make Buckingham more closely an embodiment of the will of the people than populous Loudoun? Certainly not.
Like Dillon said, local officials still compose the B team at worst and, at best, the minor leagues for Virginia politicians. (not saying statewide officials are geniuses either but certainly the cream of the crop if there is such a thing).
In a Virginia without Dillon, taxes would skyrocket and localities would be free to take other actions that could be detrimental in the longterm. Is there a logical reason why taxes should be higher because one happens to be separated by an arbitrary county/city line from your neighbor? Certainly not.
I will give you this much. In the 21st Century, perhaps localities could use some more powers to get creative in certain policy areas, but that doesn’t mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. Could the Rule in VA use some tweaking? Maybe, but not wholesale destruction.
Without the Dillon rule, Fairfax County Virginia would become like Montgomery County Maryland. I don’t want that fate.
If counties were free to be as different as you envision, we’d see the free market at work. People would have more choices. If their local elected officials behaved in such a boneheaded manner, unrestricted by Richmond, the more likely they would be voted out. Failing that, people can always move across a county/city line to a place that embodies better policies.
Furthermore, it always seems to be conservative reforms at the local level that get stalled in the General Assembly when those local officials go hat in hand asking for permission from Richmond to do something.
I simply think that Dillon had it backwards. The more removed physically in their seat of power from those governed, the less responsive the government.
Does your (as well as McAuliffe’s) proposal to remove the Dillion Rule include gun control?
Right now, localities have no control over the legality of the possession of firearms.
Do we want the folks in Richmond, Hampton Roads, and NoVA to be able to place so many different restrictions on the possession of firearms that we have no idea what is legal when we cross a county or city border?
Sorry Riley, you’re dead wrong. Much as I despise a lot of what happens in Richmond I trust that body as a whole a lot more than our local leadership. It is substantially more difficult for a large body like the GA to do short term significant damage than it it for a small county board that only needs to get five players on board. Without the Dillon Rule you could almost guarantee that the PWC BOCS would establish a meals tax, gas tax, cigarette tax and all those NVTA taxes within a fortnight, no thanks. You might also add to that a scenario in which they go back and forth with regard to the real estate tax, raising it for commercial properties one year and then for residential properties when the market turns.
I think that your points show that all the Dillon Rule does is protect local incumbent pols. If these people are as bad as everyone envisions them to be, then they should be out on their rear ends.
Sadly, that isn’t how local politics work. Baltimore City is free to do all the dumb things they can imagine, and the same knuckleheads keep getting elected year in and out. Honestly, the same can be said about all of Maryland government.
Giving government more freedom doesn’t result in better government, just greater idiocy. That is true on every level. I wish we could take power out of the federal government’s hands in some Dillon-esque way and then move to the state government. There is probably some level of relatively good power, but I wouldn’t pretend to know how far we could go before got there.
Good point on gun control, Tim. Taxes was all that was coming to mind. There are a myriad of issues honestly.
Riley, you should quiz one of our smarter members of the House or someone who knows the Dillon rule well to give a good explanation why it should be kept around. I bet State Senator Mark Obenshain could give a dissertation on the subject.
Finally, I really do admire your point, but I just don’t trust the voters of Virginia to have the attention span to stand up to the myriad of local elected officials as comptently as you imagine. If politicians are the masters anything it’s slow cooking the frog to keep him in the pan, and our neighbors are often the frogs.
Riley, you don’t seem to realize that in a lot of areas a liberal is going to win no matter what.
Do you think that in Richmond, Arlington, or Alexandria someone would get voted out for voting for gun control, massive taxes increases or spending programs?
Riley, I agree with you.
Dillon’s Rule is a red herring. Read the Brookings piece that I coauthored on it: http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2003/01metropolitanpolicy_richardson.aspx
If we abolish Dillon’s Rule, the GA would simply prohibit localities from doing a laundry list of items. Virginia local governments are among the most autonomous in the country. Dillon’s Rule and local government autonomy are not related. No matter how many times people say otherwise, it can’t change that fact. The GA decides how much autonomy local governments have, not Judge Dillon.
Jesse Richardson:
Reading your executive summary, your study deals with development growth management powers of the local government. That’s not the primary concern of most readers on this site. They are concerned with issues like spending growth, tax growth, and the second amendment.
Light Horse:
Yes, my study deals mainly with growth management. However, the first part of the study examines Home Rule and Dillon’s Rule in a great deal of depth.
Anecdotally, the recent attempts by local governments to attain Home Rule have been generally opposed by citizens. The number one reason: they are afraid the local governments will raise taxes significantly. If you look at the ten states that have rejected Dillon’s Rule (39 states use Dillon’s Rule and I can’t figure out Florida), many of them (like Mass.) are high tax states.
“Development growth management powers of the local government” ultimately translate to spending growth, tax growth, etc. and should be a primary concern of all.
Phantom08 and others:
If we truly are the party of limited government, individual liberty and personal responsibility, then that means we believe that people have the right to make their own decisions, whether those decisions are smart or dumb. And nothing with Dillon prevents the state government from imposing dumb decisions upon the people and their local representatives.
Believe me, I’m more than sympathetic with you on all the issues raised such as taxes, gun control, etc. But we either trust the people or we don’t and last time I checked, it was the Democrats who advocated the nanny state.
The Dillon Rule is the last great frontier against expanded government. The idea is that, if we can limit the power of elected officials of what they can theoretically do, then they can only mess up our lives so much. It isn’t a limitation against the people but rather a limitation against government. 99% of what you see limited by the Dillon Rule are localities imposing something on their citizens, like gun control or taxes
The power of the individual is to operate as an individual not as a collective in any sense whether on the local, state, or federal level. Like I tried to say earlier, the town council of Culpeper is no more an actual representation of me than the GA. Theoretically, I might be able to more effectively lobby one than the other but that is really dependent on the willingness of the individual member to listen and his ability to organize his fellow members. Finally, even if you get a local body to act the way you want, most of them are out after a few years and replaced by an entire new group that you have to once again corrale. I’ll stick with needing to watch and lobby the GA. It creates the least chance that my individual liberties are trampled, but that’s a pipe dream too anymore.
But yes, I am for a nanny state for local governments. I wish we could get a restrictor bolt for the GA and Feds as well.
The restrictor for the Feds is the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, but we need to get that actually enforced.
Personally, I believe that the most power should remain with the individual and the least power (and fewest duties) remain with the Feds. I consider the Federal government’s job to be 1.) national defense, 2.) enforcing the law via the courts and prosecutors, and 3.) coordinating a national infrastructure so as to ensure routes for our defense forces to utilize in times of crisis as well as for transacting commerce. States should have some additional powers and greater powers should rest locally with, as I previously stated, the individual retaining the most powers. From personal experience, I just find it much easier (and faster) to lobby for and change things at the local level than at the state or federal levels. I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
The Dillon rule means more power to the individual and less power to the local government. I like that trade-off.
Jesse Richardson beat me to the punch. The issue is not Dillon or home rule — they simply delineate the form in which the rules are written. Personally, I like the Dillon Rule because when there is doubt, it errs on the side of limited government (i.e. government does not have what isn’t expressly granted). What that means is some modicum of consistency across Virginia for current in future business that want to operate in multiple localities. It also means that many policy issues are decided in one forum — the General Assembly — not many forums around Virginia, thus adding to the predictability and consistency necessary to maintain Virginia’s economic competitiveness.
BTW, I beg to differ with Riley when he writes that localities are not creations of the state. They are. From where does a city or town draw its charter? Localities are simply political subdivisions of the state.
Light Horse,
Coming originally from a non-Dillon state, we had counties with different sales tax rates. One county had a 7 percent rate while the neighboring county had a 4 percent rate. Guess what happened? The county with the 4 percent rate used that in a very successful PR campaign that lasted for years to attract shoppers to their businesses. Tell me that isn’t the free market at work.
In Northern Virginia, they attract business by being next to the Federal Government. High taxes does not chase away business up here.
Well if the Dillon rule is as unconstitutional as it sounds then has anybody challenged it in court. While I agree that local governments are overcrowded with incompetents and wannabe’s not having this rule will bring those issues to a head much quicker and yes… bring in free market principles to government. Portsmouth is a direct victim of this rule now with Louise Lucas being the chair of the local government committee and using that position to get her own conference center built while suing the city at the same time. This rule is what makes a 18k a year legislator into a millionare.
Lee,
While I sympathize with the plight of anyone having to live near Louise Lucas, Louise doesn’t keep her position and get to abuse it because of the Dillon Rule. You get Louise Lucas because the good people of her district were foolish enough to elect her and re-elect her and her Democrat co-horts.
Destroying the Dillon Rule does not bring in free market principles, it simply gives local officials the power to increase the bureaucratic nightmare in their fiefdoms. Government is the antithesis of the free market. You only get the free market if you limit government and that is exactly what the Dillon Rule is.
Lee,
The United States Supreme Court has upheld Dillon’s Rule at least twice. The rule has been adopted by the supreme courts of 39 states. It’s constitutional.
If the Dillon Rule were scuttled, imagine just how long Sec 15.2 of the Code of VA would be. As Dr. Richardson mentioned earlier, if Dillon were to go away, the General Assembly would not simply give local governments a carte blanche. Instead 15.2 would read be a very long list of prohibitions. If you want more autonomy for local government, then go lobby the GA to pass bills giving them more power.