State and Local Government Law Commons^™

Local Legislation In Georgia: The Notice Requirement, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

Professor Sentell's commentary concerns Georgia's efforts to curb potential abuses of local or special legislation by requiring notice of such legislation to the affected locality. After examining the ineffectiveness of the notice requirement under Georgia's Constitution of 1877, Professor Sentell focuses upon various aspects of the notice requirement under the Constitution of 1945, and concludes that despite its rather erratic history in Georgia, the notice requirement reasonably serves its purpose as a compromise between the extremes of unrestricted special legislation and no special legislation.

Federalizing Through The Franchise: The Supreme Court And Local Government, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

Decisionmaking at the local government level has been significantly affected by both national legislation and federal court decisions seeking to protect the right to vote. Indeed, Professor Sentell feels that the Supreme Court, through decisions invalidating restrictions on the franchise, has involved itself to an unparalleled degree in heretofore purely local affairs. In examining these decisions, the author queries if legitimate voting regulations may be now imposed by local governments. In so doing he focuses upon the Court's equal protection analysis of extraordinary majority vote requirements and elections restricted to certain segments of the electorate and upon the expansive judicial …

Hawkins V. Town Of Shaw: The Court As City Manager, C. Ronald Ellington, Lawrence F. Jones

Scholarly Works

For over one hundred years Congress and the federal courts have pursued the goal of racial equality in the United States. In areas such as voting rights, public accommodations, and housing, Congress and the courts have interacted closely, with broad judicial interpretations upholding major remedial legislation. Moreover, when confronted by official state sources of racial discrimination, courts have traditionally responded to the clear command of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment without awaiting congressional action. Brown v. Board of Education stands as perhaps the best known instance in which a court has, on its own, ordered the elimination …

Municipal Annexation In Georgia: Nay-Sayers Beward (Plantation Pipe Line Co. V. City Of Bremen), R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

In the Fall 1967 issue of the Georgia Law Review, there appeared a somewhat ambitious effort to survey the law of municipal annexation in Georgia. That rather stuffy treatment at least served to demonstrate the existence of a history on the subject dating from the beginning of time in this State. It also purported to make one or two daring thrusts at formulating principles then apparently settled and at identifying legal points around which further evolution might be anticipated.

Some apparently believed that these thrusts were more negative than daring and that they reflected an approach which was basically …

The Federal Anti-Injunction Statute In The Aftermath Of Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, John Daniel Reaves, David S. Golden

Scholarly Works

Last Term the Supreme Court rendered its decision in Atlantic Coast Line Railroad v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. This case involved the present anti-injunction statute, section 2283 of Title 28, which forbids federal court injunction of state court proceedings. Mr. Justice Black, writing for the majority, traced the roots of the statute's predecessor into the "fundamental constitutional independence of the states and their courts." He hinted that the act grew out of concern for constitutional inviolability of a state court's adjudicative process. Mr. Justice Black went on to announce that the anti-injunction statute is absolute; no judicially created exceptions …

The Legislative Process In Georgia Local Government Law, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

What our city fathers do as legislators and how they do it impinges upon the daily lives of most of us. Those involved in the production of municipal law and those affected by it will find this study of legislative procedure at the local level of great interest and help. Here is a solid piece of research which will stand for a long time to come.

Georgia Municipal Tort Liability: Ante Litem Notice, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

Time and again the Georgia courts have spoken on the meaning of various phrases in the notice-of-claim statute, or, as they popularly refer to it, the "ante litem notice" statute. During the last three or four years, the judiciary's activity has been particularly concentrated. Grappling with questions of first impression, changing approaches to interpretation, or confirming prior positions, their decisions must now be understood as a part of the statute itself. What follows is simply a brief effort to summarize this recent judicial activity, hopefully in an orderly fashion. If the traveler is thereby aided in updating his map, the …

Local Government And Contracts That Bind, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

To paraphrase a modern slogan, in local government law "little goes right if the contract's too tight." For the layman who bargains in good faith with a municipality or county, the introduction to this principle can be a jolt. TO be told that his contract was not a contract, because it would have unduly bound the local government, must prompt serious doubts in his mind about the law commanding this result. To be told that he is legally presumed to know this must confirm his suspicions. But the principle is a well-established one, existing in most jurisdictions from early times. …

Avery V. Midland County: Reapportionment And Local Government Revisited, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

Earlier in the pages of this Review the judicial application of the "one-man-one-vote" standard to local government is discussed in detail. As noted, the United States Supreme Court did not completely evolve this standard for state legislatures until June, 1964. Since that time, the state courts and the lower federal courts have been inundated with litigation raising the question of the basic applicability of the standard to local governments in this country, as well as a host of accompanying inquiries. This litigation and the courts' reactions to it were extensively traced. At the close of its term, however, the Court …

The Law Of Municipal Annexation In Georgia: Evolution Of A Concept?, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

The time has come to think seriously and in detail about municipal annexation. The effort here, then, represents a return to basics. The justification for it rests on the point that Georgia does indeed possess a rich history in annexation law. What of this history? How has it dictated the law's development? What are the methods of annexation presently available to municipalities in Georgia? Upon what authority are these methods bottomed, and what are the possible limitation upon their effectiveness? Is the point at which the law has now arrived the culmination of evolving a deliberate concept or simply the …

Reapportionment And Local Government, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

On June 15, 1964, the Supreme Court of the United States, in the context of its decisions in Reynolds v. Sims and companion cases, put the finishing touches upon its evolving principle that state legislatures must be apportioned on an equal population basis; i.e., the "one-man-one-vote" standard. This principle drew its commandment, held the Court, from the equal protection provision of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. On May 22, 1967, the Supreme Court of the United States rendered decisions in three cases which had confronted it for the first time with questions on the relationship of the …