Texas Constitution:Article III, Section 56: Difference between revisions

What constitutes a local or special law, like much of the jurisprudence regarding this type of legislative restriction, is sometimes unclear. Cf. Charles Binney, ''Restrictions Upon Local and Special Legislation in State Constitutions'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=lXQ1AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA25#v=onepage&q&f=false 25-26] (1894) ("(1) A general law is one which applies to and operates uniformly upon all members of any class of persons, places or things, requiring legislation peculiar to itself in the matter covered by the law. (2) A special law is one which relates either to particular persons, places or things, or to persons, places or things which, though not particularized, are separated, by any method of selection, from the whole class to which the law might, but for such limitation, be applicable. (3) A local law is one whose operation is confined within territorial limits other than those of the whole State or any properly constituted class of localities therein.").

Such provisions serve a variety of purposes, including: (1) preventing the Legislature from usurping local government control over public policy matters normally handled locally (i.e., stopping the Legislature "from meddling in local matters"); and (2) providing more time for the Legislature to study and address public policy matters of major statewide importance.