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

Note that supreme courts in other states regularly issue decisions regarding their jurisprudence in this area that inform the proper meaning of this section. See, e.g., ''Gallardo v. State'', 336 P.3d 717, [https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9895084289919725224#p721 721] (Ariz. 2014) ("This Court set forth the test for determining when a law is a special law nearly twenty-five years ago in ''Republic Investment''. To survive scrutiny, (1) the law must have 'a rational relationship to a legitimate legislative objective,' (2) the classification the law makes must be legitimate, encompassing all members that are similarly situated, and (3) the classification must be elastic, allowing 'other individuals or entities to come within' and move out of the class.");

As reflected by the decisions referenced below, the Texas jurisprudence in this area is within the national mainstream. The governing rules can be summarized as follows: (1) A general law is a statute which relates to persons, places or things as a class, both in the present and in the future, which class is based upon a real and substantial difference which bears a reasonable relation to the statute's purpose. (2) A special law is an enactment which relates to particular persons, places or things of a class; to a class as it is constituted at a given time without allowance for changes in the future; or to a "pretended" class which bears no reasonable relation to the purpose of the relevant statute. (3) A local law is a special law in which the places to which it applies are territorial subdivisions of the state. Note that the substance of the foregoing rules are routinely stated in different terms. More importantly, recognize that the rules are sometimes ignored by courts when considered necessary to reach an equitable result.