Common Council v. Schmid’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““We do not think that the question of local self-government is involved in these cases at all. The present city officers were elected by the people, under the law that then existed, and with full knowledge of the law, to hold their offices for' the full term for which they were elected. What was that term, under the law? It was just this: That they should hold their offices for the full time specified in the law for each officer, respectively, and until their successors were elected and qualified. Under the law they hold their offices, not by legislative appointment, but by the votes of the people constitutionally recorded, and from no other authority. ‘ ‘ That the legislature has the right to change the time of holding elections was not questioned on the argument, nor can it be successfully questioned. By the change a contingency has arisen whereby either new officers have to be elected, or the offices remain vacant, or the present officers hold over during the interim. It is not necessary to discuss the first two of these propositions, for the answer to the third eliminates them from the discussion. The present officers do hold over, because the law says so, and the people elected them knowing that in such a contingency they would hold over. ’ ’”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Doyle v. Election Commission of Detroit