Constitutionality of Merit System Legislation

Extract

Constitutional objections to many of the provisions of the civil service laws have been raised in several of the jurisdictions in which such legislation has been enacted. In addition to the national government there are today ten states which have provided for the application of the merit system to the appointment of all or a portion of the administrative officers and employees. These ten states with the dates of the adoption of the law are as follows: New York, 1883; Massachusetts, 1884; Wisconsin, 1905; New Jersey, 1908; Illinois, 1911; Colorado, 1912; Ohio, California and Connecticut, 1913; and Kansas, 1915. In Illinois and Colorado the employees in the state institutions had been under the merit system for several years prior to the adoption of the general civil service laws.

In four of these jurisdictions—California, Colorado, Connecticut and Kansas—there have been no cases involving the constitutionality of civil service legislation. In Colorado there have been at least two bitter controversies in the courts as to the interpretation of the law but in neither case did the parties who fought the law contend that it was unconstitutional. The question of the legality of the adoption of the Colorado law has also been before the courts; but the constitutionality of the provisions of the law has not been attacked. In New Jersey the only case of importance touching the matter of constitutionality is that of the Attorney-General v. McGuinness, but here the decision dealt entirely with the constitutionality of one of the methods prescribed for extending the operation of the law to municipalities.