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SEP 07 '94 16:12 HOLMES & GRAVEN P.3 Mayor Jerry Linke and City Councilmembers September 7, 1994 Page 2 If T ota Supreme Court has held that where a proposed charter amendment is manifestl constitutional" the amendment does not need to be placed before the Hous' and Redevelopment Authority of Minneapolis v. City of Minneapolis, 198 N.W.2d 531 (Minn, 1972). No Minnesota appellate court has ruled on the question of whether a charter city can impose term limits for mayor and couneilmembers In the 1981 opinion, the Minnesota attorney general concluded that a city charter cannot impose a limitation upon the number of consecutive terms that a person may serve as an elected member of the city's governing body. The rationale for the attorney general's opinion was that Minnesota Constitution, Article VII., Section 8', states that any person who is entitled to vote at any election and is 21 years old is eligible to hold an elective office in the district where that person has resided for 30 days'previous to the election, except as otherwise provided ;in_ the Minnesota Constitution, or in the Constitution and laws of the United States. The attorney i general concluded that absent another constitutional provision allowing cities to establish additional eligibility requirements for holding elective office, Article VII, Section 6 precluded a municipality from adopting such restrictions. Article XII, Section 3 of the Minnesota Constitution, which was adopted in 1958, states in part: The legislature may provide by law for the creation, organization, administration, consolidation, division and dissolution of local government units and their functions, for the change of boundaries thereof, for their elective and appointive offices including qualification for office and for the transfer of county seats. (Emphasis added) The attorney general concluded that because the legislature has not provided any additional qualifications for elective office in local governmental units (other than the ones set forth in Article VII, Section 8), a charter city cannot do so in its charter. In that opinion, however, the attorney general noted that the issue has not been. addressed-imidinnesota-courts— The general rule is that in matters of municipal concern, home rule cities have all the ' legislative power possessed by the legislature, except those powers that are expressly or impliedly withheld. State ex rel Town of Lowell v. City of Crookston, 91 N.W.2d 81 (1958). Ina 1993 decision, Elbers v. Growe, 502 N.W.2d 810 (Minn. App. 1993), the Court of Appeals held that Article XII, Section 3 authorized the legislature to provide additional qualifications for the office of sheriff. In this case, an argument can be made that because the Minnesota Constitution gives the legislature the power to impose additional qualifications for office of local government units, charter cities may do likewise. ,: (See Minnesota Statutes, Section 410.21, which states that the "provisions of any charter . - . shall be valid and shall control as to . . . elections for municipal offices - . .") 6172756611 twigs-U