Quoting from
Lake Worth Utilities v. City of Lake Worth:
In ruling that Chapter 69-1215 did unconstitutionally transfer municipal powers to the Authority, the court focused on the last part of the first sentence of article VIII, section 2(b), Florida Constitution:
(b) Powers. Municipalities shall have governmental, corporate and proprietary powers to enable them to conduct municipal government, perform municipal functions and render municipal services, and may exercise any power for municipal purposes except as otherwise provided by law. Each municipal legislative body shall be elective.
The court held that the limiting prepositional phrase, "except as otherwise provided by law," modifies only the clause, "and may exercise any power for municipal purposes." To read the words of limitation otherwise, the court held, would nullify the change represented by the 1968 constitutional revision and return the municipalities to their pre-1968 dependence on the legislature for grants of power. "Each time municipal authority, or change in municipal authority, was sought, it would be necessary to approach the legislative *217 branch of government," the court reasoned.
Such an interpretation misapprehends the import of the 1968 revision and unduly denigrates the supremacy of the legislature as a state policy-making body. Before the adoption of article VIII, section 2(b) in 1968, municipalities were creatures of legislative grace. Article VIII, section 8, Florida Constitution of 1885, provided, in pertinent part, "The Legislature shall have power to establish, and to abolish, municipalities to provide for their government, to prescribe their jurisdiction and powers, and to alter or amend the same at any time." Thus, the municipalities were inherently powerless, absent a specific grant of power from the legislature. The noblest municipal ordinance, enacted to serve the most compelling municipal purpose, was void, absent authorization found in some general or special law.
The clear purpose of the 1968 revision embodied in article VIII, section 2 was to give the municipalities inherent power to meet municipal needs. But "inherent" is not to be confused with "absolute" or even with "supreme" in this context. The legislature's retained power is now one of limitation rather than one of grace, but it remains an all-pervasive power, nonetheless.
Thus, the words "except as otherwise provided by law" must be read as modifying the entire sentence preceding it. Such a reading is supported by historical analysis, grammatical precepts, and common sense. It finds further support in the commentary to the 1968 Florida Constitution provided by the reporter for the Constitutional Revision Commission, Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte:
The provisions in the subsection were new with the Revision Commission proposal, but the 1885 Constitution granted the power to the legislature to prescribe the jurisdiction and powers of municipalities ki by law in Article VIII, Section 8. The apparent difference is that under the new language, all municipalities have governmental, corporate and proprietary powers unless provided otherwise by law, whereas under the 1885 Constitution, municipalities had only those powers expressly granted by law.
Per the 1968 FL constitution, a municipality is assumed to have the power to perform its functions "unless provided otherwise by law." Prior to that, a municipality
only had the powers expressly granted to it by the legislature.
