The City of Bloomington has filed a lawsuit claiming a 2019 law that limited the city’s comprehensive annexation effort is unconstitutional.
The law nullified contracts in which the city extended sewer connections to properties that agreed not to oppose annexation. The law passed by the General Assembly in 2019 voided contracts that were more than 15 years old.
The net effect of the new law was that the city succeeded on annexing only two of seven areas it sought to annex, because property owners who had contracts for sewer service fought the annexation. A city news release about the lawsuit said if the law is struck down, five areas would be annexed instead of two.
The city’s lawsuit says the law is unconstitutional for three reasons:
First, the law violates a clause in the state constitution that prohibits the legislature from making laws that change previously negotiated contracts.
Second, the federal constitution prohibits the legislative branch from interfering with pre-existing contracts.
Third, the suit says, even if the law is constitutional, it cannot be applied to Bloomington’s annexation because it was initiated in 2017 – the same year the General Assembly suspended the process and prohibited the city from any annexations for five years. State courts already ruled those actions were unconstitutional.
The city argues the legislature unlawfully stopped the city from completing the process before the 2019 law was passed.
