Article VIII
Sec. 15b: (a) Notwithstanding any other provisions of this Constitution, the government of Wayne County may be organized under a charter, which shall provide for: a chief executive; a legislative body of not more than 21 members elected from single districts arranged as nearly as may be according to population, provided that not more than two-thirds of said members shall be from the City of Detroit and they may be elected at large or may be ex officio; other necessary county officers and employees; the qualifications, powers, duties, time and manner of election or appointment, terms and compensation of all county officers provided by said charter; non partisan nominations and elections; a system of civil service; the initiative and referendum; the power to contract with other governmental units for the performance of functions. Wayne County shall, under such charter, have power and authority to pass all laws and ordinances relating to its county municipal concerns. Said charter shall provide for the performance by officers and authorities of said county of all duties and functions now or from time to time conferred or imposed by law upon all counties or upon any officer provided by law for counties not under charter government. No present county office, or board, need be retained under said charter, provided, however, that nothing in this section shall authorize any change in the time and manner of election, term of office, or jurisdiction of Circuit Judges or Probate Judges, or in the provisions of Sections 16 to 19, inclusive, of this Article, pertaining to townships. The term “county office” as used herein shall include any office the incumbent of which is chosen by the electors of the whole of said county, or the jurisdiction of which is co-extensive with said county.
(b) Wayne County shall have all of the rights, powers, and benefits conferred and shall be subject to all restrictions and limitations imposed by law on all counties. Wayne County shall not by classification on any basis or by any method be made subject to any general law not applicable In actual fact in all counties. Nothing herein shall exclude Wayne County from the benefit of legislation enacted, and approved by the electors of said county, pursuant to the last sentence of Section 30 of Article V of this constitution, and all local or special acts or acts having local application now in effect in said county shall continue in effect unless and until superseded by some provision of the charter of said county or by ordinance adopted thereunder.
(c) The framing, adopting, revising and amending of such charter shall be done, as nearly as may be, in accordance with those provisions of general laws providing for the revision and amendment of charters of cities, now known as Sections 18 to 26, both inclusive, of Act 279 of the Public Acts of 1909, as amended, all of the provisions of which sections shall be applicable as if the word “county” appeared therein wherever the word “city” now appears, except that in the first instance elections to select charter commissioners for said county shall be called and held within five months from the effective date of this amendment; and except that a charter commission for said county shall consist of nineteen persons who are qualified electors of Wayne County but are not paid county, city, village or township officials, such persons to be chosen by non-partisan primary and election, and of whom eleven shall be elected at large from the City of Detroit, one each from the cities of Dearborn, Hamtramck and Highland Park, and five from the remainder of the county from single districts arranged by the county election commission; and except further, that in the case of an initiatory petition the required signatures shall be five per cent of the registered voters in said county. Candidates for said primary shall be determined by the filing of a petition signed by at least 500 registered voters or by the deposit of $50 to be returned to the candidates nominated.
