1. The Facts.
Peter Schweitzer lives in the city of Plymouth. Sometime before January 3, 1967, he decided to become a candidate for the office of city commissioner. He submitted to the city clerk petitions signed by 40 electors, requesting that plaintiff Schweitzer’s name be printed on the ballot in the 1967 spring election.
*488The defendant clerk refused to accept the petitions. He wrote plaintiff Schweitzer as follows:
“Since you do not meet- all of the eligibility and qualification requirements as enumerated in section 4.4 of the city charter, your nominating petition for the office of city commissioner is hereby rejected and your name will not be placed on the- ballot for election of city commissioners to be conducted in the! spring of 1967.
'“Specifically, this decision is based upon the fact that you do not meet the following eligibility requirement ;
. ““To be eligible to hold an elective office, a person shall also have been, for a period of two years, prior to the date of his election or appointment to office, the owner of property located within and assessed for taxes by the city.’ ” ■ ‘ .
Thus frustrated in his efforts to run for city commissioner, plaintiff Schweitzer filed suit in Wayne county circuit court.
On, March 13, 1967, the learned circuit judge issued his judgment of mandamus, directing the defendant clerk to accept the petitions and print Schw'eitzer’s; name on the ballot.
We granted leave to appeal, bypassing the Court of Appeals.
2. The Issues.
Plaintiffs claim, and the circuit court held, that the charter provision of the city of Plymouth1 vi-*489dates the equal protection and due process clauses of the State and Federal Constitutions.
The issue as to whether a property ownership qualification for public office is constitutionally valid is, however, broader than the Plymouth city charter. CLS 1961, § 340.492 (Stat Ann 1968 Rev § 15.3492), provides a similar qualification for membership on a school board.
3. The Precedents.
There is no appellate decision in this State on the question of the constitutionality of a property-ownership qualification for holding public office.
There are several Michigan cases in which the validity of such provisions is assumed and. where the only question is whether the property ownership qualification has been met. People, ex rel. Godwin, v. Board of Education of Grand Rapids (1878), 38 Mich 95; Brady v. Weissenstein (1932), 260 Mich 678; Attorney General, ex rel. Kennedy, v. Cisco (1961), 362 Mich 649.
Defendants cite cases from other jurisdictions holding that property ownership qualifications for public office are valid. State, ex rel. Fletcher, v. Ruhe (1898), 24 Nev 251 (52 P 274); State, ex rel. Thompson, v. McAllister (1893), 38 W Va 485 (18 SE 770); McMillin v. Neely (1909), 66 W Va 496 (66 SE 635); State, ex rel. Morrison, v. Freeland and Harbert (1954), 139 W Va 327 (81 SE2d 685).
Although there has been some difference of opinion2 the courts have uniformly held that a property ownership qualification for public office is not unconstitutional.3
*490Appellees cite recent decisions which have departed from the former uniformity. Landes v. Town of North Hempstead (1967), 20 NY2d 417 (284 NYS2d 441, 231 NE2d 120), and Pierce v. Village of Ossining (SD NY, 1968), 292 F Supp 113, a Federal district court case presided over by a three-judge panel in the southern district of New York.
4. The Argument.
Plaintiffs-appellees argue that the equal protection clause requires that the law deal similarly with persons who are similarly situated. It is said that in this ease we deal with two classes of persons, propertied and unpropertied, who are similarly situated with respect to their relation to government and the sharing of governmental powers. Yet in the face of these similarities, the property ownership qualification denies to the unpropertied or to those with property not subject to property tax a share in governmental power.
It is further argued that the property ownership qualification denies to all persons the right to vote for an unpropertied candidate. In support of the claim that such qualification amounts to invidious discrimination, plaintiffs cite the following from the Landes Case (p 421):
“Ownership of real property does not render one more interested in, or devoted to, the concerns of the town. In a society such as ours, characterized by its ‘mobility’ and ‘anonymity’ (Cox, The Secular City [rev ed, 1966], p 33), a landowner is no more likely to be permanently established in a town — and, by that token, better qualified to govern — than one who is not a property owner. Examples come readily to mind which demonstrate the unrealistic character of the property qualification: an elected town *491councilman, suddenly compelled by financial reverses to sell his home and move into an apartment, would be required to resign from office; an apartment dweller who owned a taxpayer4 in town but who commuted to his place of business in, for instance, New York City and took no interest or part in civic affairs would be fully eligible for town office; and an apartment dweller not owning real property but with a place of business in town and deeply involved in community affairs would be ineligible. All in all, we suggest that it is impossible today to find any rational connection between qualifications for administering town affairs and ownership of real property.”
Plaintiffs-appellees also argue by way of analogy from recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court.
It is urged that the activist thrust of such decisions as Baker v. Carr (1961), 369 US 186 (82 S Ct 691, 7 L Ed 2d 663); Reynolds v. Sims (1964), 377 US 533 (84 S Ct 1362, 12 L Ed 2d 506); Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966), 383 US 663 (86 S Ct 1079, 16 L Ed 2d 169); and others, will carry the Supreme Court of the United States into the camp of the plaintiffs.
5. The Reasoning.
The application of the equal protection clause to qualifications for holding public office, as opposed to voting, is a step which the United States Supreme Court has not yet taken.
There are new and different problems here. It is easy to say that everyone should have the right to vote. It is not so obvious that everyone should have the right to hold public office.
*492A qualification for public office is not a regulation under tbe police power of the sovereign. A regulation establishing a curfew or a speed limit which distinguished between propertied and the unpropertied would deny equal protection of the laws. A law, however, which taxes those who own property and does not tax those who do not own property is not unconstitutional. For the power of government to determine what things or activities are to be taxed is not limited in the same way as the power of government to regulate human activity for the health, welfare, and safety of the community. A qualification for the holding of public office similarly is not such a law as interferes with the personal liberty of our citizens or deprives them of the use and enjoyment of their property.
Courts should not apply, in testing a qualification for public office, the same standards of reasonableness and relationship to purpose as .are found in cases dealing with regulations under the police power.
Age- limitations have been prescribed for many public officers.5 Both minimum and maximum ages have been set. Such qualifications are- essentially arbitrary, and reflect the choice of constitution-writers and law-makers. The men who wrote the United States Constitution wanted mature presidents. They provided that the president must be 35 years of age. We are told that in the not too far distant future, the majority of Americans will be under 25. Coming to power, this new generation may prefer vigor to maturity, and amend the Constitution to provide a maximum presidential age. The decision will be theirs.
The establishing of qualifications for public office is essentially a political decision. It is peculiarly *493so, since tlie same majority which establishes the qualification elects the officeholders. If a candidate has the votes to be elected, then he has the votes to change the eligibility requirement; and if he doesn’t have the votes to change the qualification, then he does not have the votes to be elected.
In a democracy, the majority rules. By definition, a minority cannot have an equal right to govern.
The majority of the people of Plymouth have established the qualifications for their city commissioners.
It is urged that they had no rational basis to do so. It may be conceded that their reasons are as parochial and intolerant as those advanced by the majority in State, ex rel. Thompson, v. McAllister, supra.6
Still, Plymouth, Michigan, is a sleepy little town, even today. Perhaps it is a backward town, by the standards of those who see American society as “mobile” and “anonymous.”
But the issue is whether the courts, from the depths of their urbanity, can impose upon the people *494of a home-rule city a “purer” form of democracy than they choose for themselves.
A benevolent tyrant thinks he knows what is best for the people. A judicial activist, who is very sure of himself, may have no trouble concluding that the electorate is unreasonable or even irrational.
Today, we consider a suburban town where the people want their commissioners to be taxpayers. Tomorrow, we may have the case of a different kind of municipal corporation in which tenants want to be represented by tenants. The roof of American self-government is big enough for both.
Never sed. No costs, a public question being involved.
Dethmers, Kelly, and Black, JJ., concurred with T. E. Brennan, C. J.“Bkeept as- otherwise provided in this charter, an elector of the city shall be eligible to hold elective or appointive office, .if he shall have been a .resident of the city for two years immediately prior to ‘the' date ■ bf his election or appointment to office, and .shall not be in default to the city, the county, of Wayne, or to any school district located within the eity. To be eligible to hold án elective office, a person shall also have been, for a period of -two years prior to the date of his election or appointment to offiee, the owner of property located within and assessed for taxes by the city.” City of Plymouth charter, § 4.4.
Notably the dissent of Brannon, .J., in State, ex rel. Thompson, v. McAllister, supra at p 449.
42 Am Jur, Public Officers, § 49, p 918,
The term taxpayer is used in the sense of a building used merely to bring in income enough to pay the taxes.
US Const, Art 1, §§ 2, 3, and krt 2, § 1.
“Experience in municipal matters, and a wise consideration of the question, will convince any unbiased mind that such a law has under it the very best of reasons. The faet that a man owns real estate has little bearing on the question as to whether he is capable of filling an office, but the real-estate owners are the substantial people of any community, — its bone and its sinew, — and there are but few among them that do not have some property pride, and an interest in the welfare and prosperity of their permanent dwelling place. On the other hand, among those not owning real estate belong the floating population, — those who are too trifling and unthrifty to want property, and those who, having wasted their substance in riotous living, and spent their days in idleness are jealous of their neighbors’ prosperity, and are ready to tear down, destroy, and scatter broadcast, the results of hard earnings, frugal management, and careful savings. To them, although electors, the prosperity and welfare of the municipality amounts to nothing, for, like the Bedoins of the plains, 'neath the shadows of night they can fold their tents, and silently steal away’, while, if there are any among the unfortunate but deserving poor who would make capable officers, their more successful neighbors are ever ready and willing to lend a helping hand, and see that they own the necessary 'ten feet of ground.’ ” (pp 494, 495.)