Special legislation

Special legislation is a legal term of art used in the United States which refers to acts of a state legislature which apply only to part of a class—a particular person, thing, or locale within a given class. "Special legislation" is also preferred as "Local legislation". In most states, if a general law can be enacted, the legislature may not enact a special law, except a local law; and there are certain subjects on which the legislature cannot enact even local law. In some states, whether a law is “special” is determined by the courts; whether a general law could have been made applicable in is judicially determined without regard to any legislative assertion on that subject. Other states allow the legislature to determine whether a bill is special legislation.

In some states, such as Pennsylvania, the state constitution prohibits special legislation; though it is often possible for the legislature to evade this restriction by describing the community in great detail without mentioning its name. (For example, Pennsylvania law defines certain powers of "cities of the second class", which was originally defined specifically to apply only to Pittsburgh; the lower threshold of this class has been revised downward to accommodate a decline in Pittsburgh's population, with the effect that other cities not originally envisioned have become entitled to second-class status.)