Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/403/182/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 00:47:59+00:00

Document:
For more than a century, the Rockland County board of supervisors consisted of the supervisors of the county's five towns, resulting in extensive functional interrelationships and intergovernmental coordination between county and towns. Severe malapportionment due to population growth led to court-ordered reapportionment. The proposed plan, challenged by petitioners, provides for a county legislature of 18 members chosen from five districts, corresponding with the towns, each district being assigned legislators in the proportion of its population to that of the smallest town. The plan produces a total deviation from equality of 11.9%. The Court of Appeals of New York upheld the plan.
Held: In light of the long tradition of overlapping functions and dual personnel in the Rockland County government and the fact that the plan does not contain any built-in bias favoring particular political interests or geographic areas, the plan is not violative of the Equal Protection Clause. Pp. 403 U. S. 185-187.
25 N.Y.2d 309, 253 N.E.2d 189, affirmed.
MARSHALL, J delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and BLACK, WHITE, and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined. HARLAN, J., filed a statement concurring in the result. STEWART, J., concurred in the judgment. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which DOUGLAS, J., joined, post, p. 403 U. S. 187.
For more than 100 years, Rockland County was governed by a board of supervisors consisting of the supervisors of each of the county's five constituent towns. This county legislature was not separately elected; rather, its members held their county offices by virtue of their election as town supervisors -- a pattern that typified New York county government. The result has been a local structure in which overlapping public services are provided by the towns and their county working in close cooperation. For example, in Rockland County, the towns adopt their own budgets and submit them to the county, which levies taxes. These taxes are based on real property assessments established by the towns but equalized by the county board. Similarly, public services such as waste disposal and snow removal are provided through cooperative efforts among the municipalities. There is no indication that these joint efforts have declined in importance; in fact, respondents strenuously urge that the county's rapidly expanding population has amplified the need for town and county coordination in the future.
initial proposal was rejected by the New York courts, the board submitted the plan that is the subject of this decision.
It is well established that electoral apportionment must be based on the general principle of population equality, and that this principle applies to state and local elections, Avery v. Midland County, 390 U. S. 474, 390 U. S. 481 (1968). "Mathematical exactness or precision is hardly a workable constitutional requirement," Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 377 U. S. 577 (1964), but deviations from population equality must be justified by legitimate state considerations, Swann v. Adams, 385 U. S. 440, 385 U. S. 444 (1967). Because voting rights require highly sensitive safeguards, this Court has carefully scrutinized state interests offered to justify deviations from population equality. In assessing the constitutionality of various apportionment plans, we have observed that viable local governments may need considerable flexibility in municipal arrangements if they are to meet changing societal needs, Sailors v. Board of Education, 387 U. S. 105, 387 U. S. 110-111 (1967), and that a desire to preserve the integrity of political subdivisions may justify an apportionment plan which departs from numerical equality. Reynolds v. Sims, supra, at 377 U. S. 578. These observations, along with the facts that local legislative bodies frequently have fewer representatives than do their state and national counterparts, and that some local legislative districts may have a much smaller population than do congressional and state legislative districts, lend support to the argument that slightly greater percentage deviations may be tolerable for local government apportionment schemes, cf. ibid. Of course, this Court has never suggested that certain geographic areas or political interests are entitled to disproportionate representation. Rather, our statements have reflected the view that the particular circumstances and needs of a local community as a whole may sometimes justify departures from strict equality.
county legislature, Rockland County responded with a plan that substantially remedies the malapportionment and that, by preserving an exact correspondence between each town and one of the county legislative districts, continues to encourage town supervisors to serve on the county board.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN concurs in the result for the reasons stated in his separate opinion in Whitcomb v. Chavis, ante, p. 403 U. S. 165.
Petitioners also attack the plan's use of multi-member districts. However, they have not shown that these multi-member districts, by themselves, operate to impair the voting strength of particular racial or political elements of the Rockland County voting population, see Burns v. Richardson, 384 U. S. 73, 384 U. S. 88 (1966).
Naturally, we express no opinion on the contention that, in future years, the Rockland County plan may produce substantially greater deviations than presently exist. Such questions can be answered if and when they arise.
The Court today reaffirms all of the principles of Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 (1964), and its progeny, but refuses, for a combination of reasons unpersuasive to me, to apply those principles to this apportionment scheme. I believe that our recent decisions in Avery v. Midland County, 390 U. S. 474 (1968); Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, 394 U. S. 526 (1969), and Wells v. Rockefeller, 394 U. S. 542 (1969), require reversal, and I therefore dissent.
v. Sims, supra, at 377 U. S. 578."
"it may be feasible to use political subdivision lines to a greater extent in establishing state legislative districts than in congressional districting."
"[t]o do so would be constitutionally valid, so long as the resulting apportionment was one based substantially on population and the equal population principle was not diluted in any significant way."
Ibid. (emphasis added). Moreover, the Court did not, at that point in time, "deem it expedient . . . to attempt to spell out any precise constitutional tests." We have done so since.
In Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, supra, we explained that, because "[t]oleration of even small deviations detracts from" the constitutional command of "equal representation for equal numbers of people," only those "limited population variances which are unavoidable despite a good faith effort to achieve absolute equality, or for which justification is shown" are permissible. 394 U.S. at 394 U. S. 531. "[T]he State must justify each variance, no matter how small." Ibid. On the record presented here, it is clear that such a good faith effort has not been made. Nor can it be said that sufficient justification has been demonstrated for an 11.9% deviation from voting equality.
The plan approved here allegedly represents as close to mathematical exactness as is possible without changing existing political boundaries or using weighted or fractional votes. But a plan devised under these constraints is not devised in the good faith effort that the Constitution requires. In Wells v. Rockefeller, supra, we struck down a similar plan. We held that an attempt to maintain existing county lines was insufficient justification for a 12.1% variance. In explanation, we stated that an attempt "to keep regions with distinct interests intact"
"would permit groups of districts with defined interest orientations to be overrepresented at the expense of districts with different interest orientations."
394 U.S. at 394 U. S. 546. That is precisely what we are dealing with here. The attempt to maintain existing town lines has resulted in a variance from equality of 11.9%. I cannot believe that a 0.2% differential is the determining factor in approving this apportionment scheme.
The Court explains that it is, rather, a combination of factors that dictates this result, and that, among them, is the fact that New York has a long history of maintaining the integrity of existing counties. It is not clear to me why such a history, no matter how protracted, should alter the constitutional command to make a good faith effort to achieve equality of voting power as near to mathematical exactness as is possible.
"the States universally leave much policy and decisionmaking to their governmental subdivisions. . . . In a word, institutions of local government have always been a major aspect of our system, and their responsible and responsive operation is today of increasing importance to the quality of life of more and more of our citizens."
Avery v. Midland County, 390 U.S. at 390 U. S. 481.
It is clear to me that none of the factors relied upon by the Court today can, singly or in combination, justify this variation. Obviously no other local apportionment scheme can possibly present the same combination of factors relied on by the Court today. In that sense, this decision can have little or no precedential value. Nevertheless, I cannot help but regret even this small departure from the basic constitutional concept of one man, one vote.

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