Case Name: Harrison MANN et al., Plaintiffs, v. Levin Nock DAVIS et al., Defendants
Court: United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1962-11-28
Citations: 213 F. Supp. 577
Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 2604
Parties: Harrison MANN et al., Plaintiffs, v. Levin Nock DAVIS et al., Defendants.
Judges: 
Reporter: Federal Supplement
Volume: 213
Pages: 577–592

Head Matter:
Harrison MANN et al., Plaintiffs, v. Levin Nock DAVIS et al., Defendants.
Civ. A. No. 2604.
United States District Court E. D. Virginia, at Alexandria.
Argued Oct. 22, 23, 1962.
Decided Nov. 28, 1962.
Walter E. Hoffman, J., dissented.
Edmund D. Campbell, Arlington, Va., and E. A. Prichard, Fairfax, Va., for plaintiffs.
Henry E. Howell, Jr., Sidney H. Kelsey, and Leonard B. Sachs, Norfolk, Va., for plaintiff-intervenors.
Robert Y. Button, Atty. Gen. of Virginia, R. D. Mcllwaine, III, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Virginia, David J. Mays, and Henry T. Wickham, Richmond, Va., for defendants.
Before BRYAN, Circuit Judge, and HOFFMAN and LEWIS, District Judges.

Opinion:
ALBERT V. BRYAN, Circuit Judge.
Virginia's legislative apportionment statutes of 1962 are here assailed as violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Federal Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment. Plaintiffs (including inter-venors) are registered and otherwise qualified voters of the State of Virginia residing, respectively, in Arlington County, Fairfax County and the City of Norfolk. Their complaint is that the apportionment reduces the value of a vote in these districts far below that of a vote in many other Senatorial and House districts of Virginia. The charge, we hold, has been proved.
The civil rights statutes, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 1988, are pleaded as authorizing the action; jurisdiction is rested on 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3). Alleging they sue on behalf of all other voters similarly situated in the Commonwealth of Virginia, as well as for themselves, plaintiffs name as defendants the members of the State Board of Elections and local election officials, together with the Governor and the Attorney General of Virginia.
The relief sought is (1) a judgment voiding the apportionment acts, (2) in-junctive restraint of the defendants from conducting elections under these laws,' and (3) an apportionment by the Court if the General Assembly fail, after the decree of injunction, to reapportion the State in conformity with legal standards.
I. Defendants move on several grounds to dismiss the complaint. However, Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962) unequivocally declares, contrary to the first assertion of the motion, that allegations comparable to those now before us state a claim upon which the relief here prayed may be granted. Nor is dismissal justified on the further ground that the plaintiffs have an appropriate remedy in the Virginia courts, for the "exceptional circumstances" are not here for the State remedy to oust Federal jurisdiction. Lane v. Wilson, 307 U.S. 268, 274, 59 S.Ct. 872, 83 L.Ed. 1281 (1939); United States v. Bureau of Revenue, 291 F.2d 677, 679 (10 Cir., 1961); Carson v. War-lick, 238 F.2d 724, 729 (4 Cir., 1956), cert. denied, 353 U.S. 910, 77 S.Ct. 665, 1 L.Ed.2d 664 (1957). Nor is this a suit against a State barred by the Eleventh Amendment, as defendants contend. It is a suit against State officials acting pursuant to State laws, a type of action universally held appropriate to vindicate a Federally protected right. Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 155-156, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908). Duckworth v. James, 267 F.2d 224, 230-231 (4 Cir.), cert. denied, 361 U.S. 835, 80 S.Ct. 88, 4 L.Ed.2d 76 (1959); Kansas City So. Ry. v. Daniel, 180 F.2d 910, 914 (5 Cir., 1950). Likewise contrary to the motion, we find the complaint pleads a class action; it pleads, too, an actual, controversy within the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201. We sustain, however, the motion to dismiss the Governor and the Attorney General of Virginia as defendants, for they have no "special relation" to the elections in suit. Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 157, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908).
The remaining ground of the motion asks us to stay the case until the plaintiffs procure the State courts' views upon the validity of the apportionment. But in our understanding of it abstention is not appropriate here. To begin with, there is no ambiguity in the statutes; they are not in need of interpretation, for they exactly fix and announce the representation of the General .Assembly districts. Nor are the Virginia Consti tution's provisions, which sired the acts and are quoted in a moment, lacking in clarity. These provisions, argue the defendants, purposely do not outline the criteria by which the apportionment is to be made and advisedly leave the standards to the judgment of the General Assembly. This suggests, defense counsel urge, that Virginia's own courts should first pass upon the composition of the districts, for they are presumably more intimately acquainted with the local conditions doubtlessly weighed by the General Assembly in the passage of the acts. The answer is that there is nothing in the State Constitution referring the General Assembly to any specific local considerations peculiarly within its knowledge. Whether the acts of the Assembly are within the aim and purpose of the Constitution can, therefore, be gained only from the bare words of its clauses, fair inferences from the acts themselves and commentary evidence. This determination is thus as well within the competence of a Federal court sitting in Virginia.
Furthermore, the strong implication of Baker v. Carr, if not its command, is that the Federal three-judge court should retain and resolve the litigation. The decision was so read by the Court in Toombs v. Fortson, 205 F.Supp. 248 (N.D.Ga.1962). Nothing different can be spelled from Scholle v. Hare, 369 U.S. 429, 82 S.Ct. 910, 8 L.Ed.2d 1 (1962). That case was sent back to the State court because it had its origin there, not because the Supreme Court preferred the State court. We find no precedent for abstention in the circumstances of our case.
II. The sections of the Virginia Constitution in suit are these:
"§ 40. General Assembly to consist of Senate and House of Delegates. — The legislative power of the State shall be vested in a General Assembly which shall consist of a Senate and House of Delegates.
"§ 41. Number and election of senators. — The Senate shall consist of not more than forty and not less than thirty-three members, who shall be elected quadrennially by the voters of the several senatorial districts on the Tuesday succeeding the first Monday in November.
"§ 42. Number and election of delegates. — The House of Delegates shall consist of not more than one hundred and not less than ninety members, who shall be elected biennially by the voters of the several house districts, on the Tuesday succeeding the first Monday in November.
"§ 43. Apportionment of Commonwealth into senatorial and house districts. — The present apportionment of the Commonwealth into senatorial and house districts shall continue; but a reapportionment shall be made in the year nineteen hundred and thirty-two and every ten years thereafter."
The 1962 acts of the General Assembly established 36 senatorial districts, assigning them 40 Senators, and 70 districts for the House of Delegates, distributing 100 members among them. The only ground-rule in the State Constitution for the placement of Senators and Delegates is contained, as we have seen, in its section 43's references to "apportionment of the Commonwealth into senatorial and house districts" and subsequent "reapportionment". These, obviously, are broad dimensions. Brown v. Saunders, 159 Va. 28, 166 S.E. 105, 107 (1932).
Nevertheless, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; as the plaintiffs rightly stress, demands that this apportionment accord the citizens of the State substantially equal representation. Plaintiffs charge that the 1962 statutes so far transgress this mandate of the Federal Constitution as to inflict "invidious discrimination" upon the plaintiffs. The injury is suffered, they aver, through their under-representation in the General Assembly occasioned by the misapportionment of Senators and Delegates — their votes have been diluted because the ratio of their population to the number of their representatives is far greater than in the other districts delineated by the acts
The Senate
The disparities in the Senate found in the 1962 apportionment acts are pointed up by the plaintiffs' evidence as follows:
A citizen of Arlington, Fairfax, or Norfolk has representation or voting power in the Senate of less than y2 of that possessed by a citizen of any of 6 of the 33 remaining districts in the State. Putting it conversely, his voting power is more than 2-times the voting power of any of the plaintiffs. Further, in 5 more of the districts the power of each vote is almost twice that of any plaintiff on an average. Thus % of the other 33 senatorial districts are nearly 100% richer in each vote's worth than are the plaintiffs' districts.
In substantiation of this summary the plaintiffs offered in evidence these figures:
Virginia's 1960 population is 3,966,-949. Dividing this total by the number of Senators — 40—gives an ideal representation of one Senator for each 99,174 persons.
Arlington Fairfax City of Norfolk
Population 163,401 285,194 304,869
No. of Senators 1 2 2
Population per Senator 163,401 142,597 152,435
District Population No. of Population Senators per Senator
Brunswick Lunenburg Mecklenburg 61,730 1 61,730
Goochland Louisa Orange Spottsylvania City of Fredericks-burg 62,523 1 62,523
Culpeper Fauquier Loudoun 63,703 1 63,703
Clarke Frederick Shenandoah City of Winchester 66,818 1 66,838
Halifax Charlotte Prince Edward City of South Boston 67,100 1 67,100
City of Arlington Fairfax Norfolk
Population 163,401 285,194 304,869
No. of Senators 1 2 2
Population per Senator 163,401 142,597 152,435
District Population No. of Population Senators per Senator
Dickenson Wise City of Norton 68,803 1 68,803
Bland Giles Pulaski Wythe 72,434 1 72,434
4 Greensville Prince George Surry Sussex Hopewell 72,951 1 72,951
Norfolk County City of South Norfolk (now City of Chesapeake) 73,647 1 73,647
Dinwiddie Nottoway City of Petersburg 74,074 1 74,074
Appomattox Buckingham Cumberland Powhatan Amherst Nelson Amelia 76,652 1 76,652
Total: 11 districts
House of Delegates
In the House plaintiffs contend that a vote in Fairfax has less than of the voting force of a vote in 4 districts; %— or less than that — of a vote in at least 16 others; and thus the preferred districts amount to a total of 20 of the other 67 districts in the State. In addition, both Norfolk and Arlington have almost double the individual vote-weight of Fairfax; but these two have only ap proximately % the ballot-potency of 7 districts. The following figures have been adduced to vouch the contention.
With the State population at 3,966,949 each of the 100 Delegates would presumably represent 39,669 persons.
City of Arlington Fairfax Norfolk
Population 163,401 285,194 304,869
No. of Delegates 3 3 6
Population per Delegate 54,467 95,064 50,812
District Delegates Population Population per Delegate
Shenandoah 1 21,825 21,825
Wythe 1 21,975 21,975
Grayson 1 22,644 22,644
Bland 1 23,201 23,201
Loudoun 1 24,549 24,549
Gloucester 1 25,359 25,359
Franklin 1 25,925 25,925
Rockingham 2 52,401 26,200
Buckingham 1 26,385 26,385
Southampton 1 27,195 27,195
Pulaski 1 27,258 27,258
Charlotte 1 27,489 27,489
Alleghany 1 28,458 28,458
Greensville 1 28,566 28,566
Pittsylvania 2 58,296 29,148
Fluvanna 1 29,392 29,392
City of Charlottesville 1 29,427 29,427
Fauquier 1 29,434 29,434
City of Petersburg 2 58,933 29,466
Amelia 1 29,703 29,703
Total: 20 districts
Note: In all the foregoing tabulations the population figures are 1960 census. Unless otherwise indicated the political subdivisions listed are counties. They include all cities and towns within the county boundaries, such as the cities of Falls Church and Fairfax in Fair-fax County. We are concerned with both relative representation and rel ative voting power as between the districts. No distinction need be observed because, obviously, the number of local voters would not exceed local populations.
III. The next question is whether this inequality amounts to the invidious discrimination that is held to be unconstitutional. Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U.S. 483, 489, 75 S.Ct. 461, 99 L.Ed. 563 (1955). True, the imbalance in the districts here appears only in population. While predominant, population is not in our opinion the sole or definitive measure of districts when taken by the Equal Protection Clause. Compactness and contiguity of the territory, community of interests of the people, observance of natural lines, and conformity to historical divisions, such as county lines, for example, are all to be noticed in assajúng the justness of the apportionment. Additionally, of course, we must accept as established such reasons for the districting as are fairly conceivable or inferable in and from the result. McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 426, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 6 L.Ed.2d 393 (1961).
Plaintiffs here proved the inequity of the allotment of representatives on the basis of population. Thereupon the burden to adduce evidence of the presence of other factors which might explain this disproportion passed to the defendants. But none was forthcoming, if indeed it was available. In an attempt to account for the unevenness, defendants adverted to the large segment in Arlington, Fairfax and Norfolk of military or naval personnel, urging that the General Assembly might have deducted their number in determining the popular count in these areas. But this evidence was not explicit or at all satisfactory. Furthermore, it was hardly helpful for it was conceded that Service men and women could, and many of them do, qualify to vote.
There is little doubt that in Virginia population is the overriding consideration in any distribution of representatives. As the Governor of Virginia stated April 7, 1962, in respect to the reapportionment legislation, "Historically, population has been utilized as the principal factor in redistricting in Virginia, although population alone has never been deemed the sole basis of redistricting". Exactitude in population is not demanded by the Equal Protection Clause. But there must be a fair approach to equality unless it be shown that other acceptable factors may make up for the differences in the numbers of people. In view of the accent Virginia has put upon population, the very words in her Constitution — "apportionment" and "reapportionment" — seem to envision popular equality. The Oxford English Dictionary (1933 ed.), volumes I and VIII, contains these definitions:
"Apportion:

"2. To assign portions or shares; to divide and assign proportionally.
«
"Proportional:
«p
"2. That is in proportion, or in due proportion; having (suitable) comparative relation; corresponding, esp. in degree or amount." (Emphasis added.)
In this consideration there is no difference in status between the Senators and Delegates in their disposition throughout the State. The Senate and the House each have a direct, indeed the same, relation to the people. No analogy of the State Senate with the Federal Senate in the present study is sound. The latter is a body representative of the States qua States, but the State Senate is not its regional counterpart. State senatorial districts do not have State autonomy. The bicameral system is a creature of history and many of the reasons for its creation no longer obtain. The chief justification for bicameralism in State government now seems to be the thought that it insures against precipitate action — imposing greater deliberation — -upon proposed legislation. See I Bryce, The American Commonwealth 484 (1917 Ed.); Maddox & Fuquay, State and Local Government 130 ff (1962); Macdonald, American State Government and Administration 116 (6th Ed. 1960); Snider, American State and Local Government 161 ff (1950); compare Sikes & Stoner, Bates & Field's State Government 176 (4th Ed. 1954).
Indulging all of the reasonable inferences which may be fairly drawn from the redistricting, we can find no rational basis for the disfavoring of Arlington, Fairfax and Norfolk. No acceptable formula, plan or design is shown us to account for the disparate divisions of the State. We do not mean to establish an allowable tolerance of divergence from the ideal district — whether more or less than a specified per centum. Nor do we intend to say that there cannot be wide differences of population in districts if a sound reason can be advanced for the discrepancies. We merely say none is offered here.
Unconstitutional, invidious discrimination adverse to Arlington, Fairfax and Norfolk has been proved. The inequality in the representation and voting rights occasioned Arlington, Fairfax and Norfolk is a grave deprivation, constitutionally impermissible. That there may be other districts also disadvantaged by the reapportionment has not been overlooked. But these additional deviations do not prove the apportionment right or make the plaintiffs whole. Furthermore, as we annul the acts in their entirety, the General Assembly can hereafter reexamine and reappraise the circumstances of any other prejudiced district.
IV. We will enter a judgment declaring the invalidity of the acts. It will also enjoin the defendants from proceeding under this legislation. Prior apportionment statutes have been repealed by the 1962 acts, the defendants concede, •and they agree too there is no possibility here of the revival of prior apportionment statutes.
However, our preference has been, and still is, for the General Assembly of Virginia to square the injustices of the' 1962 Acts. But the circumstances did not permit deferment of the determination of this suit until the next regular session of the Legislature, which convenes in January 1964. To begin with, the Senators elected in 1963 would not take office until January 1964 and would serve until January 1968. Similarly, Delegates chosen in 1963 would enter in January 1964 and be in office until January 1966. The disproportionate representations could not be righted by the 1964 General Assembly prior to 1966 in the case of Delegates, and not until 1968 as to the Senators, for there would not be another House election before 1965 and none for the Senate prior to 1967. This delay would be unreasonable.
Nor can we now defer until the 1964 General Assembly the effectuation of our decision. Aside from the reasons just enumerated for the inadvisability of initially continuing the case, to do so now would be to allow the elections scheduled for 1963 to proceed under statutes we have found invalid. However, the present General Assembly may without question take the necessary corrective measures to readjust the district lines.
To achieve these ends, we will stay the operation of the injunction until January 31, 1963, so that the present General Assembly may be convened in special session to enact appropriate reapportion ment laws, or the defendants may appeal to the United States Supreme Court. Meanwhile jurisdiction of the cause will be retained, but any further stay of the injunction must be sought from the Supreme Court or one of its Justices. If neither of the steps just mentioned is taken or, if taken, does not result either in meeting or altering our decision, then the plaintiffs may apply to this court for such further orders as may be required.
An order will be entered in accordance with this opinion.
. Chap. 635, 1962 Acts of Assembly, p. 1266, entitled "An Act to amend and reenact § 24-14, as amended, of the Code of Virginia, relating to State senatorial districts", and Chap. 638, p. 1269, entitled "An Act to amend and reenact § 24-12, as amended, of the Code of Virginia, relating to apportionment of the members of the House of Delegates", both approved April 7, 1962.
. Such as, for example, these Senate Districts : (1) Accomack, Northampton, Princess Anne, Virginia Beach; (2) Franklin, Montgomery, Radford, Roanoke; and (3) Newport News, York; and these Souse Districts: (1) Botetourt,, Roanoke, Craig; (2) Chesterfield, Colonial Heights; (3) Hampton City; and (4) Portsmouth City.