Opinion ID: 684426
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Presence of the Kansas State Legislature

Text: 19 The Board reasserts the district court erred in failing to hold the state legislature is a necessary party without whom the court cannot order complete relief. Fed.R.Civ.P. 19(a). The Board maintains the legislature is the only entity capable of providing such relief. However, the district court held there was no need to join the legislature as a party because plaintiffs' actual injury results from (1) the board administering an unconstitutional election, and (2) their being governed by an unconstitutionally elected body. Hellebust I at 1521. Moreover, the district court found the presence of the legislature was unnecessary for the relief requested. 20 Reviewing this matter de novo, Dickinson v. Indiana State Election Bd., 933 F.2d 497, 500 (7th Cir.1991), we find no error in the district court's reasoning. In this case, plaintiffs sought to declare their Fourteenth Amendment rights were being violated and to enjoin that violation. The Board is the source of that violation, and prohibiting its unconstitutional exercise of power remedies that grievance. Further, in granting relief, the district court has left the door open for the state legislature to submit a remedy and to intervene under its continuing supervision of this action. 4 In Dickinson, a case under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the court held the legislature, while not a necessary party, could, if it desired, intervene, and observed its interests were already represented. Id. at 500. We believe the same analysis applies here.