Opinion ID: 1430068
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Representation under the Oregon Constitution

Text: The position taken by the Attorney General on behalf of the Secretary of State and the Legislative Assembly draws a sharp distinction between the right to vote and the right to have a particular representative in the house and in the senate. It involves these contentions: Apportionment by districts other than counties is designed only to achieve equal population ratios for purposes of election, to protect equal voting rights. After the election, legislators represent counties, not voters: There is no direct or indirect support in the Oregon Constitution for the proposition that a senator elected from a `district' represents that district rather than the county. The concept underlying the Oregon legislative scheme was that the senator would represent the county. Chapter 261 accords Multnomah County the number of senate seats to which it is entitled. As to voting rights, respondents contend that chapter 261 provides all the equality possible in electing senators from single-member districts for staggered four-year terms; the 1981 reapportionment cannot be judged to deny equal voting rights by tacking the voting schedule under the old apportionment plan onto the new schedule. There is undeniable substance to the distinction between election and representation. Selection of a legislator by voters and representation of a district are by no means synonymous. If petitioners are right in arguing that under the Oregon Constitution a legislator represents an electoral district, then he or she represents all inhabitants of that district, not only those who elected the legislator but also those too young or otherwise ineligible to vote, and opponents as well as supporters. During a senator's four-year term, many who voted in the last election will have died or moved out of the district, others will have moved into the district or become of age to vote in the next election, and yet others will arrive and leave again between elections. Indeed, this entire line of petitioners' attack on chapter 261 depends on the premise that legislators may represent districts whose boundaries and constituencies differ from those in which they were elected. The distinction between election and representation, however, does not save the defense of chapter 261 from difficulties of its own. Respondents first focused their defense on the relationship between the 15 senators who were elected in 1980 and the 15 senate Districts, including District 6, that are scheduled to elect senators in 1984. The argument is that, although each of these 15 new senate districts except District 6 substantially incorporates the residence and the present district from which a holdover senator was elected, after 1982 these districts will not be represented by an incumbent senator any more than District 6 will be. [12] But respondents' argument cannot confine itself to those 15 senate districts. By its premise, none of the 30 senators represents a district under the present apportionment or after chapter 261 becomes operative with the regular general election in 1982 unless the district happens to coincide with a county; for respondents' premise is that legislators represent counties, not districts or subdistricts within counties. By the same premise, the members of the House of Representatives also represent counties, not electoral districts, now as well as after 1982. In short, respondents present a constitutional model which does not create any special legal relationship or representation between a legislator and an electoral district, whatever political relationship between them may be recognized by the inhabitants of the district, by the legislator, by his or her legislative colleagues, and by other agencies of government. In respondents' words: We contend that there is no broad and amorphous right of representation in the apportionment context implicit in the Oregon Constitution. That is the issue next to be examined. Article IV, section 6(1) of the Oregon Constitution provides: The number of senators and representatives shall, at the session next following an enumeration of the inhabitants by the United States government, be fixed by law and apportioned among the several counties according to the population in each. The ratio of senators and representatives, respectively, shall be determined by dividing the total population of the state by the number of senators and by the number of representatives. The number of senators and representatives for each county or district shall be determined by dividing the total population of such county or district by such respective ratios; and when a fraction exceeding one-half results from such division, such county or district shall be entitled to a member for such fraction. In case any county does not have the requisite population to entitle it to a member, then such county shall be attached to some adjoining county or counties for senatorial or representative purposes. The first sentence states that the number of senators and representatives shall [be] apportioned among the several counties according to the population in each. Population ratios are used to determine the number of senators and representatives for each county or district. Perhaps it can be argued that these words still refer only to determining the numbers of legislative seats to be filled by election in a county or district, though they refer to senators and representatives for a county or district. But other clauses strain respondents' argument that section 6(1) concerns only the allocation of legislative seats to district ballots at election time. A county or district shall be entitled to a member if it contains a fraction of the required population. It shall be joined with another for senatorial or representative purposes if its population does not suffice to entitle it to a member. This is not the language of election only. The text says that a county or district shall be entitled to a member, not merely to elect a member. A county lacking the requisite population entitling it to a member joins a larger district for senatorial or representative purposes, not for electoral purposes. These phrases are not conclusive. Draftsmanship rarely is precise enough to preclude every argument about unforeseen issues, as earlier demonstrated by the major fraction provisions of this very section. See In Re Legislative Apportionment, 228 Or. 562, 364 P.2d 1004, 365 P.2d 1042 (1961). But when there are such easy and natural ways to express the singleminded concern with the election process that respondents ascribe to subsection (1), it is at least interesting that the drafters not once used the words elect or election. While the operative text may not contradict respondents' position, it lends their position no support. The original constitution of 1859 plainly contemplated a direct relationship between legislators and constituencies when it provided that only an established inhabitant could be chosen to represent a county or district in the legislature, though the rule was only stated in terms of residency before election. Art. IV, § 8. [13] A representative relationship is implicit in the freedom of instructing their Representatives, art. I, § 26 supra n. 12, which was first stated as a right in the constitutions of North Carolina in 1776, Vermont in 1777, and Massachusetts in 1780. [14] We do not believe that Representatives was meant to refer to members of the House as distinct from senators. Since 1859 the Oregon Constitution has undergone changes bearing on the nature of legislative representation. An amendment initiated and adopted by the people in 1908 provided for the recall of elected public officers, including legislators. Art. II, section 18, supra n. 8. As already mentioned, the Attorney General maintains that even after the reapportionment is scheduled to become operative in 1982, recall petitions and elections would be a matter for the electors within the old, otherwise superseded, senate district that originally elected a holdover senator, so that none of the new senate districts with 1984 election dates can recall its own senator. The legal merits of that position are not at issue in this case. We do not hold that chapter 261 violates art. II, § 18. We cite the recall provisions only as another item of evidence that Oregon's constitutional system presupposes an ongoing identification between electoral districts and particular legislators. Additional evidence could be cited. [15] But we need not go afield from art. IV, section 6 itself. The 1952 reapportionment initiative under which we conduct the present review also made a new apportionment in section 6(4) to become operative on the day of the 1954 general election, much like chapter 261. And section 6(4) left no doubt that senators were to represent particular districts aside from being elected in them. Section 6(4)(c) directed that each senator whose term extended to the end of 1956 shall continue, for the duration of his term, to hold office as senator, representing the district established under [§ 6(4)(a)] in which is located the county in which he resided at the time of his election or appointment, with certain adjustments. With respect to three holdover senators in eastern Oregon, section 6(4)(c) directed that the senator representing a specified former district shall continue to hold office and shall represent specified new districts under the reapportionment that would become operative in 1954. In other words, section 6(4)(c) assigned holdover senators from old senate districts to represent new districts in much the same manner as HB 2001 did before that provision was eliminated by the conference committee. The same device of assigning incumbent senators to newly formed districts had been used in the prior reapportionments of 1899 and 1907. Each provided that Senators holding over, representing districts composed of more than one county, shall, when the districts have been changed by this act, be considered senators of the districts created by this act in which they reside. 1899 Or. Laws, p. 6, § 5; 1907 Or. Laws ch. 269, § 4. The use of this familiar device in the 1952 reapportionment amendment, expressly applying the terms representation and shall represent to the reassignment of elected and of appointed senators alike, contradicts the Attorney General's view that apportionment deals solely with electoral numbers and that the constitution knows no concept of representation in the apportionment context. The historical record of previous reapportionments shows that by including this careful provision for representation of reapportioned districts in the 1952 amendment, the people did not introduce a previously unknown and radical innovation into the constitution. Rather, we believe that the provisions for representation in section 6(4) reflected existing assumptions about legislative representation. Thus they shed light on the intended object of the provisions in section 6(1) for apportioning the number of senators among the several counties and for each county or district. In short, we conclude that an apportionment under section 6(1), as modified by other constitutional mandates, apportions more than numbers of legislative positions to be filled on election day. It also implies a relationship between electoral districts and identifiable legislators, the relationship which the words shall represent in section 6(4)(c) describe as a duty of representation. The court's inquiry is not whether the idea of representation tied to electoral districts is wise or unwise but whether it is embodied in Oregon's constitutional system. [16] The substance of representation or its sanctions do not concern us here. A legislator's obligation to represent a district may be amorphous and the sanctions political, as respondents suggest. We decide nothing concerning residence requirements or potential exposure to hypothetical recall proceedings. Nor are we at this point concerned with disenfranchisement or voting dates. Representation of a district by identifiable legislators does not necessarily imply single member districts, as the apportionments made before and within the 1952 reapportionment amendment show. Whatever districts are created, however, the reapportionment must not result in a condition in which no member of the Senate can be identified as the senator for one of the districts. [17] This is what happened in the present reapportionment measure with respect to Senate District 6, and it renders the measure to that extent incompatible with art. IV, § 6(1) of the constitution. [18]