Opinion ID: 109179
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: We are met at the threshold with a mild question of jurisdiction not pressed by the parties. We have jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1253 [6] only if a three-judge court was required by 28 U. S. C. § 2281. [7] It might be suggested that the three-judge court here did not restrain the enforcement of a statute but, instead, the enforcement of the court-ordered plan of 1965 which had become unconstitutional in the circumstances of 1972, and, hence, that the provisions of § 2281 were not satisfied. The argument is less than persuasive and we conclude that it is without merit. Although the reapportionment now under attack was indeed court ordered, its enforcement is doubly based on the State's Constitution and statutes. Its effectuation directly depends on the state election law machinery and, in addition, the plan itself is a court-imposed replacement of the North Dakota constitutional provisions and the 1931, 1963, and 1965 reapportionment statutes. It is these that are, and have been, the primary objects of attack. It would be highly anomalous if jurisdiction were not here, for then it would follow that a single judge could invalidate a reapportionment plan that had been evolved or approved, and was required so to be, by a three-judge court some time before. Subject matter of this kind is regular grist for the three-judge court, and that route typically has been employed under conditions similar to those present here. See, e. g., Skolnick v. State Electoral Board of Illinois, 336 F. Supp. 839 (ND III. 1971). We think this is correct procedure and we conclude that we have jurisdiction.