Opinion ID: 778860
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Holt and the Validity of Geographical Restrictions on the Franchise

Text: 24 In Holt, the Supreme Court expressly recognized geographical limits on the one person, one vote principle. There the Court addressed the constitutionality of an Alabama statute that subjected Holt, an unincorporated community on the outskirts of the city of Tuscaloosa, to the city's police jurisdiction, which meant that Holt was subject to Tuscaloosa's police and sanitary regulations and the criminal jurisdiction of Tuscaloosa's courts, as well as the city's power to license businesses, trades, and professions. Despite Tuscaloosa's exercise of police jurisdiction over Holt, the statute did not entitle Holt residents to vote in Tuscaloosa elections, an exclusion which was challenged as a violation of one person, one vote. 25 In concluding that the scheme was constitutional, the Court distinguished prior cases in which a violation of the one person, one vote principle had been found as those where the franchise had been denied to individuals who were physically resident within the geographic boundaries of the governmental entity concerned. Id. at 68. The court held that, because Holt residents lived outside the boundaries of Tuscaloosa, the governmental unit at issue, one person, one vote was not implicated and the scheme needed to survive only rational basis review to be upheld. Applying rational basis review, the Court concluded that the scheme bore some rational relationship to a legitimate state purpose, id. at 70, and upheld Tuscaloosa's extraterritorial exercise of municipal powers over Holt. Id. at 74-75. 26 The defendants contend that this case is controlled by Holt because English and the other residents of Lincoln Park, like the residents of Holt, reside outside the geographic borders of the governmental entity concerned — the Boonton School District. Id. at 68. Consequently, the defendants submit, although Lincoln Park residents, like the residents of Holt, are subject to the extraterritorial jurisdiction of another municipal entity — specifically, the Boonton Board's control over their children's high school education — they are not entitled to a proportionate vote in that entity's elections. Thus, the defendants argue, the principle of one person, one vote is not offended, and the state need not justify its representation scheme under strict scrutiny. See Mixon v. Ohio, 193 F.3d 389, 402 (6th Cir.1999) (noting that when legislation does not infringe on the right to vote, we examine the challenged statute under the rational basis standard). 27 The plaintiffs counter that the Supreme Court's holding in Holt is limited to instances in which a municipality exercises only limited extraterritorial power over non-residents. They submit that where a municipality exercises extensive powers over non-residents, as they contend is the case here, political subdivisions are mere formalities that ought not to stand in the way of the vindication of federal constitutional rights, and, accordingly, the franchise must be extended extraterritorially to non-residents whose interests are affected by the decisions of another governmental entity. 28 The plaintiffs rely on a 1975 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Little Thunder v. South Dakota, 518 F.2d 1253 (8th Cir.1975). There the Court was called upon to review the constitutionality of a South Dakota statutory scheme under which residents of the state's unorganized counties were excluded from participating in the elections of organized county officials who nevertheless wielded the same powers over the unorganized counties as they did over the organized counties that elected them. Id. at 1254-55. Although South Dakota argued that the non-residents' exclusion was justified as a legitimate geographic residency requirement, the Court of Appeals rejected this view as too simplistic. Id. While the Court recognized a state's prerogative to impose geographic limits on the franchise, it cautioned that those limits must bear a close relationship to the underlying interests of the parties affected in the results of the elective process. Id. at 1256. Because the unorganized/organized county residence distinction in voting rights did not result from a substantial difference in the[] interests [of the residents of each type of county] in the election of county officials, the Court held that the scheme was an unconstitutional violation of the one person, one vote principle. Id. 29 We agree with the plaintiffs and the Eighth Circuit that a rigidly formalistic approach to geography in one person, one vote jurisprudence would be too simplistic, as it may result in upholding entirely arbitrary or irrational[] distinctions in citizens' voting rights, Holt, 439 U.S. at 87 (Brennan, J., dissenting). Although the Holt Court at times seemed to endorse unequivocally the validity of geographic restrictions on the franchise, see id. at 68-69 ([O]ur cases have uniformly recognized that a government unit may legitimately restrict the right to participate in its political processes to those who reside within its borders.), the Court acknowledged that in a situation in which a city has annexed outlying territory in all but name, and is exercising precisely the same governmental powers over residents of the surrounding ... territory as it does over those residing within its corporate limits, constitutional problems may well arise where the residents of the outlying territory have no say in the election of the city's officials. Id. at 72 n. 8 (citing Little Thunder ). Moreover, the Court took care to observe that although the interests of Holt residents were undoubtedly affected to a large degree by the powers exercised by Tuscaloosa's city government, Tuscaloosa's powers over Holt did not include certain vital and traditional authorities of cities and towns, such as zoning, the power to levy ad valorem taxes, and eminent domain. Id. at 72 n. 8. 6 30 However, even assuming that Little Thunder is apposite (in fact we think it factually distinguishable), the plaintiffs do not acknowledge the extent to which the Supreme Court's opinion in Holt, issued three years after Little Thunder, cut back on the Eighth Circuit's analytical technique of taking non-residents' interests into account. In particular, whereas the Little Thunder Court seemed to conclude that residency requirements are permissible only when they are designed to insure that only voters who have a substantial interest in the outcome of elections will participate, 518 F.2d at 1256, the Supreme Court in Holt recognized that territorial restrictions on the franchise may be valid even where the decisions of a municipality have a heav[y] impact on non-residents excluded from its political processes. 439 U.S. at 69-70. 31 It seems to us, therefore, that the Court in Holt took care to eschew a rigidly formalistic reliance on geography in assessing the constitutionality of a territorial voting restriction, but at the same time required that something more than what the Little Thunder Court termed the substantial interest[s] of the non-residents to have been affected for a territorial restriction to violate the principle of one person, one vote. We read Holt as meaning that strict scrutiny will be applied to the exclusion of non-residents from the elections of a particular governmental entity only when that unit of government exercises a level of control over the non-residents' lives close to or equal to that which it exercises over those who actually reside within its borders. However, the mere fact that a municipality's actions may have an impact — even a substantial impact — on non-residents does not entitle those non-residents to vote in the municipality's elections. See Holt, 439 U.S. at 69-70 (noting that despite the fact that a city's decisions may have dramatic extraterritorial effects on non-residents, those non-residents are not entitled to vote in the city's elections). 32 Applying this tempered view of Holt, we are constrained to hold that the residents of Lincoln Park have no right to vote in the election of Boonton's School Board. This is not a case in which the Boonton Board exercis[es] precisely the same governmental powers over residents of [Lincoln Park] as it does over those residing within its [district's] limits. Id. at 72 n. 8. Lincoln Park residents are subject to the extraterritorial powers of the Boonton Board only with respect to their high school-aged children. For matters concerning K-8 education, the residents of Lincoln Park exercise exclusive control through their own school board elected solely by Lincoln Park residents. Moreover, the Boonton Board's control over high school education is only one of its many responsibilities affecting the residents of Boonton. The Board is also responsible for the district's K-8 educational program, as well as matters that affect the district as a whole, such as school facilities and the district's central administrative staff. 33 The plaintiffs contend that Holt is distinguishable because this case concerns education, a vital government function, Hadley, 397 U.S. at 56, whereas Holt involved less important governmental services like police protection and business licensing. See Holt, 439 U.S. at 77 (Stevens, J., concurring) (noting that the extraterritorial powers of Tuscaloosa over the residents of Holt were limited in part because Tuscaloosa exercised no power over Holt's schools). While we do not gainsay that education is a governmental function of the utmost importance, see Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483, 493, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954) (noting that education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments), we doubt the viability of that distinction in this context. At all events, we think that the extraterritorial power over education exercised by the Boonton Board is itself limited for the reasons described above: the Boonton Board controls only four of the thirteen years of a Lincoln Park child's education and Lincoln Park possesses its own school board elected exclusively by Lincoln Park residents for the governance of K-8 affairs. Moreover, Lincoln Park residents are not without any voice in the governance of Boonton High, for state law, as explained above, entitles the Lincoln Park Board to appoint a representative to the Boonton Board. That person may speak at Board meetings to convey Lincoln Park's view. He or she also has a vote on matters that primarily affect the high school. See N.J.S.A. § 18A:38-8.1. 34 Additionally, New Jersey has legitimate reasons for limiting the representation of Lincoln Park in the Boonton Board's decisions. As noted above, under New Jersey law there is always the possibility that Lincoln Park, as a sending district, might sever its relationship with Boonton. See N.J.S.A. § 18A:38-13. As a result, it can fairly be said that Lincoln Park residents do not have the same vested interest in the long-term affairs of the Boonton school district — such as capital improvements, employee pension plans, and other long-term commitments — as do Boonton residents. Moreover, as discussed earlier, some of the items on which a sending district's representative is entitled to vote affect more than just the school that the district's students attend. See, e.g., N.J.S.A. § 18A:38-8.1(d) (selection of the receiving district's central administrative staff). It makes sense, therefore, for New Jersey to limit the power of the sending district's representative so as to preserve the receiving district's control over matters that affect the school district as a whole. 35 Perhaps in an ideal system of government, the residents of Lincoln Park would be entitled to a level of representation on the Boonton Board that is exactly proportional to their level of interest in the Board's functions, if such a figure could be calculated. Indeed, the District Court, through its remedy's mathematical formula for determining different levels of representation for Lincoln Park as to different issues addressed by the Boonton Board, appears to have attempted to achieve such precision. The Constitution, however, does not require that a system of government be the soundest or most practical form of internal government possible from a political science standpoint. Holt, 439 U.S. at 73-74. Rather, imprecision in democratic representation is tolerated, so long as the basic principles of one person, one vote, described above, are not offended. 36 While well-intentioned, the District Court's remedy has the potential to involve the judiciary in what is an essentially legislative role. The complex policy decisions involved in apportioning representation where a school board exercises limited power over students from another district and where the relationship between a sending and receiving district is far from permanent are decisions best left to a legislature. See Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 620-625 (Harlan, J., dissenting) (arguing that questions of democratic apportionment are best left to the legislature). This is especially so in the context of education policy, an area in which the Supreme Court has repeatedly admonished the judiciary to be wary of intervention. As the Court observed in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973): 37 Education ... presents a myriad of intractable economic, social, and even philosophical problems. The very complexity of the problems of financing and managing a statewide public school system suggests that there will be more than one constitutionally permissible method of solving them, and that, within the limits of rationality, the legislature's efforts to tackle the problems should be entitled to respect.... In such circumstances, the judiciary is well advised to refrain from imposing on the States inflexible constitutional restraints that could circumscribe or handicap the continued research and experimentation so vital to finding even partial solutions to educational problems and to keeping abreast of ever-changing conditions. 38 Id. at 42-43 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). 39 Indeed, the very complexity of the District Court's remedy illustrates why intervention in this area is better suited to the state legislature than to the judiciary. Under the Court's remedy, as discussed above, four members of the Lincoln Park Board would be entitled to sit on a thirteen-member Boonton Board with the votes of the Lincoln Park delegation weighted by a factor of 2.5 in matters affecting only the high school and 0.7 in matters affecting the district as a whole. This remedy threatens to make a math lesson out of every meeting of the Boonton Board. While the Court proffered its remedy as only an interim solution pending action by the New Jersey state legislature (which is something that the Court could neither compel nor, with any degree of confidence, expect), the rationale of the Court's opinion and its remedy — which seem to require that Lincoln Park's representation on the Boonton Board comport almost exactly to its share of the student population — appear to leave the state legislature little room within which to maneuver. 40 For all of these reasons, we are satisfied that N.J.S.A. § 18A:38-8.2 as applied to Lincoln Park does not violate the principle of one person, one vote. Consequently, we need not review the statute under strict scrutiny. 7