Court Opinion

ID: 9672371
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:53:44.193021+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:15.670287
License: Public Domain

Separate Concurring Opinion
Me. Justice White.
While I concur in the conclusion of the opinion written by my Brother Creson, I would add that the legislation stricken down by the opinion is offensive because it dilutes the effectiveness and value of the franchise in the urban counties affected by giving each voter the right to vote for only a fraction of the senators representing his particular interests in that county.
While Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506, (1964), states that “Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests,” this is not authority for the proposition that a single' economic interest, which is a county, should not elect in proportion to the number of people within that county all the legislators who will represent the people of the whole of the county.
To disallow an urban citizen, whose livelihood may depend upon factors outside his immediate sub-district, the *581right to vote for senators who should represent the whole county economic unit, would surely dilute the value of his vote. This is so because it effectively dilutes the value of his proposed sub-district’s senator’s vote as compared with the vote of certain rural senators who represent a whole county.
Private acts passed by the Legislature affect the people in the county as a whole. A senator who represents only one-half, one-fourth or one-sixth of such economic unit, the county, while he may, of course, join with other senators in supporting or rejecting legislation, nevertheless is not obligated to his constituency to do so. This is especially true where one sub-district has needs which are different and may conflict with those of another sub-district. The welfare of the economic unit, the county, should not suffer because of sub-unit differences, especially since the proper concern for sub-county problems belongs with the local county government.
The pertinent part of Article 1, Section 5, of the Constitution of Tennessee, provides that elections shall be free and equal. To me it seems that this section of the Constitution is offended by depriving the citizens of an urban area of the equal right to vote for all of those representing them in matters affecting* their local government. To hold otherwise would be to deprive each voter in the affected urban areas of their full and equal right to vote for senators representing them as the people in an economic unit, the county.