Court Opinion

ID: 9647245
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:28:27.777764+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:52.233988
License: Public Domain

HENLEY, Judge.
Del C. Preisler et al. (plaintiffs) sought by their petition (1) a judgment declaring unconstitutional existing senatorial districts on the sole ground that they are not com*423pact;1 (2) a decree enjoining the Secretary of State (defendant) from taking any action with respect to elections for the state senate until the senatorial districts are reapportioned in accordance with Mo.Const. Art. Ill, § 5;2 and (3) an order by which the trial court would retain jurisdiction to (a) examine and approve or disapprove, and enforce its orders in connection with, any new reapportionment; and (b) fix and allow attorney fees to plaintiffs. Judgment was for plaintiffs on (1) and (2), and defendant appealed. The judgment fails to mention (3) and plaintiffs, treating this failure as a judgment denying the relief sought therein, have cross-appealed.
The case was submitted to the trial court on the pleadings, a two-part stipulation of facts, and exhibits consisting mostly of maps showing the boundaries of the districts.
In February, 1971, the Governor of Missouri, acting pursuant to Mo.Const. Art. Ill, § 7, appointed a Senatorial Redistricting Commission (Commission) to reapportion and establish the numbers and boundaries of the thirty-four senatorial districts of the state.3 Thereafter, on August 30,1971, the Commission filed its report with defendant. The report stated, inter alia, the results of its reapportionment of the districts with a description of the boundaries established and the number assigned each district.
The Commission allotted twelve districts to the St. Louis area, comprising St. Louis city, St. Louis county and St. Charles county; five to Jackson county (Kansas City area); and the remaining seventeen districts to the rest of the state. The boundaries of thirty-one districts follow county lines; only three districts cross county lines. Those crossing county lines are: district 1, part of which is in the city and part in the county of St. Louis; district 2, part of which is in St. Louis county and part in St. Charles county; and, district 33, consisting of nine counties and a small portion of Greene county immediately below the southeast corner of Polk county.
The report of the Commission does not contain a statement of its reasons for the location of the boundary lines of the several districts. The parties agree that the shapes of the districts are not the result of physical features of the areas involved and appear to agree that there is no evidence that any historical factors were considered. There is no evidence bearing upon the reasons or motives of the Commission for the location of any part of the boundary line of any district.
*424The trial court found only that “the Senate Districts * * * are * * * in violation of Article III, Section 5, * * * in that they are not compact.” The court was not requested to do so and did not make and file findings of fact as to any of the districts or state any reasons why it found the districts not compact.
The 1970 decennial census shows Missouri’s population, according to stipulation exhibit 6, to be 4,677,899. The location of that population in the counties of the state is shown by stipulation exhibit 12 (a map from page 1420 of the 1971-72 Official Manual of Missouri), attached to this opinion as appendix 1.
The 1970 population of 4,677,399 divided by 34 (the number of senators, Art. Ill, § 5) produces the quotient of 137,570 (the number of persons per senator, or the population figure each district is required to equal “as nearly as possible”). The numbers of the districts, as established by the 1971 reapportionment, the population of each, and the percentage of variation of that population from the ideal 137,570 persons are shown on stipulation exhibit 6, attached as appendix 2.
A map showing the boundaries of the districts, as apportioned in 1971, except the twelve districts allotted to the St. Louis area and the five allotted to Jackson county, is attached as appendix 3.
A map showing the boundaries of the districts (districts 3, 4, 5, 6 and a part of district 1), as apportioned in 1971, located in the city and county of St. Louis, is attached as appendix 4.
A map showing the boundaries of the districts (districts 7,13,14, 15, 24, 26) located wholly within St. Louis county, that part of district 1 in St. Louis county which adjoins the part of that district in St. Louis city, and that part of district 2 in St. Louis county which adjoins the part of that district in St. Charles county is attached as appendix 5.
A map showing the boundaries of the districts (districts 8, 9, 10, 11 and 16), as apportioned in 1971, located in Jackson county, is attached as appendix 6.
A map showing the boundaries of the districts (district 30 and part of district 33), as apportioned in 1971, located in Greene county, is attached as appendix 7.
As stated, the sole question presented is whether the senatorial districts established by the Commission violate the requirement of Mo.Const. Art. Ill, § 5, that they be “as compact * * * as may be.” We are concerned with the constitutional requirements that they be of contiguous territory and as nearly equal in population as may be 4 only insofar as those requirements may have affected or influenced the “compactness” requirement. Another factor with which we are concerned in connection with the compactness question is the requirement of our constitution that county lines be followed, except when absolutely necessary to cross them for the purpose stated in Article III, § 7, quoted in footnote 3.
In Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964) the United States Supreme Court, holding that a state legislature must be apportioned on a population basis, said: “ * * * the Equal Protection Clause requires that a State make an honest and good faith effort to construct districts, in both houses of its legislature, as nearly of equal population as is practicable. We realize that it is a practical impossibility to arrange legislative districts so that each one has an identical number of residents, or citizens, or voters. Mathematical exactness *425or precision is hardly a workable constitutional requirement.” 377 U.S. at 577, 84 S.Ct. at 1390.
The court recognized in Reynolds v. Sims, supra, that factors in addition to “equality of population” properly may be considered in reapportionment of state legislative districts: “A State may legitimately desire to maintain the integrity of various political subdivisions, insofar as possible, and provide for compact districts of contiguous territory in designing a legislative apportionment scheme. Valid considerations may underlie such aims. Indiscriminate districting, without any regard for political subdivision or natural or historical boundary lines, may be little more than an open invitation to partisan gerrymandering.” 377 U.S. 578-579, 84 S.Ct. 1390. See also: Mahan v. Howell, 410 U.S. 315, 321-322, 93 S.Ct. 979, 35 L.Ed.2d 320 (1973); Preisler v. Hearnes, 362 S.W.2d 552, 556[2] (Mo. banc 1962). But the court emphasized that in accomplishing the state’s requirements, “* * * the overriding objective must be substantial equality of population among the various districts, so that the vote of any citizen is approximately equal in weight to that of any other citizen in the State.” 377 U.S. at 579, 84 S.Ct. at 1390.
In Preisler v. Doherty, 284 S.W.2d 427[7, 8] (Mo. banc 1955) the court said, page 435: “Certainly the framers of the Constitution did not intend for senatorial districts to be laid out according to the free will and caprice of the officers charged with that duty. The requirements of contiguity and compactness were placed there for a purpose. Our original Constitution of 1820 did not contain them. See Sec. 6, Art. Ill, Const. 1820,1 V.A.M.S. p. 79. No doubt they were found to be necessary to the preservation of true representative government and they appear in the 1875 Constitution in substantially the same form as in the present Constitution. See Secs. 5, 6 and 9, Art. IV, Const.1875, 1 V.A.M.S. pp. 177-179. It has been stated that the purpose of these requirements was ‘ “to guard, as far as practicable, under the system of representation adopted, against a legislative evil, commonly known as the ‘gerrymander,’ and to require the Legislature to form districts, not only of contiguous, but of compact or closely united, territory.” ’ State ex rel. Barrett v. Hitchcock, supra, 241 Mo. loc. cit. 497, 146 S.W. loc. cit. 61; See also 2 A.L.R. 1337.”
Preisler v. Hearnes, supra, the last word of this court on the “compactness” issue, involved an attack upon the validity of a 1961 legislative act redistricting Missouri’s ten congressional districts. Quoting from Preisler v. Doherty, supra, the court said: “It is well settled that courts have jurisdiction and authority to pass upon the validity of legislative acts apportioning the state into senatorial or other election districts and to declare them invalid for failure to observe non-discretionary limitations imposed by the Constitution. State ex rel. Barrett v. Hitchcock, 241 Mo. 433, loc. cit. 473, 146 S.W. 40, loc. cit. 53 and cases cited; Annotation A.L.R. 1337; 18 Am.Jur. 191-201, Secs. 16-31; 16 C.J.S. Constitutional Law § 147, p. 438. See also Jones v. Freeman, 193 Okl. 554, 146 P.2d 564, loc. cit. 570, stating that the courts of 38 states had exercised this power. However, as these authorities show, the courts may not interfere with the wide discretion which the Legislature has in making apportionments for establishing such districts when legislative discretion has been exercised. It is only when constitutional limitations placed upon the discretion of the Legislature have been wholly ignored and completely disregarded in creating districts that courts will declare them to be void. In such a case, discretion has not been exercised and the action is an arbitrary exercise of power without any reasonable or constitutional basis. As said in a leading ease, State ex rel. Lamb v. Cunningham, 83 Wis. 90, 53 N.W. 35, 55, 17 L.R.A. 145: ‘If, as in this case, there is such a wide and bold departure from this constitutional rule that it cannot possibly be justified by the exercise of any judgment or discretion, and that evinces an intention on the part of the legislature to utterly ignore and disregard the rule of the *426constitution in order to promote some other object than a constitutional apportionment, then the conclusion is inevitable that the legislature did not use any judgment or discretion whatever.’ ” 362 S.W.2d at 555.
To this the court added, however, that “ * * * it is only when constitutional limitations are completely disregarded, resulting in an arbitrary exercise of power that cannot be justified by exercise of judgment or discretion but obviously done to promote some other object than constitutional apportionment, that the courts will declare the Act unconstitutional.” 362 S.W.2d at 557.
In that case the court approved a reapportionment plan in which the compactness of at least three districts of the ten could have been improved by the adjustment of counties between districts and where one of those three districts was said to be not “reasonably” compact. Despite the fact that adding two counties to thát district would have aided its compactness (as well as equality of population), the court found that the body charged with redistricting did not ignore or disregard the constitutional requirements but instead had exercised its discretion and judgment to establish districts, a substantial number of which were reasonably compact.
Plaintiffs contend and defendant concedes that district 6, in the city of St. Louis, does not meet the compactness requirement. We agree. Plaintiffs contend also that none of the remaining thirty-three districts meet the compactness requirement of the state constitution, and in connection with some they proceed to demonstrate how easily, they think, those districts could be improved upon and made more compact. We agree that the changes they suggest would make some of those districts more compact, but that is not to say we would agree that the districts as established, the overall apportionment of the state into senatorial districts by the Commission, does not substantially meet the compactness requirement of the constitution.
It must be recognized that there will be some degree of unavoidable noncompactness in any apportionment of this state into 34 senatorial districts. The county lines do not lend themselves to perfect compactness. The population density of the state is, of course, uneven and any effort to accomplish both the overriding objective of substantial equality of population and the preservation of county lines reasonably may be expected to result in the establishment of districts that are not esthetically pleasing models of geometric compactness. It is also true that the population density is uneven in the two metropolitan areas and a good faith effort to adhere to all constitutional requirements will still produce some districts in those areas, the boundary lines of which will have stair-step shape as well as the straight lines of urban blocks and suburban and urban census districts, and the sweeping curves of major thoroughfares. It has been said that only a district having the shape of a square or a circle can be so compact that it cannot be made more so. State ex rel. Barrett v. Hitchcock, 241 Mo. 433, 146 S.W. 40, 62 (1912).
We would remind the parties (and ourselves) that whatever the body charged with the responsibility of reapportionment of the state into districts (whether it be the Legislature or a Commission) it is made up of fallible human beings; that no matter how compact in shape or equal in population the districts they establish may be, none will be so perfect that there will not be room for improvement; that there will always be those with knowledge of and interest in the subject, who, unhampered by the experience of having had to work closely with the overall plan and with shaping and fitting into that plan each individual district thereof, can improve upon what has been done.
We find, and hold, that the Commission made an honest and good faith effort to construct senatorial districts as compact as may be; that all districts, except the sixth in St. Louis, and the 33rd because *427it thrusts a narrow appendage from the middle of its body into the heart of Greene county, are within acceptable limits of compactness. We also find, and hold, that considering the overall, state-wide plan developed by the Commission the districts established substantially comply with the compactness requirement of § 5 of Article III. Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court must be reversed.
Plaintiffs assert in their cross-appeal that the trial court should have retained jurisdiction of the case (1) to expedite the implementation of any final judgment ordering reapportionment; and (2) to fix and allow attorneys’ fees. Plaintiffs state in their argument: “The question of costs and attorney fees is an issue in this case only if the judgment of the trial court is sustained on the merits.” Since the judgment on the main issue is reversed, the question of retention of jurisdiction for the purposes mentioned is moot.
The judgment for plaintiffs for declaratory and injunctive relief is reversed. The judgment against plaintiffs on their prayer for costs and attorneys’ fees is affirmed. The cause is remanded with directions that the court enter judgment consistent with this opinion, and that it set aside its decree enjoining defendant from taking any action with respect to elections for the state senate.
MORGAN, HOLMAN, BARDGETT and DONNELLY, JJ., concur.
FINCH, J., dissents in separate dissenting opinion filed.
SEILER, C. J., dissents and concurs in separate dissenting opinion of FINCH, J.
*428APPENDIX 1

*429APPENDIX 2
VARIATION DISTRICT POPULATION
.90% 1 138,812 +
.34% 2 138,038 +
.98% 3 138,917 +
.34% 4 138,042 +
.00% 5 137,575
.19% 6 137,309
1.8 % 7 139,987
4.8 % 8 131,001
4.7 % 9 131,045
4.9 % 10 130,761
4.8 % 11 130,932
4.3 % 12 143,514 +
1.2 % 13 139,183 +
1.6 % 14 139,838 +
1.7 % 15 139,957 +
4.9 % 16 130,819
1.1 % 17 136,106
.76% 18 138,609 +
1.7 % 19 139,856 +
3.8 % 20 142.834 +
.04% 21 137,625 +
2.6 % 22 141,149 +
.44% 23 136,959
1.4 % 24 139.441 +
3.8 % 25 142.835 +
1.4 % 26 139,444 +
.85% 27 136,400
.77% 28 138,636 +
1.1 % 29 139,080 +
2.3 % 30 134.442
2.4 % 31 134,271
.17% 32 137,338
33 142,283 co
34 134,361 co OJ
*430APPENDIX 3

*431

*432

*433APPENDIX 6

*434

. The constitutionality of these districts was first challenged in Watkins et al v. Kirkpatrick, Secretary of State, No. 20148-1 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Western Division, in which the instant plaintiffs intervened as parties plaintiff. The challenge in that case was that the districts as apportioned in 1971 violated (1) the Fourteenth Amendment “one man, one vote” requirement and were racially discriminatory; and (2) the requirement of the state constitution that they be “as compact * * * as may be.” The district court found against plaintiffs on the federal constitutional claims and exercised its discretion to not rule on the claim that the districts do not meet the state constitutional requirement of “compactness.” That judgment (dated December 17, 1973, but not reported) was not appealed from and is final.

. Article III, § 5 reads: “The Senate shall consist of thirty-four members elected by the qualified voters of the respective districts for four years. For the election of senators, the state shall be divided into convenient districts of contiguous territory, as compact and nearly equal in population as may be.”

.Section 7 of Article III reads, in part: “The commission shall reapportion the senatorial districts by dividing the population of the state by the number thirty-four and shall establish each district so that the population of that district shall, as nearly as possible, equal that figure; no county lines shall be crossed except when necessary to add sufficient population to a multi-district county or city to complete only one district which lies partly within such multi-district county or city so as to be as nearly equal as practicable in population. Any county with a population in excess of the quotient obtained by dividing the population of the state by the number thirty-four is hereby declared to be a multi-district county.”

. It is undisputed that the districts established by the Commission meet the “contiguous territory” requirement. Clearly, no part of any district is physically separate from any other part. The federal district court has, as previously noted, decided against these plaintiffs the federal question of whether the districts meet the requirement of substantial equality of population. Apparently, plaintiffs are satisfied with that determination and for that reason did not raise any question as to the state requirement of “equal population” in this case.