Court Opinion

ID: 9851971
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:22:27.622952+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:20.615889
License: Public Domain

Justice PARKER
dissenting.
Although I continue steadfast in my views as expressed in my dissenting opinion in Stephenson v. Bartlett, 355 N.C. 354, 399, 562 S.E.2d 377, 407 (2002) (Stephenson I), I acknowledge that the holding in Stephenson I is the law of the case. Nevertheless, after carefully considering the record and weighing the well-established principle that acts of the legislature are presumed constitutional, see Town of Spruce Pine v. Avery Cty., 346 N.C. 787, 792, 488 S.E.2d 144, 147 (1997); Jenkins v. State Bd. of Elections, 180 N.C. 169, 170, 104 S.E. 346, 347 (1920), I am constrained to dissent respectfully from the majority opinion. I find nothing in the record to support a holding that plaintiffs carried their heavy burden of showing that the redis*315tricting plans — House Sutton 5 and Senate Fewer Divided Counties— duly enacted by the legislature on 17 May 2002 did not comply with the redistricting provisions of the Constitution of North Carolina as amended by this Court in Stephenson I.
The message sent today is that the redistricting plans, enacted by the duly elected members of the General Assembly applying the methodology mandated by this Court in Stephenson I, fail to pass constitutional muster not because the plans violate the whole-counties provision or any other provision of the State Constitution, but because the trial court perceived that in certain instances counties could have been grouped, divided, or traversed in a different configuration by applying nonconstitutionally based redistricting principles of compactness and communities of interest. Decisions as to communities of interest and compactness are best left to the collective wisdom of the General Assembly as the voice of the people and should not be overturned unless the decisions are “clearly erroneous, arbitrary, or wholly unwarranted.” Wilkins v. West, 264 Va. 447, 463, 571 S.E.2d 100, 108 (2002). Moreover, the only limitation on the legislature’s discretion regarding contiguity is that imposed under Article II, Section 3(2) and Article II, Section 5(2) of the Constitution of North Carolina. See Painter v. Wake Cty. Bd. of Educ., 288 N.C. 165, 177, 217 S.E.2d 650, 658 (1975) (holding that all power not limited by the State Constitution is vested in the people as expressed through their elected representatives); see also State ex rel. Martin v. Preston, 325 N.C. 438, 448-49, 385 S.E.2d 473, 478 (1989). Definitions of “contiguity” applied in Iowa and Minnesota under different statutes, as referenced in the trial court’s order, are thus irrelevant.
Lip service feigning deference to the presumption of constitutionality of legislative enactments and to the constitutional mandate of separation of powers, N.C. Const, art. I, § 6, is not sufficient. The evidence must be clear, and every doubt must be resolved in favor of a legislative enactment’s constitutionality. Jenkins, 180 N.C. at 172, 104 S.E. at 348; see also Turner v. City of Reidsville, 224 N.C. 42, 46, 29 S.E.2d 211, 214 (1944) (stating that unconstitutionality must appear beyond a reasonable doubt). The evidence in this record does not meet that test. Accordingly, I vote to reverse the trial court.