Court Opinion

ID: 9624356
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:00:00.872688+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:45.283999
License: Public Domain

MEMORANDUM OPINION
I. INTRODUCTION
The plaintiffs in this case include citizens residing in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, as well as members of both the Republican and the Democratic party central committees of Anne Arundel County, Maryland. They object to the congressional redistricting plan approved by the Maryland General Assembly on October 22, 1991, following the 1990 Census. They filed suit in this court alleging jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2284(a), 1331, 1343(3) and (4), and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and venue pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b).
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2284(a), a three-judge court, consisting of Circuit Judge Paul V. Niemeyer, District Judge Frederic N. Smalkin, and Senior District Judge Frank A. Kaufman, was convened by Order of Chief Circuit Judge Sam J. Ervin, III, and heard arguments on the plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction and the defendants’ motion to dismiss and/or for summary judgment, as well as on the merits of the case (by agreement of both parties), in open court December 13, 1991. The Court has considered exhibits received at that hearing, as well as the parties’ stipulated facts. The Court has also considered plaintiffs' three page Post-Argu*395ment Summary, delivered to this Court on December 16, 1991.
This case having been submitted to the Court for determinations of fact and law, we now proceed to state our findings of facts and conclusions of law.
II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND
The population of Maryland was determined by the 1990 Census to be 4,781,468. As a result, Maryland was assigned eight seats in the United States House of Representatives, the same number as it had based on the 1980 Census. Thus, the ideal congressional district would now contain 597,683.5 people.
In May, 1991, the Governor of Maryland appointed a Redistricting Advisory Committee. The task of this committee was to make recommendations on any boundary changes for legislative and congressional election districts made necessary by shifts in Maryland’s population, as indicated by the 1990 Census results. This the committee did, in a plan issued in August, 1991.
The committee soon abandoned this first plan, and approved a second plan on September 19, 1991. The first plan was, however, the basis for a bill introduced in and passed by the Senate of Maryland as Senate Bill 13 on September 25, 1991, the first day of a special session of the state’s General Assembly convened for the purpose of redistricting. The committee’s second plan was introduced and passed by the House on that same day, as House Bill (“H.B.”) 7.
Numerous amendments to these two plans were offered, of which one, a plan offered by Delegate John J. Bishop and designated as H.B. 22, had an overall population deviation of nine people and an average population deviation of 2.49 people. Another alternative plan, H.B. 10, had an overall population deviation of eleven peopie and an average deviation of four peopie.
There followed a prolonged legislative process fraught with political and regional give-and-take, at the end of which H.B. 10 was passed by the Senate on October 21, 1991 and by the House on October 22,1991. Since the time of that plan’s introduction, its population deviation had been improved to a maximum of ten people and an average of 2.75 people.1 The bill was signed into law by the Governor on October 23, 1991, and this lawsuit quickly followed.
The plaintiffs allege that the Maryland General Assembly failed to make a good-faith effort to achieve numerical equality among the eight new congressional districts, and, in fact, that H.B. 10 was adopted with the discriminatory intent to “deprive the plaintiffs of an opportunity to effectively participate in the political process,” in violation of their rights under Article 1, § 2 of the United States Constitution. (Plaintiff’s Compl., at 19.) The plaintiffs also allege that H.B. 10 represents an unconstitutional “gerrymander.” At the heart of the plaintiffs’ argument is that Anne Arundel County, the State’s fourth most populous county and formerly part of the State’s Fourth Congressional District, has been divided by H.B. 10 among four separate congressional districts, thus “diluting” the votes of the residents.
III. ANALYSIS UNDER KARCHER
Article I, § 2 of the United States Constitution provides that the members of the House of Representatives will be chosen “by the People of the several States,” with equal representation for equal numbers of people. Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 7-8, 84 S.Ct. 526, 529-30, 11 L.Ed.2d 481 (1963). This Constitutional mandate “means that as nearly as is practicable one *396man’s vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s.” Id. Consequently, congressional districts are to be apportioned to achieve “precise mathematical equality.” Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, 394 U.S. 526, 530-31, 89 S.Ct. 1225, 1228-29, 22 L.Ed.2d 519 (1969).
The Supreme Court’s most recent pronouncement concerning Article I’s “one person, one vote” requirement is found in Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U.S. 725, 103 S.Ct. 2653, 77 L.Ed.2d 133 (1983). Karcher sets forth a two-part test for considering the legal significance of population deviations in a state legislature’s apportionment of congressional districts. First, those challenging a redistricting plan for alleged failure to comply with Art. I, § 2 bear the burden of proving that “the population differences among districts could have been reduced or eliminated altogether by a good-faith effort to draw districts of equal population.” Id. at 730, 103 S.Ct. at 2658. If the opponents of a redistricting plan “can establish that the population differences were not [unavoidable nor] the result of a good-faith effort to achieve equality,” then the burden shifts to the state. In this second step, the state must prove that “each significant variance between districts was necessary to achieve some legitimate goal.” Id. at 731, 103 S.Ct. at 2658. The State’s justification for contested numerical disparities must be made “with particularity.” Id. at 739, 103 S.Ct. at 2663.
Here, the defendants argue that the deviation from absolute numerical equality present in H.B. 10 is too trivial to rise to a constitutionally significant level. (State’s Mem. in Supp. of State’s Opp’n to Mot. for Prelim. Inj. and State’s Mot. to Dismiss and/or for Summ. Judgment at 14-15.) Claiming that the variations from absolute equality are “unavoidable,” the defendants seemingly contend that H.B. 10 represents a good-faith effort to achieve population equality, satisfying Art. I, § 2, and the first prong of Karcher, thus making it unnecessary for this court to reach the second prong of Karcher. In addition, however, the defendants assert that if the second prong of Karcher is reached, they have met their burden thereunder.
We disagree with the defendants as to prong one of Karcher. While it is true that the deviation herein is very small, Karcher specifically holds “that there are no de minimis variations which could practically be avoided, but which nonetheless meet the standard of Art. I, § 2 without justification.” Karcher, 462 U.S. at 734, 103 S.Ct. at 2660 (emphasis added). “Art. I, § 2 ... permits only the limited population variations which are unavoidable despite a good faith effort to achieve absolute equality, or for which justification is shown.” Id. at 730, 103 S.Ct. at 2658 (quoting Kirkpatrick, 394 U.S. at 531, 89 S.Ct. at 1229 (emphasis added)). Justification, however, “belongs more properly to the second level of judicial inquiry ... in which the State bears the burden of justifying the [statistical] differences with particularity.” Id. 462 U.S. at 739, 103 S.Ct. at 26622
In the present case, H.B. 10 has an average variance among Maryland’s eight congressional districts of 2.75 people, while H.B. 22 has an average variance of 2.49 people. (Stipulations of Fact paras. 77 and 84.) Given the existence of H.B. 22, a plan with a smaller numerical deviation from absolute equality, plaintiffs have proved that H.B. 10’s deviations did not result from an unavoidable good faith effort to achieve population equality. Thus, we disagree with defendants and hold that the mathematical variations in this case, even though relatively small, enable plaintiffs to satisfy Karcher’s first prong and shift to the State the burden of proving justification under prong two of Karcher:
The showing required to justify population deviations is flexible, depending on the size of the deviations, the impor*397tance of the State’s interests, the consistency with which the plan as a whole reflects those interests, and the availability of alternatives that might substantially vindicate those interests yet approximate population equality more closely. By necessity, whether deviations are justified requires case-by-case attention to these factors.
Karcher, 462 U.S. at 741, 103 S.Ct. at 2664 (emphasis added).
It is under Karcher’s second prong that we now consider the relatively insignificant mathematical deviations in this case. We note that the amount and degree of justification which the State must establish is roughly equatable to the deviation itself. In that light, we consider the aims of the State of Maryland which have caused it to enact the particular congressional redistricting plan before us.
In Karcher, Justice Brennan provided guidance for the determination of what state objectives might justify deviations from numerical equality among the congressional districts:
Any number of consistently applied legislative policies might justify some variance, including, for instance, making districts compact, respecting municipal boundaries, preserving the cores of prior districts, and avoiding contests between incumbent Representatives. As long as the criteria are nondiscriminatory, ... these are all legitimate objectives that on a proper showing could justify minor population deviations.
Id. (citations omitted).
Both in the evidence presented and in oral argument, the State has set forth several convincing, consistent, and legitimate justifications for the numerical deviations within H.B. 10.3 These include: (1) keeping intact the three major regions that surround the center of the state (specifically, the Eastern Shore, Southern, and Western Maryland), (2) creating a minority voting district, and (3) recognizing incumbent representation, with its attendant seniority, in the House of Representatives.4 (See State Mem. in Opp. at 23-28, see also the dissenting opp. hereto, at 38-41). We conclude that these justifications, which the State alleges are properly within the ambit of a state legislature’s redistricting latitude and designed to achieve legitimate state goals, are sufficient to warrant the very small numerical variance among the congressional districts seen here. The analysis mandated by the Supreme Court cases applying Art. I, § 2 is, therefore, satisfied.
The dissent takes the position that Karcher’s numerical analysis is merely the beginning of the Art. I, § 2 inquiry. As we read the dissent, no state “classification” of “the people” (apparently a broader category than voters) that is the product of any political consideration is constitutionally justified. Only “neutral” classifications, such as natural geographic barriers, points of the compass, or, perhaps, historical municipal and county subdivision boundaries, are to be considered by the legislature as it apportions its population for the House of Representatives. In short, the dissent would appear to advance a position that would hold unconstitutional any redistricting plan that was in any way affected by considerations that could be labelled “political.”
In Karcher’s footnote 6, Justice Brennan noted that Kirkpatrick’s and Karcher ’s mandate for population equality among congressional districts alone would do “little to prevent what is known as gerrymandering.” 462 U.S. at 734, 103 S.Ct. at 2660. Of course, nothing prevents the plaintiff/opponents of a redistricting plan from challenging that plan on constitutional grounds either inside or outside of Art. I, § 2. Any prohibited classification of or distinction among “the people” is still cognizable, for example, under the rubric of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. See, e.g., Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109, *398106 S.Ct. 2797, 92 L.Ed.2d 85 (1986).5 The protections provided within Art. 1, § 2 speak for themselves. Further, the protections provided by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as by many other parts of our Federal Constitution, provide a backstop to the “one person, one vote” requirement in Art. I, § 2. Moreover, as Justice Brennan recognized in footnote 6 of Karcher, state constitutional and statutory provisions also serve a similar backstopping purpose.
The idea that Art. I, § 2 prohibits taking any “political” factors into account is flatly contradicted by the language in Karcher itself:
We have never denied that apportionment is a political process, or that state legislatures could pursue legitimate secondary objectives as long as those objectives were consistent with a good-faith effort to achieve population equality at the same time.
462 U.S. at 739, 103 S.Ct. at 2662. Nor is such a discussion unique to Karcher. The Supreme Court has long recognized the appropriateness of political considerations within the redistricting process. In White v. Weiser, 412 U.S. at 794, 93 S.Ct. at 2354, the Court noted that “from the beginning, we have recognized that reapportionment is primarily a matter for legislative consideration and determination____” Indeed, the Court there recognized and “d[id] not disparage” the state defendants’ policy of promoting:
“ ‘constituency-representative relations,’ a policy frankly aimed at maintaining existing relationships between incumbent congressmen and their constituents and preserving the seniority the members of the State’s delegation have achieved in the United States House of Representatives.”
Id. at 791, 93 S.Ct. at 2352. Surely, such language does not recognize any command in Art. I, § 2 that “political” classifications cannot be made during redistricting.
As Justice Brennan has made clear, the Supreme Court is
willing to defer to state legislative policies, so long as they are consistent with constitutional norms, even if they require small differences in the population of congressional districts.
Karcher, 462 U.S. at 740, 103 S.Ct. at 2663 (emphasis added).
In this case, this Court defers to Maryland’s legislature. The evidence, as the dissent states, shows that the General Assembly, inter alia, aimed to give Congressman Hoyer, a congressman with high ranking and importance in the federal House of Representatives, a “safe seat,” to provide the majority black population in an area of Prince George’s and Montgomery counties with a chance to choose a representative without requiring that person to run against a strong incumbent such as Congressman Hoyer, and to provide certain opportunities for Congresswoman Bentley and Congressman Cardin. Dissenting Opp. at 18-21. The reelection of incumbents as such was not listed specifically by Justice Brennan in Karcher as an example of an affirmative legislative justification sufficient to meet Karcher’s second prong, though recognized in White v. Weiser. Neither is the establishment of a majority black district listed specifically in Karcher, but “preserving the strength of racial minority groups” is discussed. Karcher, 462 U.S. at 742, 103 S.Ct. at 2664. These aims, however, are clearly within Karcher’s ambit. While Justice Brennan there concluded that the District Court’s finding of a lack of causal connection between racial voting aims and the redistricting plan at issue was not “clearly erroneous,” id. at 743, 103 S.Ct. at 2665, the sense of Karcher strongly suggests that if, as here, such a causal connection does exist, such aims can constitute an appropriate Karcher second-prong basis.
We also note that the “neutral criteria” redistrieting called for by the dissent would in no way ensure maintenance of the territorial integrity of Anne Arundel County, which is what brought on this suit in the first place. Rather, adoption of the dissent’s position would potentially subject *399every congressional district in the United States to novel constitutional scrutiny. Furthermore, to mandate that a legislature reapportion with regard merely to “neutral criteria” (except for the dictates of the Voting Rights Act and the Fifteenth Amendment) is to give that legislature, in practice, no guidance at all. Indeed, it virtually guarantees that a federal court, in a sort of judicial receivership, will ultimately conduct redistricting — a process the Supreme Court has consistently recognized as political.6
IV. OTHER CONSTITUTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
Plaintiffs also contend that H.B. 10 represents an unconstitutional “gerrymander,” and therefore that the Maryland General Assembly has discriminated against them, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of their position, plaintiffs cite Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109, 106 S.Ct. 2797, 92 L.Ed.2d 85 (1986), in which the Court held that gerrymandering for political purposes is justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.7
What plaintiffs have presented in this instance is not a case of political gerrymandering as seen in Davis. The Court in Davis limited its holding — that political gerrymanders are justiciable — to cases involving partisan bias. “[E]ach political group in a State should have the same chance to elect representatives of its choice as any other political group.” Davis, 478 U.S. at 124, 106 S.Ct. at 2806. Where a legislature intentionally draws lines “to afford political groups in various districts an enhanced opportunity to elect legislators of their choice ... ‘we must ... respond to [the] claims ... that even if acceptable populationwise, the ... plan was invidiously discriminatory because a ‘political fairness principle’ was followed.’ ” Davis, 478 U.S. at 124-25, 106 S.Ct. at 2806 (quoting Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U.S. 735, 751-52, 93 S.Ct. 2321, 2330-31, 37 L.Ed.2d 298 (emphasis in original)). Thus, in Davis, the Supreme Court only reached the question of. whether, where one political party makes a claim of discrimination during redistricting, the issue is justiciable.
In the case before this Court, the plaintiffs represent both the Anne Arundel Democratic and Republican parties. The type of partisan discrimination treated in Davis apparently has not occurred here. Indeed, the plaintiffs contend that the discrimination which they suffer as a result of H.B. 10 stems from the effect that the division of Anne Arundel County has on the plaintiffs’ ability to “effectively participate as a [group] and thereby influence the elective process and to secure the attention of the winning candidate.” (Plaintiffs’ Mem. in Opp. to State Defendants’ Mot. to Dismiss And/Or Mot. for Sum. Judg. at 35.) In essence, therefore, the plaintiffs contend that they, as Anne Arundel County voters, have some form of constitutionally significant community interest which will be diluted if H.B. 10 goes into effect.8
Assuming justiciability and reaching the merits,9 this federal court must keep in *400mind that the voice of the people of Maryland is most directly heard through the General Assembly of Maryland. While the interests of “the people,” as the dissent emphasizes, predominate, the “people” of the State of Maryland cannot in 1991, even if they could have so done in 1789, practically be heard individually via a statewide town meeting of the whole. The most direct channel of action by the “people” is via their elected representatives in both houses of Maryland’s legislature — a branch of our total governmental structure, as is this Court. A federal court, in scrutinizing a congressional redistricting plan, should therefore think long and hard about rejecting the reasons — the justifications — of the state legislature.10
It is in such context that we consider and reject the plaintiffs’ challenge to what they label as unconstitutional gerrymandering. We do not, as the dissent suggests, believe that there are no limits upon gerrymandering. We do not hold that the State is correct in conceding
that under its interpretation Article I, § 2, would not be violated by a district line drawn to snake through the alleys and cul-de-sacs of 23 different counties in order to match two white people for each black, or two democrats for each republican, for the purpose of advancing the chances that the favored class would win an election while diluting the vote of the unfavored class.
Dissenting Op. at 402. We do not have that specific example before us and therefore do not reach it.11 If the territorial of Anne Arundel County is a classification — a proposition we doubt,12 but also do not reach — it, like all classifications, must have a reasonable basis in fact, even if no suspect criterion such as race, religion, sex or the like is involved.
Underpinning the dissent appears to be the proposition that, independent of Karcher and of the numerical “one person-one vote” doctrine, political gerrymandering can be so egregiously unbearable that it cannot pass federal constitutional muster. We do not, and need not in this case, question that position. See, e.g., Karcher, 462 U.S. at 744, 103 S.Ct. at 2665 (Stevens, J., concurring); Daniel D. Polsby & Robert D. Popper, The Third Criterion: Compactness as a Procedural Safeguard Against *401Partisan Gerrymandering, 9 Yale Law & PoLRev. 301 (1991). As Justice Brennan has noted, “[a] federal principle of population equality does not prevent any State from taking steps to inhibit gerrymandering, so long as a good-faith effort is made to achieve population equality as well.” Karcher, 462 U.S. at 734 n. 6, 103 S.Ct. at 2660 n. 6.
The dissent may be suggesting that political considerations which constitute appropriate justifications under Karcher’s second prong somehow violate Art. I, § 2, or other federal constitutional mandates, or both. The answer to any such approach, however, is that the Supreme Court would hardly have put its stamp of approval on a justification under Karcher’s second prong, if such justification were constitutionally invalid for any other reason. In any event, a federal court is not prevented from granting relief under any available federal constitutional provision if gerrymandering violates it, and if the matter is justiciable. The point is that carving Anne Arundel County into four pieces — while perhaps enough to raise eyebrows — does not violate any federal constitutional provision, including the mandate of Art. I, § 2, to give full effect to the voice of the “people.”
Furthermore the plaintiffs have not shown any discriminatory vote dilution. See Davis, 478 U.S. at 143, 106 S.Ct. at 2815. Nothing the plaintiffs have presented to this Court indicates that their vote will necessarily be any less powerful in any of the four congressional districts in which they will now reside. Nothing prevents the plaintiffs from joining the local organizations of the political parties of their choice and having whatever power they had previously to influence the political process. Thus, assuming arguendo that they present a justiciable issue, the plaintiffs fail to make a Davis showing of vote dilution.
Plaintiffs’ claim also fails under a First Amendment analysis. Nothing about H.B. 10 affects in any proscribed way the plaintiffs’ ability to participate in the political debate in any of the Maryland congressional districts in which they might find themselves. They are free to join pre-existing political committees, form new ones, or use whatever other means are at their disposal to influence the opinions of their congressional representatives.
To the extent that plaintiffs — and any of their fellow Anne Arundel Countians — are legitimately distressed by H.B. 10, they have suffered a political setback, but not a violation of their federal constitutional rights, through the action of “the people” as expressed by the directly elected representatives of “the people” of Maryland.
Based upon the principles articulated herein in the context of the evidence presented in this case, this Court concludes that the State defendants, on the merits, are entitled to judgment in their favor. Accordingly, judgment will be entered in their favor, by a separate order.

. At trial and for our purposes here, the numerical deviations in H.B. 10 were calculated based upon the Maryland Attorney General’s interpretation of the bill, as it should be read in order to correct a drafting error. (See State’s Mem. of Law at 9-10; Stipulations of Fact 85.) Plaintiffs do not take issue with this reading of the bill. The population deviation in H.B. 10, broken down by congressional district, is as follows:
District 1 +1
District 2 0
District 3 — 3
District 4 +7
District 5 +1
District 6 +5
District 7 — 3
District 8 — 1

. Recently, a three-judge district court in Illinois, Hastert v. State Board of Elections, 777 F.Supp. 634 (N.D.Ill.1991), applied Karcher in an Art. I, § 2 congressional redistricting case. The Hastert court concluded that, under Karcher, there is no acceptable departure from absolute numerical equality among congressional districts which will insulate a proposed redistricting plan from further scrutiny.

. See The Supreme Court, 1982 Term — Leading Cases, 97 Harv.L.Rev. 70, 141 (1983), suggesting that Karcher teaches that such justifications are to be considered flexibly by the courts.

. See White v. Weiser, 412 U.S. 783, 791, 93 S.Ct. 2348, 2352, 37 L.Ed.2d 335 (1972).

. See discussion post at 399.

. We note that during the Maryland Senate Proceedings on October 21, 1991, the following colloquy took place:
PRESIDENT MILLER: We labored mightily, the majority leader and the chairman and myself, and we made a conscious decision that it was better that we adopt this plan with these modifications than let a nonelected federal judge, a non-political person draw a map for us.
VOICE: God help us.
Pls.Ex. 17 at 80-81.

. As a threshold issue, we note that in Davis the Supreme Court was called upon to address a challenge to the partisan redistricting of the Indiana legislature, not to congressional redistricting.

. Anne Arunel County is not the only County divided by HB 10. Others include Montgomery, Howard and Prince George's, all divided between two districts, and Baltimore City and Baltimore County, each divided among three districts.

. The standard for establishing justiciability is well settled. See Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1961). The court in Baker elucidated a three-part test: (1) the issue must not be more properly decided by a coequal part of government, (2) there must be no risk of foreign or domestic disturbance or embarrassment, and (3) there must be judicially discernible and manageable standards by which the case can be decided. Id. at 226, 82 S.Ct. at 714. *400Both the second and third prongs of this test give us pause in this case.

. In keeping with the dissent’s historical analysis, we note that gerrymandering was not conceived out of the blue in this country. The "rotten borough” — one that had few electors or voters — was a similar concept and one that long plagued the English. A rotten borough was used to give a seat in Parliament to a person whom a political party wished to reward, albeit often a very able person.
Pocket boroughs, in which the member of Parliament could purchase his seat, similarly diluted the vote of the people whom he represented. Representative of the attitude that such politicians had towards their electorate is the following:
The following letter was written by Anthony Henley, Member of Parliament for Southampton from 1727 to 1734, to his constituents who had protested to him about the Excise Bill: Gentlemen,
I received yours and am surprised by your insolence in troubling me about the Excise. You know, what I very well know, that I bought you. And I know, what perhaps you think I don’t know, you are now selling yourselves to Somebody Else; and I know what you do not know, that I am buying another borough. May God’s curse light upon you all: may your houses be as open and common to all Excise Officers as your wifes [sic] and daughters were to me, when I stood for your scoundrel corporation.
Yours, etc.,
Anthony Henley
John Julius Norwich, Christmas Crackers 93 (1986).
Rotten boroughs and other electoral anomalies were eliminated by Parliament, not by judicial decree, in the Reform Act of 1832. See generally 13 William S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law 239-59 (1952).

. What constitutes political gerrymandering going so far beyond the pale as to be unacceptable in our federal constitutional setting is hard to define. But as Justice Stewart once wrote about pornography, most of us “know it when we see it.” See Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197, 84 S.Ct. 1676, 1683, 12 L.Ed.2d 793 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring). We can well afford, as Justice Brennan, writing in Karcher seems to have had in mind, leaving to another day and to another case the task of establishing federal constitutional limits to gerrymandering in congressional districting.

. See supra at 399.