Court Opinion

ID: 9448871
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:47:30.186715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:35.278957
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Chief Judge
(concurring with opinion filed September 28, 1962).
Appellant, Victor Sharrow, was convicted of violating 13 U.S.C. § 221(a) (1958), which designates as criminal the refusal to answer questions included by the Secretary of Commerce in the census questionnaire which is provided for in 13 U.S.C. § 141 (1958) as follows:
“(a) The Secretary shall, in the year 1960 and every ten years thereafter, take a census of population, unemployment, and housing (including utilities and equipment) as of the first day of April, which shall be known as the census date.
“(b) The tabulation of total population by States as required for the apportionment of Representatives shall be completed within eight months of the census date and reported by the Secretary to the President of the United States.”
Mr. Sharrow contends that his conviction should be reversed because the statute on which his prosecution was based is unconstitutional. He points out that the second section of the Fourteenth Amendment requires the reduction of the basis of representation in the House of Representatives for states to the extent that the right to vote is denied or abridged. He argues that Congress, in legislating with regard to the census— which is to be used to apportion representatives among the several states under Article I, section 2 — is constitutionally obliged to direct the Secretary of Commerce to include in the census a question relating to the denial of the right to vote.
There is no language in the Constitution which directs that the Congress designate the census questionnaire as the means to determine disfranchisement. Although the I960 census may have provided an occasion to make that factual determination, but see 1 Ninth Census of the United States (1870), it cannot be said to be the constitutionally required means. Nor does the failure of Congress to provide an alternative method to determine the facts necessary to enforce section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment lead to the conclusion that the method suggested by Mr. Sharrow is commend-' ed by the Constitution. The actual means is within the discretion of Congress:
“The actual Enumeration shall be made * * * in such Manner as [the Congress] * * * shall by Law direct.” U.S.Const. Art. I, § 2.
I agree with Judge WATERMAN that the statute under which Mr. Sharrow was convicted is constitutional. This is the only question we are called upon to discuss.