Court Opinion

ID: 9763860
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:58:27.236355+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:50.313104
License: Public Domain

O’SULLIVAN, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in the view of my brothers of the majority that, in the light of Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 526, Act 249 of the Public Acts of Michigan, Session of 1963, violates Art. I, § 2 of the Constitution of the United States. It will be sufficient for me now to say that I consider that the Wesberry case commands such a holding.
I cannot, however, join my brothers in the remedy they choose to implement our holding. Unable to persuade them to my position, I feel I should speak separately. I would order the Michigan Legislature to reapportion, but would allow it adequate time in which to do so. Even though the pressure of time denies me opportunity for careful and contemplative study and better composition, I am constrained to now say why I do not join my brothers in the remedy they decree. In my view, the command they place upon the Legislature and the election officials of Michigan is needlessly and dangerously precipitate.
The decree they propose impresses me as evidencing undue haste to place heavy burdens upon a branch of Michigan’s government that is entitled to the respect we would like to have accorded to us. As a court of equity we are not expected to, nor should we, be vindictive in the relief that we accord to litigants.
This action was originally commenced on June 29, 1962. We were asked to strike down the then Michigan Congressional apportionment statute, and to issue commands not unlike what my brethren have now decreed here. Petitioners’ then request for an injunction was, however, closer to imminent primary election dates than is the situation now before us. We refused to act without a longer time to consider the matter. The 1962 Congressional elections then went ahead. Recognizing that a charge of unconstitutionality had been lodged against the then existing Congressional Apportionment Act, and aware of Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663, the Michigan Legislature set about, with study, legislative deliberation and partisan contesting, to formulate a new apportionment of Congressional Districts. This was accomplished on June 13, 1963, by adoption of Act 249, now under attack.
There has been no showing that in considering and adopting this Act, the Michigan Legislature was flouting law already announced or proceeding otherwise than within the then known “guidelines” as furnished by Baker v. Carr. It appears that except for making Michigan’s Upper Peninsula a single Congressional District and some mathematical errors in Wayne County, whatever departures there are in Act 249 from strict mathematical equality are within the limits then thought to be permissible by the American Political Science Association. The Act thus constructed was promulgated on June 13, 1963. No attempt was then made to revive this litigation to charge that the new 1963 Act was unconstitutional. This case remained dormant from July 10, 1962, until the Wesberry v. Sanders decision came down from the United States Supreme Court on February 17, 1964. On March 2, 1964, the plaintiffs here were given leave to amend their complaint to attack the 1963 Act in the light of Wesberry. This Court shortened the time ordinarily allowed to bring a cause to issue and trial and heard this case on March 23, 1964.
My brothers would now issue a mandatory injunction under which the 110 members of the Michigan House of Representatives and the 34 members of the Michigan Senate would have to, (notwithstanding whatever other important problems of state government now occupy their time and abilities,) proceed forthwith to construct a plan of apportionment suitable to us “or else”. The “or else” is an election at large. We, however, furnish them no “guidelines”- — - a now much-used word in contemporary judicial literature. We tell them only *832that they must insure that “as nearly as is practicable one man’s vote in a Congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s.” 1 A search for just what is “as nearly as is practicable” is presently taxing the minds of judges and professional political scientists.2 Neither of the plaintiffs, political science professors, nor their knowledgeable counsel, have offered any guidelines that we could, through our decree, pass on to the nonprofessionals who make up our Legislature. Thus, we hand them no small task to be accomplished, against an uncertain dead line.3 This they must do, lest we apply the lash of our judicial whip. My respect for the men who make up our state Legislature forbids my placing them under such an interdiction without giving them an adequate opportunity for orderly and deliberative legislative procedure. It is unreal to expect sound legislation from a Legislature thus proceeding in terror era.
Becoming restraint has always marked equity’s employment of its extraordinary writs. There is nothing about the facts of this case that should, in my view, cast us in the role of avenging angels. The vice which we now find in Act 249 is actually much less than what has been traditional in the great majority of the states of the Union in the many years that comprise the political history of Michigan 4 and the United States.5 We now find errors in the practices of such history. This fact, however, does not, in my view, compel us to command almost instant action by the complex machinery of a state government lest the setting of tomorrow’s sun leave unrepaired even one small error. I would be ill at ease in such an enterprise.
We should never withhold our writs when serious damage would flow from such withholding, nor should we hesitate to command instant obedience when public good or private right call for it. But such is not the case before us. The malapportionments that were involved in the cases we follow, Wesberry v. Sanders and Martin v. Bush, were glaring in comparison to the Act we now strike down.6 Taking into account the imbalance that resulted from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula being given one Congressman and mathematical errors in Wayne County, the maximum disparity between the extremes under the Act before us is 1.6 to ]. The average disparity runs about 1.092 to 1. I cannot believe that toleration of this disparity for a reasonable time would be a wrong commensurable with the burdens that the majority’s writ would place on the Michigan Legislature. Likewise, the immeasurable wrong to the voters of the entire state which would follow an order that the coming elections be at large, far outweighs quixotic and dramatic vindication of the hypothetical voter whose vote *833might be diluted to the extent of the above ratios.7
New definitions and new guidelines have put the Federal Courts into position of unprecedented power over state legislatures. The respect that we owe to our coequals in the grand scheme of our government suggests avoiding unseemly displays of power or the flexing of our judicial muscles.
The landmark case of Baker v. Carr began its journey in the Federal Courts sometime prior to July 31, 1959. Since then it has been considered in decisions reported at 175 F.Supp. 649 (D.C. July 31, 1959); 179 F.Supp. 824 (D.C. Dec. 21, 1959); on the Supreme Court level as Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (Mar. 26, 1962); and on remand at 206 F.Supp. 341 (D.C. June 22, 1962); and 222 F.Supp. 684 (D.C. Oct. 10, 1963). As of the date of the last decision, October 10, 1963, an acceptable reapportionment of the Tennessee Legislature had not been accomplished. But no elections at large have been held in Tennessee.
Baker v. Carr was first argued in the Supreme Court on April 19, 1961, and was set for reargument on October 9, 1961. On March 26, 1962, the Supreme Court spoke its views in some six separate opinions. Scholle v. Hare, 360 Mich. 1, 104 N.W.2d 63, began its journey in the Michigan courts some time prior to its first decision, expressed in five separate opinions on June 6, 1960. Upon remand, it was decided in July, 1962, through six separate opinions by the members of the Court. Scholle v. Hare, 367 Mich. 176, 116 N.W.2d 350. It still pends in the United States Supreme Court. Wesberry was first reported as Wesberry v. Vandiver, D.C., 206 F.Supp. 276, on June 20, 1962. It was reversed by the United States Supreme Court just short of two years later. Bush v. Martin, D.C., 224 F.Supp. 499 (affirmed by the Supreme Court on March 2, 1964) decided October 19, 1963, gave the Texas Legislature until February 3, 1964, to reapportion. Such order was stayed, pending appeal, by Mr. Justice Hugo Black, and such stay continues in force. At this writing, we do not know what the Texas District Court will ultimately do.
Thus are exposed the complex questions of apportionment and the time taken by learned judges to come near to a final resolution of them. The writ which my brothers employ will give the sharply divided Michigan Legislature from now, March 26, to some time in June, to come to a common definition of “as nearly as practicable” and to construct a plan of apportionment that will be approved by the majority, or more likely two-thirds, of the members of both houses. The forbearance that I recommend has been in practice in most of the Federal Courts which were faced with the situation here involved.8 It may be argued that now there is a clear standard, but the debate as to what is “as near as practicable” continues.
I would in this case make a finding that Act 249, P.A.1963, is unconstitutional, but would stay final judgment until the Michigan Legislature has had proper time to reapportion to conform to Wesberry or any other more definitive decision that may soon be forthcoming from the United States Supreme Court. I would allow the 1964 Congressional elections to be conducted under the present law. Such forbearance would in no event, however, extend beyond such time *834as we consider essential in order to insure the holding of the 1966 Congressional elections under an apportionment plan acceptable to us. It might be, notwithstanding our forbearance, that the Michigan Legislature, advised of our holding that Act 249 is invalid, will be able to enact a new statute in time for the 1964 elections. I would, however, leave that in their hands.
It might be suggested that if a stay is in order, application therefor can be made to the United States Supreme Court. I think we are sufficiently informed to determine this on our own, without adding to the now adequate burdens of that Court and its members.

. Literal, exact and possibly quick conformance to the suggested formula could be accomplished with the help of a staff of surveyors and mathematicians. Nineteen Districts of various sizes and shapes could be outlined so as to have 411,790 people contained within each District. All agree, however, that such a performance would not be “practicable” or desirable.

. Distinguished members of the Supreme Court of Michigan, with becoming deference, await the arrival of “guidelines” to help them resolve a somewhat allied problem. In Wesberry itself, the Supreme Court refrained from a definition of its own words, “as nearly as practicable.”

. We seem to have no exact information of when the Legislature must complete its work. The Secretary of State’s answer to the application for a preliminary injunction says that the earliest date on which he may give notice for the Congressional Primary is May 5, next, and that he may defer such notice to June 5, 1964. We assume, too, that by hasty revision of Michigan’s election laws some further time might be provided.

. Michigan’s apportionment during the time that Congress required equality of population in Congressional Districts contained larger departures than we deal with here.

. See Appendix, Wesberry v. Sanders.

. In Wesberry, the range from the most to the least populous district was from 823,-680 to 272,154. In Martin v. Bush, these figures were 951,527 to 216,371.

. No one, in this law suit, has attempted a projection to demonstate that Michigan’s Congressional delegation would be substantially different under a hastily reconstructed apportionment statute from what it would be under Act 249.

. Baker v. Carr, 206 F.Supp. 341 (M.D. Tenn., 1962); Maryland Citizens Committee for Fair Congressional Bedistricting, Inc. v. Tawes, 226 F.Supp. 80 (D.Md., Mar. 21, 1964); State of Wisconsin v. Zimmerman, 209 F.Supp. 183, 188, 189 (W.D.Wis., 1962); Nebraska League of Municipalities v. Marsh, 209 F.Supp. 189, 195, 196 (D.Neb.1962); Lisco v. McNichols, 208 F.Supp. 471, 478, 479 (D. Colo., 1962) ; Moss v. Burkhart, 207 F.Supp. 885, 898 (W.D.Okl., 1962).