Court Opinion

ID: 9475595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:32:04.141591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:48.363547
License: Public Domain

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Chief Judge
(concurring).
I concur since I believe Judge Wisdom makes a strong case that we are bound by precedent to strike down this apportionment scheme. I confess, however, that I am less than enthusiastic about our day’s work.
The one man, one vote principle arose to prevent a political, racial or like majority from stripping minority voters of their equal rights. Here these underlying factors seem conspicuously absent: the decision of Brockton voters to join a plan in which their city has less control over a regional school than the relative population of Brockton might justify, arose presumably from a conscious decision, free from political bias or racial taint, that Brockton interests would be satisfactorily served thereby. We do not know what mix of factors prompted this judgment: perhaps the proportion of children from Brockton attending the school is less than its relative population would indicate; perhaps the impact on Brockton’s taxpayers is likewise relatively less; perhaps Brockton is satisfied that two representatives are adequate watchdogs given the nature of the scheme. Whatever the reasons, it seems clear that Brockton, unlike some disenfranchised minority, has been and remains perfectly capable of looking after its own interests. This seems to be a situation to which the concerns that prompted the guiding constitutional precedents are scarcely relevant.
The argument for our result is that one cannot depart from a particular legal doctrine every time the reasons for it are only faint. To be sure, it is the language of the equal protection clause, not cases construing it, which is the primary focus, but as an inferior court we cannot take too much on ourselves. I therefore concur.