Court Opinion

ID: 9428313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:23:24.580049+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:07.097683
License: Public Domain

Justice Powell,
concurring.
I concur fully in the Court’s opinion, and write separately only to emphasize the importance to my decision of the Arizona Legislature’s control over voting requirements for the Salt River District.
The Court previously has held that when a governmental entity exercises functions that are removed from the core duties of government and disproportionately affect a particular group of citizens, that group may exercise more immediate control over the management of the entity than their numbers would dictate. Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District, 410 U. S. 719 (1973). See Hadley v. Junior College District, 397 U. S. 50, 56 (1970); Avery v. Midland County, 390 U. S. 474, 483-484 (1968). This rule is consistent with the principle of “one person, one vote” applicable to the elections of bodies that exercise general governmental powers. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 (1964). The Salt River District is a governmental entity only in the limited sense that the State has empowered it to deal with particular problems of resource and service management. The District does not exercise the crucial powers of sovereignty typical of a general purpose unit of government, such as a State, county, or municipality.1
*373Our cases have recognized the necessity of permitting experimentation with political structures to meet the often novel problems confronting local communities. E. g., Holt Civic Club v. Tuscaloosa, 439 U. S. 60, 71-72 (1978). As this case illustrates, it may be difficult to decide when experimentation and political compromise have resulted in an impermissible delegation of those governmental powers that generally affect all of the people to a body with a selective electorate. But state legislatures, responsive to the interests of all the people, normally are better qualified to make this judgment than federal courts.2 Given the broad reforms effected by Reynolds v. Sims, we should expect that a legislature elected on the rule of one person, one vote will be vigilant to prevent undue concentration of power in the hands of undemocratic bodies. The absence of just such a political safeguard was a major justification for the Court’s role in requiring legislative reapportionment. See Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 258-259 (1962) (Clark, J., concurring).
The Court’s opinion convincingly demonstrates that the powers exercised by the Salt River District are not powers that always must be exercised by a popularly elected body. Ante, at 366-371. Both storage and delivery of water are functions that in other areas of the Nation are performed by private or administrative bodies. These tasks sometimes are performed by an elected government entity, because of the aridity of the Southwest, federal water policy, and the his-*374torieal interest of Arizona landowners in irrigation, not because of their inherent character nor an insistent demand that the people as a whole decide how much water each will receive or how much each will pay for electricity.
Appellees argue that control of water is of prime importance in the Southwest and that many people purchase electricity from the District. These observations raise the question whether this Court should interfere with the constitution of the District, but do not answer it. The Arizona Legislature recently has demonstrated its control over the electoral processes of the District. It has reformed the District to increase the political voice of the small householder at the expense of the large landholder. Ante, at 359, n. 2. This reform no doubt reflects political and demographic changes in Arizona since the District was established.
The authority and will of the Arizona Legislature to control the electoral composition of the District are decisive for me in this case. The District is large enough and the resources it manages are basic enough that the people will act through their elected legislature when further changes in the governance of the District are warranted. We should allow the political process to operate. For this Court to dictate how the Board of the District must be elected would detract from the democratic process we profess to protect.

 The Court has held that school boards must be elected on a strictly majoritarian basis. Hadley v. Junior College District, 397 U. S. 50 (1970); Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15, 395 U. S. 621 (1969). These eases reflect the Court’s judgment as to the unique importance of education among the functions of modem local government. See Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 493 (1954). Cf. Holt Civic Club v. Tuscaloosa, 439 U. S. 60 (1978) (nonresidents may be subject to *373“police jurisdiction” of neighboring city without being constitutionally entitled to vote in the city).

 The Court deprecated the significance of control of voting requirements' for a special-purpose election by a fairly elected legislature in Kramer, supra, at 628. See also Avery v. Midland County, 390 U. S. 474, 481, n. 6 (1968). The holding in Kramer is affected neither by Salyer nor by the decision of the Court today, see n. 1, supra, but it must be evident that some of the reasoning in that case has been questioned. See, e. g., ante, at 364-365, n. 8.