Court Opinion

ID: 9722522
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:37:59.53546+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:07:01.990878
License: Public Domain

CANNELLA, District Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in the finding that on the basis of 1960 census figures the New York State Legislature has fully complied with “the command of Art. I, § 2 [of the U. S. Constitution], that States create congressional districts which provide equal representation for equal numbers of people,” such command permitting “only the limited population variances which are unavoidable despite a good-faith effort to achieve absolute equality, or for which justification is shown.” Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, 394 U.S. 526, 531, 89 S.Ct. 1225, 1229, 22 *54L.Ed.2d 519 (1969); Wells v. Rockefeller [hereinafter “Wells III”], 394 U.S. 542, 546, 89 S.Ct. 1234, 22 L.Ed.2d 535 (1969). This achievement of the constitutional goal of “one man-one vote” with mathematical precision1 clearly forestalls, if only for this year’s congressional election, any valid legal challenge to the Legislature’s plan on the basis of population equality.
The very fact, however, that there now exists nearly absolute numerical equality, coupled with this Court’s retention of jurisdiction to assure conformance with our Order of June 17, 1969 that the Legislature enact “a congressional districting plan that is in compliance with the requirements of the United States Constitution,” require that thiá Court deal with the merits of plaintiff’s present challenge,2 which he articulates as follows:
The sole issue in this case is the permissibility or not under the Constitution of the United States of congressional districting lines drawn for partisan advantage.3
The plaintiff’s thorny contention that the Legislature’s action represents partisan gerrymandering is neither new in this case4 nor in others. Much judicial effort has already been expended in this thicket attempting to deal with this issue. See, e. g., Sincock v. Gately, 262 F.Supp. 739 (D.Del.1967); Meeks v. Avery, 251 F.Supp. 245 (D.Kan.1966); Bush v. Martin, 251 F.Supp. 484 (S.D.Tex.1966); Sims v. Baggett, 247 F.Supp. 96 (M.D.Ala.1965).
In a concurring opinion in Kirkpatrick, Justice Fortas defined gerrymandering as “the deliberate and arbitrary distortion of district boundaries and populations for partisan or personal political purposes.” 394 U.S. at 538, 89 S.Ct. at 1232. I understand the essence of this and most definitions of gerrymandering to be a partisan political process by which given electoral districts are determined. Such a process, which is to be clearly distinguished from the district configurations or shapes resulting therefrom, is an inevitable and inextricable tendency of party politics. And the fact that this process continues to materialize is hardly unlikely or unusual so long as members of political parties constitute state legislatures which have both specific constitutional authorization to administer congressional elections5 and primary responsibility for apportionment of the districts. Cf. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 586, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964). The logical way to prevent this recurring materialization would seem to be to change the present system. But what effect a change might have is debatable in view of the fact that all apportionment is “political” to the extent that “every line drawn wittingly or unwittingly will have a political effect different from another equally ‘equal’ and equally available line.”6
To deal with the political ramifications of plaintiff’s challenge to this partisan process would be to turn this Court precisely into what a state legislature is, but what the federal judiciary should not *55be, namely, a political forum. See, e. g., the concurring opinion of Justice Clark and the dissenting opinion of Justice Frankfurter in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 259-260, 267, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed. 2d 663 (1962). This Court has already refused to become a political pawn in this case. See Wells v. Rockefeller, 281 F.Supp. 821, 825 (S.D.N.Y.1968). Nevertheless, a hearing was held on the present action on March 9, 1970.
I could readily concur with the majority’s finding that plaintiff completely failed to prove his contentions regarding the partisan motives of the Legislature were it not implicit in such a finding that the overall issue raised by the plaintiff is justiciable. I must respectfully dissent since I find the partisan process that is gerrymandering to be purely a matter of politics. This case therefore now requires a reopening of the book on “political questions” which was shelved in Baker v. Carr. Mr. Justice Brennan’s oft-cited summary regarding such questions reads as follows:
Prominent on the surface of any case held to involve a political question is found a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department; or a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it; or the impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for non judicial discretion; or the impossibility of a court’s undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government; or an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made; or the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question.
Unless one of these formulations is inextricable from the case at bar, there should be no dismissal for nonjusticiability on the ground of a political question’s presence. The doctrine of which we treat is one of “political questions,” not one of “political eases.” 369 U.S. at 217, 82 S.Ct. at 710 (emphasis added).
Thus, to have found that plaintiff failed to sustain his ourden of proof is really to have begged the preliminary question, namely, whether there is a judicially discoverable and manageable standard to begin with. I think not. Certainly, ordering members of the Legislature, for example, to participate as parties defendant and/or appear as witnesses in a judicial proceeding like the one herein seems to be hardly a manageable standard. Cf. Germano v. Kerner, 241 F.Supp. 715, 717 (N.D.Ill.), vacated per curiam sub nom. Scott v. Germano, 381 U.S. 407, 85 S.Ct. 1525, 14 L.Ed.2d 477 (1965). In fact, the present action makes it abundantly clear why since Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. (6 Cranch) 87, 3 L.Ed. 162 (1810), “it“ has repeatedly been pointed out that it is not the business of the federal courts to inquire into the personal motives of legislators,”7 nor, for that matter, should inquiry be made into the motives of the plaintiff. The partisan process that is gerrymandering is a political question and non justiciable for lack of a proper standard.
The plaintiff argues, of course, that the issue he raises is justiciable. He refers the Court to Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U.S. 52, 84 S.Ct. 603, 11 L.Ed.2d 512 (1964), and Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 81 S.Ct. 125, 5 L.Ed.2d 110 (1960). But the cornerstone of both of these decisions is the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In Wright, the Supreme Court affirmed the three-judge district court’s disposition of a claim of racial gerrymandering on the basis of a failure of proof.8 Although neither court addressed itself specifically to the issue of the justiciability of the claim, their dealing with the proof certainly implies that it is justiciable. A contrary inference is all but impermissible in view of *56the dictate of Amendment XV. Another three-judge court in this District, however, did address itself to the issue raised herein, to wit, partisan gerrymandering, and it ruled that such attacks “do not raise questions under the Federal Constitution * * * ” WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo, 238 F.Supp. 916, 925 (S.D.N.Y.1965). The Supreme Court affirmed per curiam, 382 U.S. 4, 86 S.Ct. 24, 15 L.Ed.2d 2 (1965), with Justice Harlan writing a concurring opinion wherein he interpreted the Court’s affirmance as necessarily affirming the district court’s ruling on gerrymandering. See 382 U.S. at 6, 86 S.Ct. 24. But the gerrymandering issue does not appear to have been the crux of the appeal. Nevertheless, a number of district courts faced with the same issue, albeit in a likewise inconsequential manner, have relied on Lomenzo in finding that gerrymandering is not justiciable. See, e. g., Sims v. Baggett, 247 F.Supp. at 104-105; Meeks v. Avery, 251 F.Supp. at 250-251; Bush v. Martin, 251 F.Supp. at 513; Sincock v. Gately, 262 F.Supp. at 828-833. In addition to relying on Lomenzo, the court in Sincock also interpreted the Supreme Court’s per curiam dismissal of the appeal for “want of a substantial federal question” in Badgley v. Hare, 385 U.S. 114, 87 S.Ct. 338, 17 L.Ed.2d 207 (1966), as requiring the conclusion that gerrymandering is not cognizable under the Fourteenth Amendment. See 262 F.Supp. at 832-833. See also Dixon, The Warren Court Crusade For the Holy Grail of “One Man-One Vote,” 1969 Sup.Ct.Rev. 219, 255-256. In none of these cases above, however, was the issue of gerrymandering sole and determinative. But I am not persuaded that the other courts would have decided otherwise with regard to that partisan process had they been in this Court’s present position of mathematical equality. And in demanding this equality, the Supreme Court was not unmindful of the temptation to gerrymander. See Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, 394 U.S. at 534 n. 4, 89 S.Ct. 1225, 22 L.Ed.2d 519. See also Harlan, J., dissenting, Wells III, 394 U.S. at 552, 89 S.Ct. 1234, 22 L.Ed.2d 535.
At the hearing, the plaintiff indicated that he suspected that gerrymandering had taken place after he had scrutinized the configurations or shapes of the various new districts. He claimed to have found a number of districts with unusual configurations. Of course, he needed to look no further than his own 6th Congressional District [hereinafter “C.D.”], the original new shape of which was grotesquely distorted overnight with an amending wave of the legislative wand. Compare Appendix C with Appendix D. Of necessity, the contortions of the Sixth became simultaneously those of the surrounding districts, to wit, the Third, the Seventh and the Eighth.9 Aficionado of politics that the plaintiff obviously is, he apparently then wielded his own wand in conjuring up congressional districts for the entire State to suit his own tastes. That population statistics can be easily manipulated has never been doubted. What is very definitely in doubt, however, is whether plaintiff’s proposed “Basic Plan” for the State as a whole represents an improvement over the Legislature’s plan. In looking both at forms and figures, I find that it is not. The Legislature’s overall plan is clearly superior.10 Nevertheless, several of the specific proposals contained in plaintiff’s alternative “Stopgap Plan” have merit.
In stating how he came to suspect that the Legislature had engaged in gerrymandering, the plaintiff hit on precisely what is justiciable in this post-equality redistricting controversy, namely, district configuration or the result of the partisan process. Just as “one man-one vote” represents a judicially discoverable and manageable standard, there *57is also such a standard with regard to configuration: contiguity and compactness. Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution specifically authorizes Congress to enact regulations regarding, congressional elections or alter those of the state legislatures. Pursuant to this authority, Congress, as early as 1842, required that election districts for the House of Representatives be contiguous, 5 Stat. 491, and this requirement was restated in its districting Act of July 14, 1862, 12 Stat. 572. Similar enactments in 190111 and 191112 required that the districts not only be contiguous, but also compact and contain as nearly as practicable an equal number of inhabitants. The last requirement has, of course, already found specific application in the case at bar. Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, Wells III, supra; Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 526, 11 L.Ed.2d 481 (1964). Contiguity and compactness have also been requirements in this case. The New York Joint Legislative Committee on Reapportionment stated on January 19, 1970: “The committee has made an earnest attempt to make districts compact and contiguous.” 13 Indeed, this Court specifically instructed the Legislature in 1967 to “divide the State into 41 substantially equal parts, provided they be reasonably compact and contiguous.” Wells v. Rockefeller, 273 F.Supp. 984, 991 (S.D.N.Y.), aff’d per curiam, 389 U.S. 421, 88 S.Ct. 578, 19 L.Ed.2d 651 (1967). Compact districts of contiguous territory are a legitimate desire on the part of the states. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. at 578, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506. While clearly laboring with the concept of “one man-one vote” in Reynolds, the Supreme Court’s reference to the invalidity of “crazy quilts, completely lacking in rationality” implies that wild district configurations are not constitutionally acceptable. 377 U.S. at 568, 84 S.Ct. 1362 at 1385. A three-judge court for the Middle District' of North Carolina recently held:
* * * It is not necessary to a decision of this case to determine whether a motive to retain incumbent congressmen is a legitimate consideration in redistricting. We simply hold that it may not predominate over the requirements of practicable equality, and we think that compactness and contiguity are aspects of practicable equality.
The tortuous lines which delineate the boundaries of many of the congressional districts under the proposed plan, the resulting lack of compactness and contiguity * * * compels [sic] us to hold that the congressional apportionment is constitutionally invalid.14
A contiguous district has been defined as “one in which it is possible to travel between any two locations within it without leaving the district. The presence or absence of contiguity can be determined simply by glancing at a district map. There is no concept of ‘best’ contiguity.”15 Since the constitutional requirement of absolute population equality has been met in this case, compactness has become essentially a question of plane geometry. Starting with the axiom that the circle is the most compact plane figure within a given perimeter, and accepting the premise that the circle should therefore serve as the geometric figure of reference in determin*58ing compactness of districts,16 the degree of compactness of a given district would be determined by the number of points in the district capable of connection by a straight line running entirely within the confines of that district.
Applying the standards of contiguity and compactness to the configurations of the congressional districts drawn by the Legislature, I find most to be generally in conformity therewith, given the initial requirement of population equality. Several districts clearly do not conform, however, even disregarding the obvious and unavoidable impediments to strict contiguity due to various bodies of water. The 7th, 11th, 16th, 21st, 25th, 27th, and 28th C.D.’s, for example, all are divided in one way or another by water.
At the hearing, the defendants, in summarizing, characterized plaintiff’s case as “simplistic”, and indeed with justification, as they clearly exposed plaintiff’s political sophism. I doubt, however, that even a plaintiff approaching the political sagaciousness of the defendants would ever be able to carry the substantial burden of proof necessary to cut through the political thicket. This, of course, is the burden which the majority finds the plaintiff failed to meet. However, what I find in this case to be justiciable is district configuration, and the relatively simple standards of contiguity and compactness seem not to require'any substantial burden at all on a proper party plaintiff. When a plaintiff can point to districts with grotesque shapes which appear on their face to be suspect, the burden shifts to the State to justify them just as it shifts to the State to justify variances in population. See, e. g., Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, supra.
Plaintiff’s “Stopgap Plan” points to a number of newly adopted district configurations which readily remind one of Elbridge Gerry and for which the defendants gave no justification “free from any taint of arbitrariness or discrimination.” Roman v. Sincock, 377 U.S. 695, 710, 84 S.Ct. 1449, 1458, 12 L.Ed.2d 620 (1964).
Taking the objectionable districts in numerical sequence, the Fourth and 5th C.D.’s envisioned in Chapter 5 contain total populations of 409,369 and 409,-343 respectively. The 5th District is clearly quite compact, but the Fourth is just as clearly not compact at all. See Appendix A. Plaintiff’s proposed configurations for these two districts (Appendix B), on the other hand, represent a roughly equal and high degree of compactness. With such configurations, the 4th C.D. would have a population of 409,-227 and the Fifth, 409,485. The defendants did not dispute these figures, nor any of the others contained in the “Stopgap Plan.” The increased statistical variance, which is miniscule, seems to be more than justified by the much greater degree of compactness of the 4th District.
The Sixth and the 8th C.D.’s originally set forth in Chapter 5 were relatively compact and contained populations of 409,397 and 409,330 respectively. See Appendix C. The simultaneous amending of these C.D.’s, which also required minor adjustments to the Third and 7th Districts, resulted in grotesque and decidedly noncompact configurations for the Sixth and the Eighth with populations of 409,256 and 409,312 respectively. See Appendix D. That the Legislature itself felt that this arbitrary and unjustified amendment might be judicially suspect is evident from the inclusion in the amending Act of a savings clause (Section 2 of Chapter 6). I find the Sixth and 8th C.D.’s as set forth in this Act to be constitutionally invalid, and I would require that these two Districts (and the Third and Seventh) reassume the configurations originally contemplated (in Chapter 5).
The 16th C.D. is not strictly contiguous for the obvious reason that Staten Island does not yet have (by 1960 figures) *59enough people to comprise in itself a congressional district, but the island is directly connected to the rest of the Sixteenth by the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. What is not obvious with regard to this District, however, is why the snake-like demarcation of it from the adjoining 15th C.D. is necessary. I find that it is not and would adopt the straight line delimitation proposed by the plaintiff. See Appendix E. The populations of the two Districts under Chapter 5 are: 15-409,885; 16-409,381. The statistics for the proposed change read: 15-409,329; 16-409,437.
While the 17th C.D. (pop. 409,369) on Manhattan is relatively compact, the neighboring Nineteenth (pop. 409,348) is anything but. See Appendix F. Here again, these two Districts could easily be made all but equally compact simply by dividing them horizontally, beginning on the Hudson River at 33rd Street and proceeding east on 33rd Street to Third Avenue, north to 34th Street, and then east on 34th Street to the East River. See Appendix G.
The 25th C.D. adopted by the Legislature is neither contiguous nor compact. See Appendix H. It consists of three non-contiguous parts, with the Westchester segment connected to the Clarkstown-Orangetown segment by the Tappan Zee Bridge. Reaching the third segment, Stony Point, from the other two requires traversing part of the 27th C.D., or parts of both the Twenty-Sixth and 27th C.D.’s were one to cross the Hudson on the Bear Mountain Bridge from the Westchester segment. The new 21st C.D., by way of comparison, also consists essentially of three segments, one each in the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens, but there are ample bridge connections, and superimposing a circle on the Twenty-First shows a surprisingly high degree of compactness. Such is not the case with regard to the Twenty-Fifth. In view of the general compactness of the 27th C.D. as drawn by the Legislature, I find plaintiff’s stopgap proposal with regard to the 25th C.D. to be unacceptable since it would result in a significant distortion of the configuration of the 27th C.D., among others. An essentially horizontal line dividing so much of southern Rockland County as would be necessary to maintain the Twenty-Fifth’s present population of 409,418 would serve the purpose of making both the Twenty-Fifth and 27th C.D.’s more compact, and with minimal effort involved. And the 25th C.D. would be contiguous, albeit trans-Hudson. I would require the Legislature to make such an effort to redraw the Rockland County line of demarcation for the two Districts by April 3, 1970; failure to do so by that time would result in this Court’s drawing such a line. The defendants’ explanation of why Rockland County was so split up was that the Town between Stony Point and Clarkstown, namely Haverstraw, was too large population-wise to be appended in its entirety to Clarkstown-Orangetown, whereas Stony Point could be. This may be true, but I remind the Legislature that observance of distinct political subdivisions is not an acceptable justification for variances in population,17 and this rationale applies to requirements of contiguity and compactness.
I find the rest of the plaintiff’s specific proposals in his “Stopgap Plan” not to be an improvement on the Legislature’s districts. If anything, his other proposed districts are generally less compact than the ones adopted by the Legislature.
To summarize the relief I would grant in this case, I would order that the district configurations proposed by the plaintiff for the following C.D.’s be used for the 1970 congressional election: 4th and 5th (Appendix B); 6th and 8th (Appendix C); 15th and 16th (Straight line of demarcation shown in Appendix E); 17th and 19th (Appendix G). I *60would order the Legislature to realign the 25th C.D. to conform with this opinion.
I find all the other districts drawn by the Legislature to be constitutionally acceptable.

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. The congressional districts within the State of New York are now all within %th of one percent of the mean population for all the districts, 409,324. The largest district is the 34th O.D. with a population of 409,814 or 0.12% above the mean. The smallest district is the 41st C.D. with a population of 409,011 or 0.07% below the mean. See chs. 5 & 6, [1970] Sess. Laws N.Y. 8-29 passim.

. Defendants argue that plaintiff lacks standing to bring this action. See Defendants’ Memorandum in Support of the Constitutionality of Chapters 5 and 6 of the Laws of 1970, pp. 21-22. This otherwise excellent brief overlooks, however, Swann v. Adams, 385 U.S. 440, 443, 87 S.Ct. 569, 17 L.Ed.2d 501 (1967).

. Plaintiff’s Memorandum, p. 8.

. Last Term, the Supreme Court did not reach nor express any view on the merits of this attack by the plaintiff. See Wells v. Rockefeller, 394 U.S. 542, 544, 89 S.Ct. 1234, 22 L.Ed.2d 535 (1969).

. U.S.Const. art. X, § 4.

. Dixon, The Warren Court Crusade For the Holy Grail of “One Man-One Vote,” 1969 Sup.Ct.Rev. 219, 244-45.

. Harlan, J., dissenting, Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 337, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962).

. See 211 F.Supp. 460 (S.D.N.Y.1962).

. Compare ch. 5, [1970] Sess.Laws N.Y. 9-10, 11-12, with ch. 6, [1970] Sess.Laws N.Y. 25 passim.

. Indeed, plaintiff’s population figures are less equal than those of the Legislature. See generally Appendix A of Plaintiff’s Memorandum.

. 31 Stat. 733.

. 37 Stat. 13.

. Interim Report of the Joint Legislative Committee on Reapportionment, p. 13 (1970). That today’s Congress is also not unmindful of these requirements is evidenced, for example, by Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s introduction last year in the Senate of a bill listing contiguity and compactness as districting standards. S. 10, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. (1969). See also Celler, Congressional Apportionment-Past, Present and Future, 17 Law & Con-temp.Prob. 268 (1952).

. Drum v. Seawell, 250 F.Supp. 922, 925 (M.D.N.C.1966) (emphasis added).

. Weaver & .Hess, A Procedure for Nonpartisan Districting: Development of Computer Techniques, 73 Yale L.J. 288, 290 n. 10 (1963).

. See, e. g., Roeck, Measuring Compactness as a Requirement of Legislative Apportionment, 5 Midwest J.PokSci. 70 (1961).

. gee Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, 394 U.S. 526, 533, 89 S.Ct. 1225, 22 L.Ed.2d 519 (1969) ; Wells v. Rockefeller, 394 U.S. at 546, 89 S.Ct. 1234, 22 L.Ed.2d 535.