Court Opinion

ID: 9727747
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:49:27.384728+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:37.392073
License: Public Domain

*984WISDOM, Circuit Judge;
whom BOYLE, District Judge, joins (concurring).
I concur in the result and all of the opinion relating to the Fourteenth Amendment. I do not go all the way with my brother Rubin’s views on the Guaranty Clause.
Section 4 of Article IV declares that “the United States [not Congress] shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”. (Emphasis and bracketed words added.) It is true that Luther v. Borden1 put this giant to sleep.2 And the expanding importance of the Fourteenth Amendment, through the due process and equal protection clauses and through its incorporation of most of the Bill of Rights, reduced the need for courts to resort to the Guaranty Clause to protect the rights of individuals against a state’s abuse of governmental processes. But the guarantee still has a proper place in a federal system of checks and balances.3
In Baker v. Carr4 Justice Brennan, for the Court, quoting Luther v. Borden, concluded that only Congress could enforce the guarantee. However, the identical issue held non justiciable under the guaranty clause was justiciable under the equal protection clause; the underrepresented citizens therefore could live without benefit of Section 4, Article IV. Justice Frankfurter disagreed with the Court. He felt strongly that malapportionment of a state legislature was a non justiciable controversy, under the Guarantee Clause or under the Equal Protection Clause “masquerading” under that “label”. He pointed out, however, in his dissenting opinion: Article IV, section 4 “is not committed by express constitutional terms to Congress. It is the nature of the controversies arising under it, nothing else, which has made it judicially unenforceable”. 369 U.S. at 297, 82 S.Ct. at 754, 7 L.Ed.2d at 732. Justice Douglas, in his concurring opinion, disagreed with the court — and with Justice Frankfurter: “The right to vote is inherent in the republican form of government”.
He said:
“The statements in Luther v. Borden * * * that this guaranty is enforceable only by Congress or the Chief Executive is not maintainable. Of course the Chief Executive, not the Court, determines how a State will be protected against invasion. Of course each House of Congress, not the Court, is ‘the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members.’ * * * But the abdication of all judicial functions respecting voting rights * * * indeed is contrary to * * * the * * full panoply of judicial protection to *985voting rights. * * * The Court’s refusal to examine the legality of the regime of martial law which had been laid upon Rhode Island is indefensible.” 369 U.S. at 243, n. 2, 82 S.Ct. at 723, 7 L.Ed.2d at 700 n. 2.
In Reynolds v. Sims5 the Court noted that in Baker it had stated that “some questions raised under the Guaranty Clause are non justiciable, where ‘political’ in nature and where there is a clear absence of judicially manageable standards”. (Emphasis added.) 377 at 582, 84 S.Ct. at 1392, 12 L.Ed. at 539. The nature of the question, therefore, and not the mere invocation of the clause, determines whether a contention is justiciable and the clause judicially enforceable.
 The question in this case is whether the constitutional amendment was adopted in an unrepublican manner; more specifically, whether the ballot was so misleading that the people were deprived of one of the fundamental rights inherent in a republican government, the right to vote on an amendment to their constitution. The same standards “judicially manageable” in determining whether the plaintiffs were deprived of due process would seem to be applicable in determining whether they were deprived of the protection of a republican government. I regard the issue here, therefore, as justiciable under the Guaranty Clause. On the merits, however, and for the same reasons the due process clause was not offended, I would hold that the process by which Amendment 26 to the Louisiana Constitution was adopted does not offend Article IV, Section 4 of the United States Constitution.
The line of judicial development of the republican guarantee, bent and broken since Luther v. Borden, is not beyond repair. Some day, in certain circumstances, the judicial branch may be the most appropriate branch of government to enforce the Guaranty Clause.6 Federal courts should be loath to read out of the Constitution as judicially nonenforceable a provision that the Founding Fathers considered essential to formulation of a workable federalism. James Madison best stated the case for Article IV, Section 4. He regarded it as the basis for the doctrine of federal interposition :
“It may possibly be asked, what need there could be of such a precaution, and whether it may not become a pretext for alterations in the State governments, without the concurrence of the States themselves. These questions admit of ready answers. If the interposition of the general government should not be needed, the provision for such an event will be a harmless superfluity only in the Constitution. But who can say what experiments may be produced by the caprice of particular States, by the ambition of enterprising leaders, or by the intrigues and influence of foreign powers?”7 (Emphasis added.)

. Luther v. Borden, 1849, 7 How. (U.S.) 1, 12 L.Ed. 581.

. “It is a clause which is like a sleeping giant in the constitution, never until this recent war awakened, but now it comes forward with a giant’s power.” Charles Sumner, Cong.Globe, 40th Cong., 1st Sess. 614 (1867).

. On the history and potential of the clause see Bonfield, The Guarantee Clause of Article IV, Section 4: A Study in Constitutional Desuetude, 46 Minn.L.Rev. 513 (1962). See also Franklin, Concerning the Influence of Roman Law on the Formulation of the Constitution of the United States, 38 Tul.L.Rev. 621 (1964) and Franklin, Influence of the Abbé de Mably and of Le Mercier de la Rivifire on American Constitutional Ideas Concerning the Republic and Judicial Review, in Perspectives of Law, Essays for Austin Wakeman Scott, p. 96 (1964). For a discussion of the clause in the light of Baker v. Carr, see Bonfield, Baker v. Carr, New Light on the Constitutional Guarantee of Republican Government and Nahstoll, The Role of the Federal Courts in the Reapportionment of State Legislatures, 50 Am.Bar Ass’n Jour. 842 (1964).

. Baker v. Carr, 1962, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663.

. Reynolds v. Sims, 1964, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506.

. “Today would this Court hold nonjusticiable or ‘political’ a suit to enjoin a Governor who, like Fidel Castro, takes everything into his own hands and suspends all election laws?” Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. at 247 n. 3, 82 S.Ct. at 725 n. 3, 7 L.Ed.2d at 703 n. 3, Justice Douglas concurring.

. The Federalist, No. 43, p. 312 (Wright Ed., 1961).