Court Opinion

ID: 9725337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:41:38.874647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:14.191388
License: Public Domain

Per Curiam
(on motion for rehearing). By what plaintiff terms “a motion filed in the form of a motion for rehearing” he asks us to determine the application of ch. 550, Laws of 1953, to the plan of apportionment set up by ch. 728, Laws of 1951. Ch. 728 is the Rosenberry Act. Ch. 242, Laws of 1953, the Rogan Act, re-enacted the Rosenberry Act verbatim in so far as the latter established assembly districts, and then went on to designate senate districts in accordance with area as well as population. Ch. 550, Laws of 1953, made certain modifications in the assembly districts, as they were created by the Rosenberry Act and re-enacted by ch. 242, Laws of 1953.
The question before us in this action was the validity of apportioning senate districts giving consideration to area. In reference to the Rosenberry Act plaintiff’s briefs told us : “We concede that ch. 728, Laws of 1951, was validly enacted and, absent any constitutional amendment, would have gone into effect on January 1, 1954. ... we are of the opinion that the apportionment in that law under the existing constitution was as fair as it was possible to make it and that it would have been sustained by the court.”
In support of the present motion plaintiff states that the Rosenberry Act established a few assembly districts; naming them, which are not created entirely of contiguous territory. In such cases ch. 550, Laws of 1953, is alleged to have *664repaired this error by joining isolated areas to the districts to which they are actually contiguous. In the case of some other districts in whose creation no constitutional principle was violated, we are told that ch. 550, Laws of 1953, has made certain modifications in the boundaries designed to be improvements on those designated in the Rosenberry Act. The motion seeks to modify our mandate by recognizing these legislative actions and by giving appropriate directions to the secretary of state in respect thereto.
Our mandate dealt with the facts and questions of law presented to us, as they were stated in the report of the decision. It does not apply to nor govern a different set of facts such as plaintiff alleges now. We think it quite evident that a failure by the legislature to redistrict certain areas in conformity to constitutional requirements leaves the legislative power and duty to redistrict those areas unexercised, and hence unexhausted, and therefore subject to legislative action in establishing such district in accord with the constitution. But the assembly-district feature of the Rosenberry Act and the effect on it of ch. 550, Laws of 1953, was not within the issues argued before us nor can it. be brought in as a rehearing of other issues which were. Treating plaintiff’s motion as liberally as we can, this is new matter which we are unable to consider unless it comes before us in regular course. We are thus unable to modify the mandate previously announced, though in view of the present motion, we can append a caution that it deals only with the defects of the Rogan Act and the constitutional amendment upon which that was based, and does not touch the assembly-district provisions of ch. 728, Laws of 1951, nor their modification by ch. 550, Laws of 1953.
Motion denied without costs.