Court Opinion

ID: 9665510
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:50:13.265531+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:16.211925
License: Public Domain

FONES, Justice,
dissenting.
We respectfully disagree with the majority’s action in remanding this case for further proof on two issues. The record before us, even though meager, is sufficient to support, beyond dispute, the finding that Acts of 1981, Chapter 538, is unconstitutional. Nothing beyond redundancy can result from a remand for the purpose of obtaining an adjudication that it is possible or it is not possible to meet federal population equality guidelines without crossing county lines or that chapter 538 does or does not unlawfully dilute minority voting strength. No combination of findings on those issues would result in validating chapter 538.
The majority opinion contains a full and accurate analysis of all the legal principles relevant to this lawsuit. We are in full accord with all of the conclusions reached except those that are said to support a remand for trial and dissolution of the injunction.
We would hold chapter 538 unconstitutional because this record shows, beyond dispute, that the Legislature has not restricted its breach of county lines to the minimum necessary to comply with federal population requirements. The parties have stipulated and exhibited in this record a thirty-three member plan with a total variance of 9.99% with districts numbered consecutively, that crosses only three county lines. That plan meets all constitutional requirements, state and federal, except that a portion of Shelby, Davidson and Knox Counties are combined with adjoining districts. It is beyond question that the primary problem in complying with the equal population and the county line mandates is the fact that the populations of the four metropolitan counties are not exact multiples of 139,114. It follows that if it is impossible to draw a thirty-three member plan that meets the equal population mandate without splitting counties, the minimum county line violations would be obtained by combining with adjoining counties an area of the metropolitan counties with the largest fractional results obtained by dividing 139,114 into the total county population. That is exactly what the thirty-three member, three split county plan accomplishes.
The majority opinion holds that the Tennessee county line mandate is secondary to equal protection requirements, but cannot be breached beyond the extent necessary to *716comply with the federal equal population guidelines. That principle was implicitly if not explicitly applied in Smith v. Craddick, 471 S.W.2d 375 (Tex.1971), and it is supported by unassailable reason and logic. It was also sanctioned in Sullivan v. Crowell, 444 F.Supp. 606 at 614.
The State insists that it is impossible to comply with the Federal Constitution as interpreted by Federal Courts without crossing county lines and the State relies on Frank Hinton’s affidavit of February 11, 1982, as proof that a variance of 22% is the minimum obtainable, without breaching a single county line. Hinton’s affidavit shows that Knox, Davidson and Shelby Counties produce a variance of +14.89%, + 14.48% and +11.71% respectively, from optimum district size, and that some of the multi-county districts will have a negative variance of approximately 7%, resulting in the gross variance of 22%. As the majority opinion points out, the plaintiffs concede the accuracy of Hinton’s affidavit. Plaintiffs’ concession as to the accuracy of that affidavit establishes as the law of this case, that Federal population guidelines cannot be met without crossing some county lines and points clearly to the necessity of crossing three of the four metropolitan county lines. Yet, the effect of the remand is to take proof and determine the issue of whether there is an unavoidable conflict between the state county line mandate and the Federal equal protection requirements.
Upon establishing, as this record does, that county lines must be breached to meet federal population requirements, the determinative issue of the constitutionality of chapter 538 is whether or not the State has made an honest and good faith effort to construct districts breaching as few county lines as practical to comply with federal population guidelines. The thirty-three member plan breaching only three county lines conclusively answers that question in the negative. Thus, the conclusion is inescapable that chapter 538 cannot meet the test of minimum violation of the state constitution and no finding on remand can change or alter that result.
We fully agree with all that the majority has said about avoiding unlawful dilution of minority voting strength. What, we ask, will be the result of finding on remand that chapter 538 was constitutional or unconstitutional, in that respect? It seems clear to us that chapter 538 is doomed and therefore its effect on minority voting strength is moot. Such an inquiry, and judicial determination would only be appropriate if all conceivable reapportionment plans that the Legislature might adopt would have an identical effect on minority voting strength, a proposition we can judicially notice as fallacious.
We agree that legislative reapportionment is primarily a legislative function and we believe the Legislature will reapportion itself, constitutionally under the State guidelines in the majority opinion and the Federal guidelines, so well reviewéd and summarized therein. We would terminate this lawsuit with a judgment declaring chapter 538 unconstitutional, enjoin the holding of an election thereunder and give the Legislature the opportunity to accomplish that before the 1982 elections.
BROCK, J., concurs in this dissent.