Court Opinion

ID: 9706764
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:51:06.127927+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:24.822229
License: Public Domain

*530Dissenting Opinion by Mb.
Chief Justice Bell:
John B. Kelly, Jr. was elected by the voters of Philadelphia to the City Council of Philadelphia as a Councilman-at-large. Section 2-103 of the Philadelphia Home Buie Charter provides: “Qualifications of Counoilmen. A councilman shall be a citizen of the United States, shall have been a resident of the City for at least one year prior to his election, and shall be at least twenty-five years of age when elected to office. District councilmen shall be, and during their terms of office shall remain, residents of the districts from which they were elected. The Council shall be the sole judge of the qualifications of its members.”
According to the record, which the Majority neglect to even mention, Kelly admittedly is not, and at the time of his election was not, a resident of Philadelphia,* but, on the contrary, resided in Wynnewood in Montgomery County.* The Majority admit, “If this be true,* he may not, under the Charter, be seated as a Councilman-at-large.” Nevertheless, in spite of these admissions, (Kelly and City Council contend, and the Court below held, and) a majority of this Court now hold (1) that the admitted fact that Kelly is not a resident of Philadelphia is entirely irrelevant, and (2) that City Council alone has the sole jurisdiction to determine Kelly’s eligibility to a seat in City Council, and (3) that the Courts have no power and no jurisdiction to consider and determine this crucial and very important question.
The Majority make four major mistakes:
(1) The Majority nullify the above quoted §2-103 of the Philadelphia Home Buie Charter by blandly and blindly ignoring all the other mandatory provisions and requirements of this section and relying solely on one sentence in this section.
*531(2) The Majority ignore or nullify the Constitution of Pennsylvania.
(3) The Majority ignore or nullify recent analogous and controlling decisions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
(4) Worst of all, the Majority ignore or nullify (a) the Equal Protection of the Laws clause in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and (b) recent analogous and controlling decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States: Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186; Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353, 355; Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368; Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 7-8; Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533; WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo, 377 U.S. 633; Maryland Committee v. Tawes, 377 U.S. 656; Lucas v. Colorado General Assembly, 377 U.S. 713; Bond v. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116.
I. The Majority Nullify §2-103 of the Charter
The Philadelphia City Charter, contrary to popular belief, is not the Constitution, nor even a part of the Constitution of Pennsylvania, but is the equivalent of an Act of the Legislature, and indeed is subject to change by the Legislature. Addison Case, 385 Pa. 48, 57, 122 A. 2d 272. See also, Cali v. Philadelphia, 406 Pa. 290, 177 A. 2d 824.
The Majority bases its emotional but erroneous Opinion and conclusion solely upon the last sentence in §2-103: “The Council shall be the sole judge of the qualifications of its members.” It is hornbook law that every Legislative Act and every written instrument must be interpreted and construed in its entirety, and not limited or restricted to one sentence thereof, unless that sentence is the only pertinent and relevant part. No matter how much the Majority blandly and blindly ignore the first two basic and rocklike provi*532sions upon which §2-103 is built, the position of the Majority boils down to this: Notwithstanding prior basic and mandatory qualification-requirements for a Philadelphia Councilman, the Gity Council eon legally and Constitutionally ignore all these mandatory qualification-requirements which are so clearly enumerated and mandated in §2-103 and can admit as a member of City Council any person who is a resident of New York, or of New Jersey, or of California, or of some European country, and has received the votes of a majority or of some of the Philadelphia voters. The slightest analysis of the language of §2-103 makes it difficult to imagine a more absurd interpretation.
The absurdity of this interpretation and construction by the Majority can be demonstrated even more clearly by an example:
If the Princess of Monaco, with her beauty, charm and royalty, who lived in Philadelphia for many years and whose mother still lives in their family home in Philadelphia, wished to become from her royal palace in Monaco a member of the Philadelphia City Council, the voters of Philadelphia (who in reality hero-worship beauty and royalty) would undoubtedly nominate and elect her,* and the young members of City Council undoubtedly would seat such a Queen, even though she was not a resident of Philadelphia for a period of one year before her election, or even a citizen of Pennsylvania, or even of the United States. For this Court to hold that Princess Grace’s election and seating by City Council would be both valid and Constitutional, because “the Council shall be the sole judge of the qualifications of its members,” and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and of the United States would have no jurisdiction to pass upon this issue and no power *533to invalidate such an election, would make a mockery of the Philadelphia Charter* and of the Constitution of Pennsylvania and of the Constitution of the United States.
II. The Constitution of Pennsylvania
Article II, §9, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania provides in pertinent part: “. . . Each House shall choose its other officers, and shall judge of the election and qualifications of its members.”
Article VIII, §17, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania pertinently provides: “The trial and determination of contested elections of electors of President and Vice-President, members of the General Assembly, and of all public officers, whether State, judicial, municipal or local, shall he hy the courts of law** or by one or more of the law judges thereof; . . . .” Could anything be clearer or more clearly demonstrate that the Courts have the jurisdiction and the power to determine whether a member of the State Legislature or of a Municipal Council was Constitutionally elected? As *534this Court said in Cali v. Philadelphia, 406 Pa., supra (page 306) : “No provision of the Home Rule Charter could violate the Constitution.”
In Lesker Case, 377 Pa. 411, 105 A. 2d 376, objections were filed to the nomination petition of Lesker on the ground that Article II, §5 of the Constitution of Pennsylvania requires that a candidate for Assemblyman must be an inhabitant of his legislative district and must have resided there for at least a year, and Lesker resided in the Fifteenth Legislative District, instead of the Ninth Legislative District, in and from which he desired to be a candidate. This Court, in an Opinion by Mr. Justice Musmanno, decided that it had jurisdiction and in a lengthy and detailed Opinion sustained Lesker’s petition.
III. Recent Decisions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Recent decisions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, following the precepts of the Supreme Court of the United States, held (1) that the apportionment or districting or redistricting of the Senate and of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania were subject to the Equal Protection of the Laws as ordained in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and (2) that the hereinafter-mentioned provisions of the Constitution of Pennsylvania and State acts which violated the Equal Protection clause were invalid and unconstitutional, and (3) that the Supreme Court had the jurisdiction, the power and the duty (a) to decide whether a State and City districting was valid and Constitutional or whether it violated the Constitution of the United States, and (b) if the Legislature of Pennsylvania failed to validly and Constitutionally district or redistrict, and thereby deprived the voters of the Equal *535Protection of the Laws, the Courts could and should reapportion and redistrict the State and/or the City, as the case might be: Butcher v. Bloom, 415 Pa. 438, 203 A. 2d 556; Butcher v. Bloom, 420 Pa. 305, 216 A. 2d 457. These decisions were made in spite of the fact that Article II, §9, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania provides: “Each House . . . shall judge of the election and qualifications of its members,” and in spite of the fact that this Court was compelled to declare that §§16 and 17 of Article II of the Constitution of Pennsylvania were unconstitutional, because they violated the Equal Protection clause in the Federal Constitution. '
IV. The Constitution of the United States and Recent Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States
We come now to the most important and most controlling authorities, namely, recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States which re-interpreted the Constitution of the United States and sustained the power of the Courts to determine the eligibility and qualifications and seating of members of the Congress and of State Legislatures and of smaller and local Legislative bodies. This new and controlling interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, and of the jurisdiction and the powers of the Courts in this field, was first enunciated in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S., supra, and Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S., supra, and was followed and expanded in the recent redistricting cases hereinabove cited. In these cases, popularly known as “one man, one vote,” a majority of the Supreme Court of the United States, in a new and novel interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, made an abrupt and massive break with many prior decisions of that Court, and with prior constructions of the Constitution of the United States which had held *536that the qualifications of persons allegedly elected to membership in Congress were political questions to be determined by the Congress, and not by the Courts. These recent cases held that the basic qualifications of members of Congress and of State Legislatures, and of minor public officials, and of Councils, were no longer political questions to be decided by Congress or by the respective Houses or Councilmanic bodies involved, but were on the basic issues matters for the Courts to determine, namely, the basic issue of whether the persons who had been elected by the voters complied with and fulfilled the necessary qualifications required by the Equal Protection of the Laws and by other provisions of the Constitution, and could be seated or excluded for Constitutional reasons. See Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S., supra; Douglas v. California, 372 U.S., supra; Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S., supra; Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S., supra; Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S., supra; WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo, 377 U.S., supra; Maryland Committee v. Tawes, 377 U.S., supra; Lucas v. Colorado General Assembly, 377 U.S., supra; Bond v. Floyd, 385 U.S., supra.
The aforesaid analogous and controlling cases mandate the Courts, by virtue of the Equal Protection of the Laws and other pertinent provisions of the Constitution of the United States, to determine the eligibility and the necessary qualifications of an elected person for a seat in Congress and in every Legislative body, and whether these basic and required standards have been Constitutionally met and the challenged person can be seated* or excluded or removed. In the instant *537appeal, every voter in Philadelphia is deprived of his statutory right to be represented by a resident and citizen of Philadelphia who has resided in Philadelphia for at least one year prior to his election, as required by §2-103 of the City Charter, and, as we shall see infra, is thus and thereby deprived of the Equal Protection of the Laws.
If there could be the slightest remotest doubt about the jurisdiction and power of a Court to determine the status and qualifications of a member elected to a State or a local Assembly—and there is not the slightest or remotest doubt—it would be removed by the very recent case of Bond v. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116. In that case, Bond, a Negro, was three times elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, and three times excluded by that House from membership therein because of his statements criticizing the policy of the Federal Government in Vietnam. The Georgia Constitution pertinently provided: “Election, returns, etc.; . . .— *538Each Souse shall be the judge of the election . . . and qualifications of its members . . . .” All parties, including the Supreme Court of the United States, agreed that no question of race was involved, but solely a question of the jurisdiction and the power of the Court to decide whether the Georgia House had the power under and because of its Constitution to exclude Bond from membership therein. Chief Justice Warren, speaking for a unanimous Court, pertinently said (page 118) : “The question presented in this case is whether the Georgia House of Representatives may constitutionally exclude appellant Bond, a duly elected Representative, from membership because of his statements, and statements to which he subscribed, criticizing the policy of the Federal Government in Vietnam and the operation of the Selective Service laws.”
The Court unanimously held that it had jurisdiction, and that the Georgia Legislature could not exclude Bond, a duly elected Representative, from membership in the Georgia House of Representatives.
To summarize: The Bond and other recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, supra, lay down, expressly or by necessary implication, the principle that every voter in a State, City or District is entitled to be represented by, and only by, those persons who comply with and fulfill all Constitutional and statutory requirements which are mandated for membership in the particular Legislative body in question. To permit a person who does not comply with all such requirements to become a member of the Legislative body in question and to represent the voters, without compliance with all the Constitutional and statutory requirements, is to deprive many voters of the right of representation to which they are statutorily and Constitutionally entitled, and of the Equal Protection of the Laws.
*539Each and all of the aforesaid decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and the decisions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, as well as the examples hereinabove given, demonstrate beyond the peradventure of a doubt (1) that the Courts have jurisdiction to determine whether Kelly was Constitutionally elected a member of the Philadelphia City Council when he admitted on the record in this case that he was not a citizen of Philadelphia* at the time of his election and had not been a citizen of Philadelphia for over a year prior thereto, and (2) that this deprived his opponents of the Equal Protection of the Laws to which every American citizen is entitled.**
For each and all of these reasons, I vigorously dissent.

 All of this is admitted in and by the preliminary objections.

 Or, if a vacancy existed, the Democratic City Committee would undoubtedly nominate her.

 The recent unargued case of Jaspan v. Osser was not decided by a unanimous Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and even Us advocates admit it was overruled by Chalfin v. Specter, 426 Pa. 464, 233 A. 2d 562. Furthermore, a provision of the City Charter cannot possibly prevail against the Constitution of the United States or the analogous and controlling decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States or of this Court. Moreover, the concurring Opinions admit, as they must, that the Courts have jurisdiction under the City Charter if Kelly’s nomination papers had been challenged within seven days after the last day for filing (§977 of the Election Code of 1937). They do not discuss what happens if no one has discovered or has the necessary knowledge within said seven-day time limit, or who under their theory would have any status or standing to bring the challenge. Of course, this further ignores all Constitutional questions which no Court or City Council can legally or Constitutionally ignore.

 Italics throughout, ours.

 It is difficult to draw the line of distinction and demarcation which divides the powers of a Court and the powers of the Legislative body with respect to the qualifications of the members of the Legislative body and their right to a seat therein, because the Supreme Court of the United States has not yet clearly drawn this line of distinction. However, it is clear and obvious that *537there is a line of demarcation and that in certain eases the Courts have jurisdiction and in other cases only the Legislative body has jurisdiction. For example, it is a matter of common knowledge that Adam Clayton Powell was excluded by the House of Representatives from a seat therein after he had been twice elected by the voters in his Congressional District, because of his alleged misappropriation of someone else’s (his wife’s) money. It is likewise a matter of common knowledge that in prior years William C. Maybury was elected by the voters of Michigan to the Senate of the Uhited States; yet the Senate was permitted to and did exclude him from a seat. William S. Vare was elected by the voters of Pennsylvania to the Senate of the United States; yet the Senate excluded him from a seat. In the Maybury case, he was excluded because he had allegedly spent too much money in his campaign (although today the money he spent would have been a drop in the bucket!) ; and in the Vare case, he was excluded because of alleged election irregularities. These decisions were properly made by the respective Legislative body and not by the Courts, and serve to illustrate the line of distinction and demarcation that presently exists, although not yet clearly drawn.

 John B. Kelly comes from a famous Philadelphia family. Even if Kelly is denied a seat in the Philadelphia City Council, that does not make Kelly a Philadelphia pariah or destroy his use1 fulness to Philadelphia. Even if Kelly is not a Councilman, he can be a leader in many civic, cultural, charitable and governmental affairs which aid the well-being, the welfare and the progress of Philadelphia.

 The decisions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on the power of the Courts to determine the qualifications for membership in a Legislature or a City Council or other similar body were in conflict and confusion. Compare the Lesker case, supra, and Commonwealth v. Bennett, 233 Pa. 286, 82 Atl. 249, and Commonwealth v. Allen, 70 Pa. 465, which support this Opinion, with Auchenbach v. Seibert, 120 Pa. 159, 13 Atl. 558, which the Majority and concurring Opinions rely on. It will suffice to say that every case which held that the Courts had no jurisdiction or power to determine the election and the qualifications for membership in a Legislative body have been impliedly overruled or reversed or nullified by all of the aforesaid cited and quoted cases.