Court Opinion

ID: 9855032
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:18:28.612676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:38.982911
License: Public Domain

Justice PARKER
dissenting.
The sole issue before this Court is whether the trial court erred in ruling that the redistricting plans duly enacted by the General Assembly on 13 November 2001 and precleared by the United States Department of Justice on 11 February 2002 violate Article II, Sections 3(3) and 5(3) of the North Carolina Constitution (“State Constitution”). Defendants contend the trial court did err; I agree and vote to reverse.
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, prohibits “covered” jurisdictions from implementing or enforcing any changes to a “standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting” unless those provisions have first been “precleared.” 42 U.S.C. § 1973c (1994). Forty of North Carolina’s one hundred counties are “covered” for purposes of section 5 preclearance requirements.
In 1966, North Carolina’s legislative districts for the State House and Senate and the state constitutional provisions then governing the drawing of State House districts were held unconstitutional based on federal one-person, one-vote requirements. Drum v. Seawell, 249 F. Supp. 877 (M.D.N.C. 1965), aff'd per curiam, 383 U.S. 831, 16 L. Ed. 2d 298 (1966). In response the 1967 General Assembly enacted proposed constitutional amendments to redefine the manner *400in which the General Assembly should proceed each decade to draw new legislative districts based on the decennial census. Those proposed amendments provided that “[n]o county shall be divided in the formation of a” House or Senate district. Act of May 31, 1967, ch. 640, secs. 1, 3, 1967 N.C. Sess. Laws 704, 704-05.11 These amendments were submitted to the voters in 1968 on a ballot reading as follows: “FOR constitutional amendments continuing present system of representation in the General Assembly,” and “AGAINST constitutional amendments continuing present system of representation in the General Assembly.” Id. at secs. 7, 8, 1967 N.C. Sess. Laws at 706. At that time the State Constitution provided that each county would elect at least one member to the House of Representatives, N.C. Const, of 1868, art. II, § 5 (1962) (amended 1968), and mandated a ratio system to apportion the remaining Representatives, N.C. Const, of 1868, art. II, § 6 (1876) (amended 1968). With respect to the Senate the Constitution provided that the Senate would consist of fifty Senators, N.C. Const, of 1868, art. II, § 3, and that no county would be divided unless the county was equitably entitled to two or more Senators, N.C. Const, of 1868,,art. II, § 4 (1876) (amended 1968). The amendments submitted to the people in 1968 also contained the provisions now found in Sections 3(1) and 5(1) of the 1971 State Constitution providing for one-person, one-vote and delineating the formula for determining how many Senators or Representatives a district would have. Ch. 640, secs. 1, 3, 1967 N.C. Sess. Laws at 704-05. These amendments were ratified by the voters and were carried over without substantive changes into the 1971 Constitution. See N.C. Const, art. II, §§ 3(1), 5(1).
The 1968 constitutional amendments were not initially submitted to the Department of Justice for preclearance under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, nor were they precleared by virtue of litigation in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. However, the 1971 Constitution was promptly submitted to, and precleared by, the United States Department of Justice after its ratification by the voters.
The prohibitions on dividing counties were followed in the 1971 and 1981 redrawing of state legislative districts. Late in 1981 an action was filed against state officials in their official capacity chal*401lenging the legislative districts on the basis that the State had failed to obtain preclearance of the 1968 amendments precluding division of counties in the drawing of legislative districts. Gingles v. Edmisten, 590 F. Supp. 345, 350 (E.D.N.C. 1984) (three-judge court), aff’d in part and reversed in part on other grounds, 478 U.S. 30, 92 L. Ed. 2d 25 (1986). With this litigation pending, the State submitted the 1968 amendments seeking their preclearance from the Department of Justice. The General Assembly also amended the State House of Representatives plan while the preclearance request was pending and did not divide counties in the creation of the House districts. In submitting the 1968 amendments, the State presented the argument that the amendments did not constitute a change from the long-standing practice of drawing legislative districts without dividing counties.
Notwithstanding this argument the Department of Justice objected to the language against dividing counties and refused to give preclearance to the 1968 amendments or to redistricting plans enacted in reliance on those amendments, thereby forcing the General Assembly to redraw the legislative districts. The objection highlighted the Department’s concern that application of the 1968 amendments would result in large, multi-member districts, which necessarily submerge minority voters into larger white voter districts. Pursuant to the Department of Justice’s objection, the General Assembly drew new legislative plans that were precleared. However, these plans were still the subject of litigation under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Gingles, 590 F. Supp. at 351.
Once the General Assembly enacted new plans in .1982, State officials in their official capacity were the subject of a civil action brought by residents of Forsyth County to challenge the division of Forsyth County in the newly drawn legislative districts. Specifically, the plaintiffs claimed that the General Assembly could not divide Forsyth County because the county was not among the forty “covered” counties for purposes of section 5 preclearance. Hence, the constitutional provision still applied to the remaining noncovered counties. This claim was rejected by a three-judge United States District Court in Cavanagh v. Brock, 577 F. Supp. 176, 182 (E.D.N.C. 1983). The court in Cavanagh held that the denial of preclearance to the 1968 constitutional amendments meant that the amendments were not effective at all insofar as they prohibited the division of counties in the drawing of legislative districts. Id. at 181-82.
*402The 1982 legislative redistricting plans were used until the United States Supreme Court in Gingles required the General Assembly to modify them in order to carve out separate, majority-minority districts in certain counties of the State to comply with section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which applies irrespective of whether a jurisdiction is covered under section 5. Section 2 compels states to create majority-minority districts when a minority population is sufficiently compact to form a majority in a single-member district and votes cohesively, but is generally unable to elect candidates of its choice because of the racial bloc voting of the majority, often in conjunction with other factors such as historical discriminatory practices that have affected the minority’s ability to participate in the political process. Gingles, 478 U.S. at 50-51, 92 L. Ed. 2d at 46-47. The counties for which North Carolina was required to create section 2 districts under Gingles included Wake, Forsyth, and Mecklenburg, which are not “covered” counties under section 5, along with some section 5 counties. Gingles, 590 F. Supp. at 376, 384.
Thus, the plans used in the 1980s split a number of counties as did the plans enacted and used in the 1990s. The General Assembly proceeded on the basis that the only court decision that had ever considered the question of whether counties could be divided was binding on the General Assembly and that the 1968 constitutional amendments prohibiting the division of counties were of no force or effect. Against this background of litigation implementing the Voting Rights Act, the 2001 General Assembly enacted the Senate and House redistricting plans that are the subject of this civil action.
The following provisions of our State Constitution are determinative of this appeal.
Article II, Section 3 provides as follows:
The Senators shall be elected from districts. The General Assembly, at the first regular session convening after the return of every decennial census of population taken by order of Congress, shall revise the senate districts and the apportionment of Senators among those districts, subject to the following requirements:
(1) Each Senator shall represent, as nearly as may be, an equal number of inhabitants, the number of inhabitants that each *403Senator represents being determined for this purpose by dividing the population of the district that he represents by the number of Senators apportioned to that district;
(2) Each senate district shall at all times consist of contiguous territory;
(3) No county shall be divided in the formation of a senate district;
(4) When established, the senate districts and the apportionment of Senators shall remain unaltered until the return of another decennial census of population taken by order of Congress.
N.C. Const, art. II, § 3.
Article II, Section 5 is identical except that it provides for “Representatives” rather than “Senators.”
Article I, Section 3 provides as follows:
The people of this State have the inherent, sole, and exclusive right of regulating the internal government and police thereof, and of altering or abolishing their Constitution and form of government whenever it may be necessary to their safety and happiness; but every such right shall be exercised in pursuance of law and consistently with the Constitution of the United States.
N.C. Const, art. I, § 3.
Article I, Section 5 provides as follows:
Every citizen of this State owes paramount allegiance to the Constitution and government of the United States, and no law or ordinance of the State in contravention or subversion thereof can have any binding force.
N.C. Const, art. I, § 5.
In interpreting the State Constitution, we are guided by certain fundamental principles. The proper construction of our Constitution is generally controlled by the same principles that control in discerning the meaning of all written documents. Perry v. Stancil, 237 N.C. *404442, 444, 75 S.E.2d 512, 514 (1953).12 In searching for the will and intent of the people as expressed in the Constitution,
all cognate provisions are to be brought into view in their entirety and so interpreted as to effectuate the manifest purposes of the instrument. The best way to ascertain the meaning of a word or sentence in the Constitution is to read it contextually and to compare it with other words and sentences with which it stands connected.
State v. Emery, 224 N.C. 581, 583, 31 S.E.2d 858, 860 (1944) (citations omitted). Further, where the meaning is clear from the words used in the Constitution, we will not search for meaning elsewhere; if the meaning is doubtful, the intention of the people must be sought. Elliott v. State Bd. of Equalization, 203 N.C. 749, 753, 166 S.E. 918, 921 (1932). Moreover, if given the choice of two possible interpretations of a state constitutional provision, one of which would violate the United States Constitution or federal law and one of which would not, this Court must interpret the provision consistently with federal law rather than invalidate the constitutional provision. In re Arthur, 291 N.C. 640, 642, 231 S.E.2d 614, 616 (1977) (noting with respect to statutory interpretation that “[w]here one of two reasonable constructions will raise a serious constitutional question, the construction which avoids this question should be adopted”). Finally, if it is not possible to interpret a state constitutional provision in a manner compliant with federal law, the state constitutional provision is void under the Supremacy Clause. Constantian v. Anson Cty., 244 N.C. 221, 229, 93 S.E.2d 163, 168 (1956) (holding that “any provision of the Constitution or statutes of North Carolina in conflict [with federal law] must be deemed invalid”).
In the present case the language in Article n, Sections 3(3) and 5(3) that “[n]o county shall be divided” is clear and unambiguous and is not subject to two reasonable interpretations. This language has been determined to be unenforceable under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act as to the forty counties covered by that section; hence, this provision is in conflict with federal law and, under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution and the Supremacy Clause of the North Carolina Constitution, cannot be given force and effect in drafting legislative redistricting plans affecting those forty counties.
*405While this case does not fit the traditional application of the doctrine of severability, the concept of that doctrine does have an analogous application to this case. The doctrine provides that if a portion of a statute is invalid as violative of a constitutional provision or a federal law, the invalid portion may be stricken and the remaining portion given effect if it is whole and complete in itself and the intent of the legislature was such that the statute would have been enacted even without the stricken portion. State ex rel. Andrews v. Chateau X, Inc., 296 N.C. 251, 259-60, 250 S.E.2d 603, 608 (1979), judgment vacated on other grounds, 445 U.S. 947, 63 L. Ed. 2d 782 (1980). In Constantian this Court stated:
“A statute may be valid in part and invalid in part. If the parts are independent, or separable, but not otherwise, the invalid part may be rejected and the valid part may stand, provided it is complete in itself and capable of enforcement.” 82 C.J.S., Statutes sec. 92. Our decisions are in accord. This well established rule applies equally when a portion of a state constitution or any provision thereof is invalid as violative of the Constitution of the United States.
Constantian, 244 N.C. at 228, 93 S.E.2d at 168 (citations omitted).
In this case, words of the State Constitution have not been determined to be invalid under federal law; rather, the constitutional provision has been rendered unenforceable in forty of the State’s one hundred counties. Thus, by analogy, unless the provision can stand as a whole when applied in the remaining counties and this Court can determine that the intent of the people in ratifying the amendment was for the provision to have effect even if enforceable in less than all one hundred counties, the provision must fail.
The record in this case is devoid of any evidence suggesting that the amendments would have garnered the requisite three-fifths majority for a constitutional amendment in the legislature, N.C. Const, art. XIII, § 4, had the members of the General Assembly anticipated that the “no county shall be divided” provision would be applicable in less than all one hundred counties; nor does any evidence before the Court suggest that the people would have ratified the amendments with this limitation. Any conclusion to the contrary based on this record is pure speculation. As the three-judge United States District Court consisting of Judges J. Dickson Phillips; Franklin T. Dupree, Jr.; and W. Earl Britt noted, without preclearance the constitutional provision regarding division of counties is
*406not “effective as law” in the forty covered counties. With the [provision’s] effect thus territorially circumscribed by federal authority, under North Carolina law [it] would be effective in the sixty non-covered counties only if there were manifest a legislative, and popular, intent that the [provision] should be applied differentially across the state if for any reason — including a failure of section 5 preclearance — [it] should be held of no effect in respect of some portions of the state. We find no evidence of such an intent in any legislative source. The illogic, indeed the questionable legality, of such a consequence is manifest. We therefore conclude that the [provision was] necessarily intended by the legislature and the populace voting by referendum upon the legislatively proposed [provision] to rise or fall as a whole.
Cavanagh, 577 F. Supp. at 181-82.
Even if it is assumed that the intent of the people was as the majority espouses, the narrower question is whether, given the covered counties limitation, the “no county shall be divided” provision of the State Constitution can be reconciled as written with other provisions of the State Constitution. The majority opinion leaves no doubt that this provision cannot be so reconciled.
The majority acknowledges that reconciliation is a fundamental goal of constitutional and statutory interpretation. However, the majority appears to read the language from Sessions that “[reconciliation is a postulate of constitutional as well as of statutory construction,” Sessions v. Columbus Cty., 214 N.C. 634, 638, 200 S.E. 418, 420 (1939), to mean that if one provision of the State Constitution cannot, consistent with federal law, be reconciled with another provision, then this Court is at liberty to rewrite one of the provisions or give the provision no effect. For example, the majority repeatedly qualifies the application of the “no county shall be divided” provision with words such as “whenever possible” or “to a large degree.” The opinion states:
We recognize that. . . the right of the people of this State to legislative districts which do not divide counties is not absolute. In reality, an inflexible application of the WCP [whole-county provision] is no longer attainable because of the operation of the provisions of the [Voting Rights Act] and the federal “one-person, one-vote” standard, as incorporated within the State Constitution.
*407(Citations omitted). Yet, the majority declares, “Where, as here, the primary purpose of the WCP can be effected to a large degree without conflict with federal law, it should be adhered to by the General Assembly to the maximum extent possible.” This interpretation ignores the plain language of the “no county shall be divided” provision, which is clear and unambiguous. The majority cites no authority for this maximization theory, which, if applied as the majority mandates, is inconsistent with Article I, Section 3 of our State Constitution, providing that “[t]he people of this State have the inherent, sole, and exclusive right... of altering or abolishing their constitution.” N.C. Const, art. I, § 3. While the majority notes that the Department of Justice’s administrative guidelines “reflect that states need only modify, not necessarily abrogate, the application of whole-county redistricting limitations,” the majority apparently fails to accept that, under the State Constitution, this Court has no authority to “modify” this provision.
The majority states that, “[wjithout question, the intent of the WCP is to limit the General Assembly’s ability to draw legislative districts without according county lines a reasonable measure of respect.” However, the clear and unambiguous language of the “no county shall be divided” provision manifests that the intent is not “a reasonable measure of respect” for county lines; rather, the intent of this absolute mandate is that counties not be divided at all. Notwithstanding the majority’s conclusory claims, the provision cannot be reasonably interpreted as evincing “the people’s express wishes to contain legislative district boundaries within county lines whenever possible.”
In rejecting defendants’ argument that this construction “rewrites” the constitutional provision to read that “no county shall be divided except to the extent required by federal law,” the majority states that “ [defendants overlook the fact. . . that compliance with federal law is not an implied, but rather an express condition to the enforceability of every provision in the State Constitution.” However, by proper operation of the Supremacy Clause, laws and provisions in conflict with federal law are rendered void. U.S. Const, art. VI, cl.2; Constantian, 244 N.C. at 229, 93 S.E.2d at 168. The Supremacy Clause does not merely modify the offending provision. While the majority is correct in noting that “ ‘[s]everal provisions of our Constitution provide the elasticity which ensures the responsive operation of government’ ” (quoting State ex rel. Martin v. Preston, 325 N.C. 438, 458, 385 S.E.2d 473, 484 (1989)), the provision in question is clearly not one of the “several provisions” providing “elasticity.”
*408Nowhere is the disregard for the plain language of the “no county shall be divided” provision more obvious than in its tortured application in the majority’s remedial analysis. Under the guise of reconciling provisions of our State Constitution, the majority amends and rewords the “no county shall be divided” provision to permit division of counties so long as they are part of a multi-county grouping whose exterior boundaries are not crossed or traversed. How this approach is consistent with the language that “no county shall be divided” is not readily discernable. While this revision may be good policy and necessary to comply with the principle of one-person, one-vote while still maintaining a community of interest, this decision is one for the legislature or the people of this State, not for this Court.
Moreover, the majority’s purported reconciliation of the State Equal Protection Clause with the language regarding multi-member districts misses the mark. Our State Equal Protection Clause states that “[n]o person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws.” N.C. Const, art. I, § 19. Article II, Sections 3(1) and 5(1) state that
Each [Senator or Representative] shall represent, as nearly as may be, an equal number of inhabitants, the number of inhabitants that each [Senator or Representative] represents being determined for this purpose by dividing the population of the district that he represents by the number of [Senators or Representatives] apportioned to that district^]
N.C. Const, art. II, § 3(1), 5(1). These provisions envision multi-member districts as valid in this State. Nevertheless, the majority purports, to reconcile the multi-member district language with the Equal Protection Clause by holding that the language on multi-member districts is “effective only within a limited context” and that, “while instructive as to how multi-member districts may be used compatibly with ‘one-person, one-vote’ principles, Article II, Sections 3(1) and 5(1) are not affirmative constitutional mandates.”
The majority’s “reconciliation” thus treats portions of Article II, Sections 3(1) and 5(1) as having no real effect, ignoring our longstanding rule of construction that a statute must be “construed, if possible, so that none of its provisions shall be rendered useless or redundant. It is presumed that the legislature intended each portion to be given full effect and did not intend any provision to be mere surplusage.” Porsh Builders, Inc. v. City of Winston-Salem, 302 N.C. 550, 556, 276 S.E.2d 443, 447 (1981). This rule of statutory construction is equally applicable to constitutional construction. See Perry, *409237 N.C. at 444, 75 S.E.2d at 514. Ignoring this rule of construction, the majority has determined that this language in our Constitution has no effect, but is merely instructive and is, therefore, surplusage that need not be followed. By refusing to give effect to this provision of our Constitution, the majority attempts to avoid the fundamental principle that one section of the North Carolina Constitution cannot violate another. Leandro v. State, 346 N.C. 336, 352, 488 S.E.2d 249, 258 (1997) (“It is axiomatic that the terms or requirements of a constitution cannot be in violation of the same constitution — a constitution cannot violate itself.”).
A true reconciliation would necessarily treat multi-member districts as not violative of our State Equal Protection Clause, as those two clauses are co-equal. Such a construction gives effect to both provisions while respecting the rule that a state constitutional provision cannot violate the State Constitution. Rather than truly reconciling these provisions, the majority is forced by its determined preservation of the “no county shall be divided” provision to further amend the Constitution by making multi-member districts unconstitutional unless the General Assembly can show a compelling state interest in having multi-member districts. What exactly that compelling state interest might be is left for future litigation. The plain fact is that Article II, Sections 3(1) and 5(1) and Article II, Sections 3(3) and 5(3) cannot be reconciled with each other, consistent with federal law, without the use of multi-member districts or amendment of the “no county shall be divided” provision to allow multi-county groupings. Although limiting multi-member districts and allowing multi-county groupings may well be sound policy decisions, under the language of our State Constitution, this decision is again for the legislature or the people, not for this Court.
Finally, the redistricting scheme announced by the majority today creates four classes of citizens: (i) those who reside in covered counties and, therefore, may not enjoy the benefit of the “no county shall be divided” provision; (ii) those who reside in counties that do not receive the benefit of the provision in order to comply with section 2 of the Voting Rights Act; (iii) those who reside in noncovered counties and may or may not have the benefit of the provision, depending on whether their county needs to be divided to enable the forty covered counties to obtain preclearance; and (iv) those who reside in counties that receive the benefit of the provision and are kept whole (whether truly whole or whole as part of the new “multi-county groupings” allowed via the majority’s amendment to the Constitu*410tion). Clearly, this disparate treatment of the citizenry was not the intention of the people who were accustomed to electing one Representative from each county when they declared that “[n]o county shall be divided in the formation of a senate or representative district.” No other provision of the North Carolina Constitution that is by its terms applicable statewide has ever been interpreted by this or any other court as applying only in certain regions of the State. No proposition is more fundamental than that our State Constitution applies equally to all our people and applies uniformly throughout all one hundred counties.
Today, the majority amends our State Constitution to read:
No county shall be divided in the formation of legislative districts unless:
1. The county is covered by section 5 of the Voting Rights Act;
2. The county must be divided to comply with section 2 of the Voting Rights Act;
3. The county must be divided to enable a covered county to achieve preclearance; or
4. The county is part of a “multi-county grouping.”
Sadly, in arriving at this proposal, the majority has lost sight of two cardinal principles of state constitutional construction. The first principle is:
“It is well settled in this State that the courts have the power, and it is their duty in proper cases, to declare an act of the General Assembly unconstitutional — but it must be plainly and clearly the case. If there is any reasonable doubt, it will be resolved in favor of the lawful exercise of their powers by the representatives of the people.’’
Preston, 325 N.C. at 449, 385 S.E.2d at 478 (quoting Glenn v. Board of Educ. of Mitchell Cty., 210 N.C. 525, 529-30, 187 S.E. 781, 784 (1936)) (emphasis added).
The second principle is:
If the provisions of [an Article of the State Constitution] are obsolete or ill-adapted to existing conditions, this Court is without power to devise a remedy. However liberally we may be inclined *411to interpret the fundamental law, we should offend every canon of construction and transgress the limitations of our jurisdiction to review decisions upon matters of law or legal inference if we undertook to extend the function of the Court to a judicial amendment of the Constitution.
Elliott, 203 N.C. at 756, 166 S.E. at 922.
For the foregoing reasons, in my opinion Article II, Sections 3(3) and 5(3) are void and unenforceable. The guidelines mandated by the majority may provide a sound and wise basis for redistricting; however, this Court has, in my view, exceeded its constitutional authority by amending the State Constitution. Although I agree that the 2001 legislative plans duly enacted by the General Assembly are far from perfect, and are certainly not aesthetically appealing, the only question before this Court is whether those plans violate Article II, Sections 3(3) and 5(3) of our State Constitution. Accordingly, in adherence to the State Constitution, I must respectfully dissent.

. These amendments are embodied in two separate substantively identical provisions of our State Constitution. See N.C. Const, art. II, §§ 3(3), 5(3). However, for the sake of clarity, this dissent refers to these two provisions in the singular (“the provision”).

. The constitutional provision in question in Perry has since been abrogated. See Forsyth Mem’l Hosp., Inc. v. Chisholm, 342 N.C. 616, 620, 467 S.E.2d 88, 90 (1996).