Court Opinion

ID: 9766471
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:50:28.52092+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:23.109202
License: Public Domain

McMANUS, District Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent in part from the Memorandum Opinion and Judgment Entry of the majority on three matters:
1. I would hold the apportionment of house seats unconstitutional as well as the senate seats under Senate File 1. The maximum population-variance ratio in the house is 2.23 to 1.1 The following language of Chief Justice Warren speaking for the Court in, Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 562, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 1382, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964) with its repeated numerical references is significant:
“ * * * Legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests. As long as ours is a representative form of government, and our legislatures are those instruments of government elected directly by and directly representative of the people, the right to elect legislators in a free and unimpaired fashion is a bedrock of our political system. It could hardly be gainsaid that a constitutional claim had been asserted by an allegation that certain otherwise qualified voters had been entirely prohibited from voting for members of their state legislature. And, if a State should provide that the votes of citizens in one part of the State should be given two times, or five times, or 10 times the weight of votes of citizens in another part of the State, it could hardly be contended that the right to vote of those residing in the disfavored areas had not been effectively diluted. It would appear extraordinary to suggest that a State could be constitutionally permitted to enact a law providing that certain of the state’s voters could vote Uoo, five, or 10 times for their legislative representatives, while voters living elsewhere could vote only once. And it is inconceivable that a state law to the effect that, in counting votes for legislators, the votes of citizens in one part of the State would be multiplied by two, five, or 10, while the votes of persons in another area would be counted only at face value, could be constitutionally sustainable. Of course, the effect of state legislative districting schemes which give the same number of representatives to unequal numbers of constituents is identical. Overweighting and overvaluation of the votes of those living here has the certain effect of dilution and undervaluation of the votes of those living there. The resulting discrimination against those individual voters living in disfavored areas is easily demonstrable mathematically. Their right to vote is simply not the same right to vote as that of those living in a favored part of the State. Two, five, or 10 of them must vote before the effect of their voting is equivalent to that of their favored neighbor. Weighting the votes of citizens differently, by any method or means, merely because of where they happen to reside, hardly seems justifiable. One must be ever aware that the Constitution forbids ‘sophisticated as well as simple-minded modes of discrimination’. * * * ” (Emphasis supplied.)
While Reynolds does not require mathematical exactness, it clearly appears to hold that unconstitutional discrimination is mathematically demonstrable where the maximum population-variance ratio is 2 or more to 1.
2. The matter of sub-districting, or multi-member legislative districts, is not an issue in this case, having been pre*468viously decided by this court on January 14, 1964.2 So long as a State’s system of legislative apportionment meets the test of substantial equality of population among the various legislative districts, to have or not to have multi-member districts is a matter of civic taste to be determined in each State by the political majority in control.3
3. At the risk of being characterized as impatient, I would observe that the Iowa legislature has been malapportioned for at least 60 4 years and still is. The complaint in this case was filed over two and one-half years ago 5 and now Reynolds is nearly old enough to walk.
While I have every hope that the 61st General Assembly of Iowa, now in session, will recognize its responsibility and perform its duty to constitutionally reapportion, I don’t know that it will. Because of the time already elapsed, the undesirability of resolving reapportionment at another special session with its attendant expense and dislocations, I would favor prompt and final resolution of this problem at the present session of the 61st General Assembly. Traditionally, regular sessions of Iowa General Assemblies last approximately 100 days. It is my view that this court should fix a deadline for enactment by the 61st G.A. of a statutory system of apportionment constitutionally acceptable. Such date should be at a reasonable time in the future and sufficiently prior to the traditional adjournment date to permit this court to pass on the constitutionality of any enactment before adjournment. If the 61st G.A. failed to act by the deadline, this court should do the job. Deadlines in reapportionment cases are not without precedent.6

. Page 464 of majority Opinion.

. Davis v. Synhorst, 225 F.Supp. 689, 692.

. Reynolds v. Sims, supra, 377 U.S. at 578, 84 S.Ct. 1390.
“ * * * A State may legitimately desire to maintain the integrity of various political subdivisions, insofar as possible, and provide for compact districts of contiguous territory in designing a legislative apportionment scheme. Valid considerations may underlie such aims. Indiscriminate districting, without any regard for political subdivision or natural or historical boundary lines, may be little more than an open invitation to partisan gerrymandering Single-member districts may be the rule in one State, while another State might desire to achieve some flexibility by creating multimember or floterial districts. Whatever the means of accomplishment, the overriding objective must be substantial equality of population among the various districts, so that the vote of any citizen is approximately equal in weight to that of any other citizen in the State. 3: 3: * »

. 12th Amendment (amendment No. 2 of 1904) to the Iowa Constitution, Article 3, §§ 34-36, I.C.A.

. August 9, 1962.

. Hughes v. WMCA, Inc., 85 S.Ct. 713.