Court Opinion

ID: 9657768
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:37:12.305985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:48.179817
License: Public Domain

BRIMMER, Chief Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the opinion of the majority because the record before us (which doesn’t have the strength of Pablum) leaves no alternative. But, concurrence should not be construed as even half-hearted approval of the 1992 Apportionment Act, for the Wyoming State Legislature was mighty careless of justice, to say the very least. It correctly met the constitutional guidelines of our 1991 decision, as there is no population deviation among election districts which exceeds 10%, but in doing so it closed its eyes to the geographic realities and the practical needs of vast areas of our State by its late-night passage of the infamous Bodine Amendment which was deliberately indifferent to the voters of Goshen, Carbon, Fremont and Sublette Counties.
An amendment ordinarily redresses an unfairness or injustice by making such corrections as will right an abuse, but the Bodine Amendment created abuses and imbalances by the carload. Instead of creat*1203ing fair and equitable election districts which may have required legislative justification of deviations in excess of 10% — not an impossible task — the Legislature created a monstrosity, House District 16, which is nearly 200 miles long and combines portions of Carbon, Fremont and Sweetwater Counties in a manner that is blind to the geographical barriers, the roads and the natural trade and commerce practicabilities of the vast diverse regions within it. The Legislature failed to ask if it was fair and just to all concerned; instead it blindly ploughed ahead and effectively disfranchised most of the electors of that area. It didn’t take time to do a good job, only one good enough for government work.
Political maneuvering also abounds: in Goshen County, the Hispanic minorities in South Torrington were placed with and to be smothered by the Wheatland Republicans; the rural Republican votes in Carbon County were put in with and to be totally outweighed by the Sweetwater Democratic sector; in Fremont County the voters of the Sweetwater Valley were kneaded in with a Sweetwater County Democratic stronghold with which they have no real or apparent ties; and Sublette County was gutted in a split that put half its Republican vote in with the Democratic region in Kemmerer, and the rest in with Sweetwa-ter County. This smacks of political gerrymandering. But the parties who could prove it aren’t before us and haven’t been heard, and the judicial standards for proving such unfairness are nebulous. The plurality in Davis v. Bandemer declared that actual discriminatory effect against a voter population is a necessary component for proving political gerrymandering. 478 U.S. at 139-40, 106 S.Ct. at 2813-14. There is no proof before this Court of any such effect, and, accordingly, a claim of gerrymandering is presently unsupportable. Hopefully, there may be another day in another case, properly brought by the aggrieved electors of the aforementioned areas, in which injustice may be righted.
The plan is today judged by this Court to be constitutionally sound according to the numbers, but the Wyoming citizens will be the final judges of its ultimate destiny. “In a democratic society like ours, relief must come through an aroused popular conscience that sears the conscience of the people’s representatives.” Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 270, 82 S.Ct. 691, 739, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). I hope that aroused voters will properly sear and baste those who drafted, promulgated and passed the Bodine Amendment; they richly deserve it.