Court Opinion

ID: 9696301
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:44:10.521812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:21.010436
License: Public Domain

Brune, C. J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion, in which PrEscott and Marbury, JJ., concurred.1
The question on this appeal is fundamentally one of Federal constitutional law — the meaning and application of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States with regard to the apportionment of representation in the legislature of a State. That was also true on the first appeal, but the question as then presented was two-pronged and related to the apportionment of representation (a) in the House of Delegates and (b) in the Senate of the General Assembly of Maryland. As a result of legislation enacted after the first appeal, the present controversy is limited to the apportionment of representation in the State Senate. The trial court determined, following a second remand of the case, that if the House were properly apportioned (as he thought it had been by the Special Session of the General Assembly following the determination just prior to the Special Session that its then existing apportionment would not be sustainable as to the 1962 election), there was no need to reapportion representation in the Senate on any basis of population. He based his conclusion upon an analogy to the Federal system under which the House of Representatives is apportioned on the basis of population, but each of the States, regardless of population, has two members of the Senate. He accordingly dismissed the bill as to reapportionment of the Senate. By a per *418curiam order joined in by four of the seven judges this Court affirmed the order of dismissal. We dissented.
In the majority opinion on the first appeal, Maryland Committee for Fair Representation v. Tawes, 228 Md. 412, 180 A. 2d 656, we stated some familiar propositions which are equally apposite here: that the Constitution of the United States and laws made in pursuance thereof are parts of the supreme law of the land and are paramount to any contrary provisions of the Constitution or laws of this State, that this is so both under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution of the United States and under Article 2 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, the latter in effect writing into our State Constitution this limitation upon everything else therein expressed; and that interpretations of the Constitution of the United States by the Supreme Court of the United States are binding upon us. We believe that there is no dispute or difference between the members of this Court on those propositions. The last of them was recognized by the majority opinion on the first appeal and 428 (228 Md., at 418) and also by the dissenting opinion (228 Md., at 448). Our difference with the present majority is based upon our understanding of the effect of recent decisions of the Supreme Court bearing upon the subject in hand.
The first of those cases is, of course, Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186. It makes clear, we think, that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does afford protection against the debasement or dilution of voting rights through State legislative apportionment of representation. The exact point at which such protection will be afforded in any specific case, it is true, is not determined in Baker v. Carr; nor, we think, could it well have been. The basis of the claim of the plaintiffs-appellants was discrimination through the debasement or dilution of their voting rights through the apportionment of representation in the Tennessee Legislature (both houses) without regard to population. The second proposition determined by the Supreme Court is thus stated (369 U. S., at 197-98, 82 S. Ct., at 699): “(b) that a justiciable cause of action is stated upon which appellants would be entitled to appropriate relief.” And near the end of the opinion of the Court, Mr. Justice Brennan further said (369 U. S., at 237, 82 S. Ct. at 720) : “We conclude *419that the complaint’s allegations of a denial of equal protection present a justiciable constitutional cause of action upon which appellants are entitled to a trial and a decision. The right asserted is within the reach of judicial protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.”
We think it also clear both from what we have just quoted and from footnote 15 to the opinion of the Court in Baker that the right for which the appellants were entitled to seek protection and which might be found, upon trial of the merits, to have been violated was a Federal constitutional right. Footnote 15 (369 U. S., at 195, 82 S. Ct., at 698) reads in part as follows: “The complaint, in addition to the claims under the Federal Constitution, also alleges rights, and the General Assembly’s duties, under the Tennessee Constitution. Since we hold that appellants have — if it develops at trial that the facts support the allegations — a cognizable federal constitutional cause of action resting in no degree on rights guaranteed or putatively guaranteed by the Tennessee Constitution, we do not consider, let alone enforce, rights under a State Constitution which go further than the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
The majority opinion in the instant case appears to take a different view and to confuse the remedy with the right. In the last paragraph of the majority opinion cases in other States and in the lower Federal courts are dismissed with the comment that “there is little to be gained from a review of [such] cases.” The opinion cites several of them decided since Baker and then goes on to say:
“In reading some of the decisions attention must be paid to whether the particular constitution requires representation based on population in both houses, as some do. The action taken by state or lower federal courts, once the question of justiciability is conceded, may turn on the construction of the state constitution and not present a federal question at all.”
Where compliance with State constitutional requirements will also vindicate the Federal right shown to have been infringed, a decree in accordance with State constitutional provisions is *420an obviously desirable form of remedy and the otherwise possibly very difficult-problem of determining an appropriate remedy (a problem not solved by Baker) may become relatively simple. However, it remains clear under Baker that a Federal right exists quite independent of State constitutional provisions and is in no way dependent upon them for its enforcement through some appropriate remedy.
The second recent Supreme Court case which seems to us highly.-pertinent to the present controversy is Scholle v. Hare, 369 U. S. 429. That case involves an attack solely on the apportionment o,f the Michigan Senate. The Michigan House is apportioned about as closely as may be on a basis of population. This fact was certainly well known to the Supreme Court of the United States when it remanded the Scholle case to the Supreme Court of Michigan for further consideration in the light of Baker v. Carr, supra. It is difficult for us to imagine a clearer indication (short of an express statement) than is given by this remand that the mere fact that one house of a State legislature is apportioned strictly in accordance with population does not immunize the apportionment of the other from attack under the Fourteenth Amendment on the ground that gross malapportionment or representation as regards population constitutes invidious discrimination.
In the majority opinion of this Court on the first appeal in this case we expressed the views (228 Md., at 433-34) that no precise and inflexible formula for representation is required or can be stated, that the State is allowed every reasonable latitude with regard thereto and that any discrimination which may exist therein will not be set aside if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it, and that “there is a strong implication in the Baker decision that there must be some reasonable relationship of population, or eligible voters, to representation in the General Assembly, if an apportionment is to escape the label of constitutionally-prohibited invidious discrimination.” We adhere to those views and we think the remand of the Scholle case supports them. The remand of that case appears to us to have been for the purpose of having the Michigan Court determine whether or not there was a rational ground upon which to support the allocation of representation *421in the Michigan Senate, which rather clearly involved marked disparities in voting power between different senatorial districts as regards population. The maximum disparity in Michigan, we note, was approximately 15 to 1 as against a maximum disparity in Maryland of approximately 32 to 1. We think that the remand of the case of W. M. C. A. v. Simon, 370 U. S. 190, 82 S. Ct. 1234, for the court below (the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York) to be “the first to consider the merits of the federal constitutional claim, free from any doubts as to its justiciability and as to the merits of alleged arbitrary and invidious geographical discrimination” supports our interpretation of the purpose of the remand of the Scholle case. As we read the opinions filed in the Michigan Supreme Court following remand, the Court divided sharply on whether there was or was not a rational basis for the Michigan senatorial apportionment fixed by a constitutional amendment adopted in that State in 1952. In at least one respect, which may be of some significance, the Michigan case differs from the situation in Maryland. There, at the same election at which the apportionment under attack in Scholle was adopted by a popular majority of approximately 300,000 votes, another proposed constitutional amendment which would have apportioned the Senate on the basis of population was defeated by a popular majority of approximately 500,000 votes.2 No similar choice has ever been submitted to popular vote in Maryland. Despite this popular vote and against historical-geographical arguments and the analogy to the Federal system, a majority of four out of the seven members of the Michigan Supreme Court participating held the 1952 apportionment invalid. The case is now on appeal to the Supreme Court and the order of the Supreme Court of Michigan has been stayed by Mr. Justice Stewart.
The majority of this Court in the present case seems to accept tacitly, if not expressly, the view that if one house of the Maryland General Assembly (the Senate) may be apportioned *422on a basis which ignores disparities of population, the other house (the House of Delegates) must be apportioned with due regard to population, and assumes that the House of Delegates now is so apportioned. It is true that the apportionment of the House is not under attack on this appeal and no question with regard thereto is now before us. It is also true, however, that even as reapportioned by the May 1962 Special Session of the General Assembly, considerable disparities still exist in a number of instances, though previous disparities have been materially reduced. Reference to Appendix A appended hereto will show the past and present situations with regard to the House and also the situation with regard to the Senate, which has not changed. There is no such close relationship between population and representation as in the case of the Michigan House, or between registered voters and representation as is declared necessary by the Federal District Court in Tennessee after remand of the Baker case. (31 L. W. 2003). Surely, the present Maryland apportionment is not so closely related to population as is that of the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States. In that respect the Federal analogy is far from perfect.
Nor is it perfect in other respects. We still believe that there is some difference between the relationship of the States and the National Government and that of the counties and the State Government. We do not deny that State sovereignty is not what it once was and is far less significant today than it was in 1787 or 1789. It is true, however, that the Constitution of the United States does offer the States with small populations (no matter when they may have become members of the Union) a guarantee against-being deprived of equal representation in the Senate without their consent. Counties, at least in Maryland, remain creatures of the State and they have no such constitutional guarantee.
Also, we think that the appellants are right in contending that Maryland does not fully follow the Federal pattern in another respect. The majority attempts to minimize the departure from the rule of one senator per political subdivision made in the case of Baltimore City. With all due deference to our brothers’ reading of local history, the fact seems to stand out *423that these concessions to Baltimore City were granted, albeit grudgingly, in recognition of Baltimore’s relatively large population and economic importance. There is no corresponding provision in the Federal Constitution.
Strictly, as a matter of history, the pattern of one senator per county or comparable political subdivision was in force only from 1851 to 1864. From 1837 to 1851 Baltimore City, which was a part of Baltimore County, had one senator. Since 1864 it has had first three, later four, and since 1922, six. At the time of the last increase it had slightly over 50% of the population of the State, according to the 1920 census. With 6 senators out of 29 it had about 21% of the representation in the Senate. It seems hardly necessary to point out that none of the six legislative districts comprised in the City of Baltimore constitutes a political subdivision of the State comparable to a county.
The majority attempts to bolster the Federal analogy by the argument that those who drafted the Fifth Amendment (many of whom had also participated in drafting the original Constitution) could not have thought that Due Process of Law guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment was infringed by the Equal Representation Clause applicable to the Senate, and then by first equating Due Process under the Fifth Amendment with Due Process under the Fourteenth (this equation being, we think, true) and by then further equating the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This argument seems to us highly strained. We know of no basis, historical or otherwise, for thinking that the provision for the equal representation of the States in the Senate — a representation of which no State may be deprived without its consent — was or was intended to be amended, limited, or construed by the Fifth Amendment. We may further note that, although in many instances the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses may overlap, these two Clauses are separately expressed in the Fourteenth Amendment and that they constitute limitations upon the States, not upon the Federal Government. A further, and we think in itself sufficient, answer to this contention is that Baker v. Carr, supra, rests squarely *424and expressly on the Equal Protection Clause and is the basis for the remand of Scholle.
The imperfections of the analogy to the Federal system are a relatively minor factor in the case, though the analogy itself is one of the main grounds upon which the majority relies. The other ground — and perhaps it really includes the Federal analogy ground — is that history furnishes a rational basis for geographical representation without regard to present glaring disparities in population between areas.
Up to a point, which it may be difficult to locate precisely, there is doubtless some merit to an argument based solely on history, but there must be a limit to its efficacy. A phrase with which all lawyers are familiar is the old saying that the reason for something is historical rather than logical. How far can we go in adopting history as the guide for determining whether there is a rational basis for a patent discrimination ? It is almost ironic that this malapportionment of representation to population in this case was (as well as is) worse in the Senate than in the House. Surely, the historical-geographical argument cannot be pushed to the logical extreme of contending that an uninhabited geographical area is entitled to representation in a legislative body. (We need not even stop to consider the problem of who would represent it.) Geography simply cannot be divorced from people as a basis for representation. How large must the population of a geographical political subdivision be in relation to that of other such subdivisions in order to afford a reasonable base for representation? We grant that no exact mathematical rule or guide should be attempted by this Court; but it seems to us that when the disparity in population reaches the point where it has no rational justification, the limit of permissible discrimination is passed. A disparity of 32 to 1, we think, does exceed the permissible limit. In votes for the election of Senators that disparity exists as between voters in Baltimore County and voters in Kent County. If there were no other comparable disparities, it might be of little significance ; but there are other comparable disparities, as reference to the figures in Appendix A will show. Thus the disparity as between voters in Prince George’s County and in Talbot County is approximately 16^2 to 1, as between voters in Montgomery *425County and in Garrett County it is approximately 17*4 to 1, and as between voters in Anne Arundel County and Queen Anne’s County it is approximately 12)4 to 1. The maximum disparity in Scholle was 15 to 1. Without multiplying comparisons of one county with another, the following composite figures (taken from Appendix B), in which representation in the Senate is divided roughly into thirds, will reveal the general disparity between the most populous subdivisions of the State and the less populous subdivisions:
Units 196» Population Approximate % of State Population Approximate % of Senate
Four most populous Counties and Baltimore City
(10 Senators) 2,336,409 75 34>á
Ten least populous Counties 214,930 7 34>i
(10 Senators)
Nine intermediate Counties
(9 Senators) 549,350 18 31
To carry comparisons a step further, the fifteen least populous counties can elect 15 of the 29 Senators. These 15 counties have a combined population of 450,160, or a little over 14% of the State’s total population of 3,100,869. That is, approximately one-seventh of the population can elect a majority of the State Senate.
Further comment can scarcely add emphasis to the figures shown in the above table and in the paragraph immediately following it.
The supposed Federal analogy was at least as well known to the Supreme Court as to us, but it did not prevent remand for consideration on the merits of apportionment in the State Senate in Baker, in Scholle, or in W. M. C. A. We cannot think of any logical reason for remanding a case to a lower court for the consideration of a patently untenable ground of constitutional attack. Of the three cases just cited Scholle seems most pertinent on this matter. The majority opinion in the instant case seeks to avoid what we think is a necessary implication from the remand of Scholle on this point by saying that the Supreme Court did not decide the question. We *426think that what the Supreme Court has not decided is whether or not there is a rational basis for the Michigan senatorial apportionment.
We think that the majority of this Court dismisses rather too lightly decisions of the courts of other States or of lower Federal courts from a review of which it finds little to be gained. We think that on the whole these other recent cases seem to support our views rather than those of the majority. In general, they regard both houses of a State legislature as subject to a requirement that there shall be some reasonable relationship between population and representation. This may be shown by a rational explanation of a departure from an exact ratio, and such an explanation will be more readily accepted as to one house if the other is exactly proportioned to population. Some, such as Baker v. Carr, supra, on remand (31 L.W. 2003) have deferred action as to one house if the other is almost exactly apportioned according to population.
The opinion of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, filed July 21, 1962, in Sims v. Frink, 205 F. Supp. 245, is carefully reasoned, and, in our estimation, supports the view that even exact, or almost exact, apportionment of one house in a State legislature in accordance with population does not entirely dispense with the need for some reasonable regard for population in the apportionment of the other. To like effect is another very recent Federal District Court decision (July 23, 1962) in the Southern District of Florida, in Sobel v. Adams, 208 F. Supp. 316. See, however, the more recent opinion of that court, 208 F. Supp. 319, also reported in the Miami Herald of September 6, 1962, upholding a proposed Florida constitutional amendment which affects both House and Senate, bringing apportionment of the former much more nearly in line with population, but permitting considerable disparities as to the Senate. It was held that population need not be “a major factor” in reapportionment of the Senate. The Supreme Court of Vermont (on July 19, 1962) in Mikell v. Rousseau, 183 A. 2d 817, held the apportionment of the Senate of that State to be unconstitutional under the State Constitution. A Kansas County District Court held unconstitutional the apportionment of the Kansas legis*427lature on July 27, 1962. A decision of the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, cited by the appellees, expresses views in accord with what we regard as the general trend and simply defers action. It does not involve a final determination on the merits. Nor did Caesar v. Williams, 371 P. 2d 241 (Ida.), decided April 3, 1962, reach a final decision on the merits. In Colorado the State Supreme Court in Stein v. General Assembly, 31 L.W. 2075, deferred requiring action but a Federal District Court in Lisco v. McNichols, 31 L.W. 2107, shortened the time of deferment.
The United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, on remand of Baker v. Carr, supra, appears to have taken a view similar to ours that there should be an “equitable” basis of reapportionment of the Tennessee Senate, even though it need not be “fully related to voting strength.” See also Toombs v. Fortson, 205 F. Supp. 248 (N.D., Ga.), 30 L.W. 2605, in which the District Court held that at least one house would have to be apportioned strictly on a population basis and did not decide whether both houses would have to be so apportioned.
A three-judge Federal District Court in Oklahoma has acted to bring about reapportionment of the legislature of that State. Moss v. Burkhart, 207 F. Supp. 885, commented on in the “Judicial Highlights” section of the Federal Reporter Advance Sheets for July 9, 1962. Further action in that case (for which we presently have no F. Supp. citation) is reported in Pacts on Pile, August 2-8, 1962, to have been taken on August 3, 1962.
In Sweeney v. Notte, 183 A. 2d 296 (R. I.), 31 L.W. 2060, the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, though holding that it could not take action to enforce its views in a reapportionment case said: “The Attorney General contends, and petitioners concede, that apportionment along geographical, county, municipal or urban versus rural lines does not necessarily constitute a denial of equal protection if the rationale of such methods can be justified. We are in full accord with such contention, but it is equally true that historical recourse to such apportionment formulae cannot be justified if it results in invidious discrimination. The dilution of the vote of a majority of electors *428to one fourth of that enjoyed by others is, in our opinion, so unjust as to be invidiously discriminatory.”
See also Sanders v. Gray, 203 F. Supp. 158 (N.D., Ga.), involving the Georgia primary election unit vote rule. Probable jurisdiction has been noted but an application to advance for argument was denied in that case, sub nom., Gray v. Sanders, 370 U.S. 921, by the Supreme Court. That Court did not adopt the view of Mr. Justice Harlan that leave should be granted the appellants for a stay of the injunction issued by the District Court pending the determination of the appeal.
We also refer to the remarks of two University of Virginia political scientists, Messrs. Paul T. David and Ralph Eisenberg, at the recent annual convention of the American Political Science Association in Washington. They discussed the need for representation with reasonable regard to population in both houses of a state legislature and expressed views thereon, as reported in the Washington Post of September 6, 1962 (pp. 1 and A 8) in general accord with ours.
In the present case we think that the gross disparities which exist in relative voting power (and which are not even disputed, for they cannot be) cast , upon the proponents of the existing apportionment the burden of showing a rational basis for such departures from any regard for population as a basis for representation. This burden, in our estimation, has not been met. Such provisions as we have here seem much more than are required to assure a proper diffusion of political restraint, to paraphrase the diffusion of political initiative spoken of in MacDougall v. Green, 335 U.S. 281, at 284. Neither the long continuance of disparities nor the magic phrase “Federal analogy” seems to us to furnish the rational basis for such disparities which is necessary to save them from constituting “invidious discriminations” under the Fourteenth Amendment, as we think that Amendment has been authoritatively interpreted by the Supreme Court in the cases above referred to and recently decided by that Court.
We, therefore, think that the decree of the Circuit Court should have been reversed.

*429

*430APPENDIX B
Comparison of Representation in the Senate of Maryland of the City of Baltimore and the Four Most Populous Counties and of Other Counties

. But for the recent (and fortunately temporary) illness of Judge Prescott, who wrote the majority opinion on the first appeal in this case, this opinion would have been written by him.

. Cf. W. M. C. A. v. Simon on remand, 31 L.W. 2121, where a somewhat similar factor was one of several grounds upon which the existing New York apportionment was upheld.