Court Opinion

ID: 9696302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:44:10.534676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:21.013012
License: Public Domain

*431Prescott and Marbury, JJ.,
filed the following separate dissenting opinion.
As indicated therein, we fully concur in the able dissenting opinion of Chief Judge Bruñe. In addition, we deem it appropriate to call attention to the contrast between the conclusion reached by the present majority and what was said in the majority opinion on the first appeal in which two of the majority on the present appeal concurred.
Plaintiffs’ bill of complaint alleges malapportionment in both the State Senate and the House of Delegates. The case first reached us after the trial court sustained demurrers to the bill. We reversed, stating that the Supreme Court had made “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 then remanded the case with directions to the chancellor to determine whether representation in either or both Houses of the General Assembly was apportioned on a basis involving such discrimination. The chancellor found that the representation in the House was unconstitutionally malapportioned, but made no finding as to the Senate. We again remanded for a decision as to the Senate. It is elementary that if the well-pleaded allegations of the bill failed to state a cause of action with reference to representation in the Senate, neither remand insofar as it concerned that branch of the Assembly was proper. Upon the remand no testimony whatever was taken. The defendants filed an answer in which they admitted substantially all of the allegations of the bill relating to malapportionment, but, even though the majority opinion stated what we quoted above, the defendants stated in their answer that “representation in the Maryland Senate need not be based on nor reasonably related to the present population of the Counties and Baltimore City [and the present majority opinion sustains this contention].” Essentially, the case reaches us now in the same posture as the first appeal, the only difference being that in the first appeal the demurrers admitted the well-pleaded allegations of the bill, and in the present appeal the *432answer admits them with minor and insignificant exceptions. On those facts which were held sufficient on the first appeal to state a cause of action as to the Senate as well as the House, the present majority now finds “nothing in the Supreme Court cases [no case on malapportionment has been decided by the Supreme Court since our first opinion] to support the appellants’ claim of invalidity in the apportionment of the Maryland Senate.”