Court Opinion

ID: 9626693
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:21:43.212571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:32.483984
License: Public Domain

TUTTLE, Circuit Judge (Concurring in Part and Dissenting in Part).
I concur in that part of the Court’s opinion that denies an injunction at this time. I also concur in the statement of the facts. Because, however, I disagree with the conclusion that the suit should be dismissed, and because my conclusion that the injunction should be denied is based on somewhat different reasoning than that of my colleagues, I consider it appropriate to state my separate views.
The basis on which I would hold that the Court should now decline to grant the relief sought by these plaintiffs is simple. In Baker v. Carr the Supreme Court stressed as one of the factors which it considered as warranting a federal court’s granting relief in a case of legislative malapportionment within a state the absence of any practical means by which the plaintiffs might hope to obtain relief at the hands of the state legislature. We also stressed this circumstance in the earlier cases decided by this Court. See Sanders v. Gray, N.D.Ga., 1962, 203 F.Supp. 158, and Toombs v. Fortson, N.D.Ga., 1962, 205 F.Supp. 248.
In view of the fact that this Court has now held that the Legislature of the State of Georgia must be apportioned in such a manner as to make it more responsive to population, it cannot be said now that there is no reasonable likelihood that the Georgia Legislature as properly constituted will fail in the future to rectify the gross inequalities that we find now exist in the Georgia Congressional Districts. I think, therefore, that it is a part of judicial statesmanship for this Court to refrain from stepping into this particular area until after the Legislature of the State of Georgia has had a fair opportunity to correct the present abuses.
The point of difference between my views and those of my colleagues is that I am not convinced that if the Georgia Legislature persists in the future in maintaining congressional districts as grossly disproportionate as they are today, the federal courts would have no power to take cognizance of such a situation and declare the state apportionment laws unconstitutional.
The view of the majority appears to be that even though the State Legislature takes no remedial action, the plaintiffs may not obtain the relief they seek at the hands of this Court. This, they say, results from the fact that the United States Congress has the power under Article I, Section 4, of the Constitution to require the state governments to eliminate the inequalities like that here complained of. The provisions of that Section are:
“The Times, Places and Manner of ■ holding Elections for * * * Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations * *
The majority opinion reads the several opinions of the Justices of the Supreme Court in Baker v. Carr as perpetuating what my colleagues construe to be the rationale of Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 549, 66 S.Ct. 1198, 90 L.Ed. 1432, that is that where Congress has the power to deal with a matter which the States may also regulate, federal courts should not interfere with action taken by the State, even though in violation of the *287Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, because “due regard for the Constitution as a viable system precludes judicial correction.” 328 U.S. 549, at 554, 66 S.Ct. 1198, at 1200.
It must be borne in mind that the opinion which contained the foregoing language was approved in whole by only three members of the Supreme Court out of the seven who participated in the decision. A fourth member of the Court, thus making a majority, concluded that the judgment of the lower court should be affirmed, but Justice Rutledge’s views make it clear that he did not accept the theory or principle that it was beyond the competence of the federal courts to grant the relief sought, but rather that he felt the plaintiffs had not demonstrated their right to equitable relief under the circumstances, including the fact that the upcoming election was so imminent as to make it “doubtful whether action could, or would, be taken in time to secure for petitioners the effective relief they seek.”
I am of the firm conviction that the majority opinion of the Supreme Court in Balter v. Carr makes it clear that nothing said in any of the opinions in Colegrove v. Green denies to the federal courts the power to grant relief in a congressional district case if the complaint and proof establish a right to equitable relief from grossly disproportionate districting. On page 226 of its opinion in Baker v. Carr, the majority outlines what constitutes a non-justiciable “political question.” It does this by enumerating the type of question that the Court had theretofore held to be nonjusticiable “political questions.”
“We have no question decided, or to be decided, by a political branch of government co-equal with this Court. Nor do we risk embarrassment of our Government abroad, or grave disturbance at home if we take issue with Tennessee as to the constitutionality of her action here challenged. Nor need the appellants, in order to succeed in this action, ask the Court to enter upon policy determinations for which judicially manageable standards are lacking.”
As to the first of these questions referred to by the Court, which is the one which the majority here feels prevents judicial action by this Court, I consider it necessary to point out the following: Complete relief can be granted to the plaintiffs here without the slightest interference with prerogatives or powers of the Federal Congress. That body, under the reapportionment statutes referred to in the majority opinion, has directed the State of Georgia to divide the people of the State into congressional districts. Presumably Congress intended for the State to do so within constitutional standards. The fact that Congress did not expressly prescribe that congressional districts should be reasonably equal as to population does not, of course, prevent the State from districting according to equal population, nor, it seems to me, does it excuse the State from failing to do so if a failure to do so works an unconstitutional deprivation on the plaintiffs.
I find nothing in either Colegrove v. Green or in the language of the Supreme Court in Baker v. Carr discussing Cole-grove in conflict with the views expressed here: that where Congress has directed a State to “regulate” a matter which the Constitution itself says shall initially be dealt with by the State, the State may not then, immune from judicial interference, exercise such power in an unconstitutional manner merely because Congress also has power to “at any time by law make or alter such regulations.”
It is, therefore, my opinion that this Court should deny the injunction at this time, but that it should retain jurisdiction of the cause in order to give the State Legislature an opportunity to remedy what this Court has unanimously found to constitute a gross inequity. In default of such action by the State within a reasonable time, the Court should proceed to grant the relief prayed for.