Court Opinion

ID: 9543338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:44:31.774339+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:09.818657
License: Public Domain

HALLEY, Justice
(dissenting).
Because of the fact that I still think that fifty-one counties of the State have representatives provided for under House Bill' 1033 of the 1961 Legislature and that they are provided for in a constitutional manner, I am of the opinion that the State Election Board should receive filings for such offices. The twenty-six counties that do not qualify under the Constitution of Oklahoma for at least one representative may be attached to adjoining counties that dc> qualify for the next Legislature. That can be done either by this Court or the State Election Board.
To me this Court has no authority to require the State Election Board to proceed under an Act of the Legislature which it has determined does not fully comply with the Constitution. We should see that the unconstitutional Acts are nullified and constitutional methods adopted.
No one can seriously argue that House Bill 1033 grants equal suffrage and thereby equal representation in the making of the laws of this State. On this point I quote *153from Asbury Park Press, Inc. v. Woolley, 33 N.J. 1, 161 A.2d 705, pp. 709-710:
“The legally qualified voters of the several counties are given the right under the Constitution to vote for all officers that are elective by the people. N.J.Const., Art. 2, par. 3. Assemblymen are such officers, and each voter of each county is entitled to cast his ballot for the number of them which the absolute mandate of Article IV, Section III, supra, requires to be allocated to his county. Ours is a representative form of government. It can remain such in the true sense only if the vote of each citizen has equality with that of his neighbor in the other counties of the State, according to the prescription of the organic law. To the extent that his county is given a lesser number of members in the lower House than are its due, his vote diminishes in value, and thus he does not receive the full measure or protection and representation which are of the essence of democracy. No man can boast of a higher privilege than the right granted to the citizens of our State and Nation of equal suffrage and thereby to equal representation in the making of the laws of the land. Under our Constitution that right is absolute. It is one of which he cannot he deprived, either deliberately or by inaction on the part of a Legislature. Inaction which causes an apportionment act to have unequal and arbitrary effects throughout the State is just as much a denial of equality as if a positive statute had been passed to accomplish the result. In our view, deprivation not only offends against the State Constitution but may very well deny equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. * * *»
If this Court would simply do what I consider its duty in matters of this kind, a solution would be worked out that could not be but an improvement of what we now have.
I dissent.