Court Opinion

ID: 9757525
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:44:42.640618+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:40.596784
License: Public Domain

CALEB M. WRIGHT, District Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part):
I find it necessary to write a separate opinion, concurring in part and dissenting in part. First, however, I wish to make it clear that I accept without reservation my brother Biggs’ findings of fact as set forth in his opinion. I also accept my brother’s conclusions of law, except those relating to partisan gerrymandering.
My brothers agree that Senate Bills 332 and 336 violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because of malapportionment — constitutionally impermissible deviations in population between various Representative and Senatorial Districts. With this holding I heartily concur.
However, as I understand my brothers they agree that partisan gerrymandering is a “political question”, and hence does not present an issue cognizable by this Court. But my brothers are not in complete agreement as to the content they ascribe to the phrase “political question.” My brother Biggs believes that the Supreme Court has held that partisan gerrymandering presents a nonjusticiable controversy as that term was defined in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962). My brother Lay-ton, on the other hand, believes that the Supreme Court has not yet spoken on the question, and, that absent a specific mandate from the High Court, this Court should eschew this sensitive issue. With both of these views I must respectfully disagree.
My brother Biggs’ position is that partisan gerrymandering has been held, by the Supreme Court, to present no constitutional problem under the Fourteenth Amendment or otherwise. Badgley v. Hare, 87 S.Ct. 338, 17 L.Ed.2d 207 (1966); WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo, 382 U.S. 4, 86 S.Ct. 24, 15 L.Ed.2d 2 (1965). Both these citations contain but a summary treatment of a significant problem. In Badgley the appellants raised the question of whether partisan gerrymandering constituted a constitutional question. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal for want of a substantial fed*856eral question. In WMCA the three-judge lower court refused to accept argument on the question of partisan gerrymandering, and found the apportionment plan constitutional. The Supreme Court, per curiam, with Mr. Justice Harlan concurring, affirmed the lower court. Mr. Justice Harlan’s opinion contains language to the effect that in affirming the Supreme Court is holding that partisan gerrymandering does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. However, Mr. Justice Harlan’s opinion is but a concurrence; it was not accepted as the majority opinion. Under these circumstances, I find it difficult to conclude that the Supreme Court has spoken on the issue. I would place greater reliance than does my brother Biggs upon the Supreme Court’s dicta in Fortson v. Dorsey, 379 U.S. 433, 85 S.Ct. 498, 13 L.Ed. 2d 401 (1965) and in Burns v. Richardson, 384 U.S. 73, 86 S.Ct. 1286, 16 L.Ed. 2d 376 (1966).
Nor can I agree with the position taken on partisan gerrymandering by my brother Layton in his concurring opinion. As I understand my brother’s position it lauds the merits of judicial abstention from touchy questions. No doubt such a course is productive of serenity, but I cannot adhere to a jurisprudence which would require the Supreme Court to speak on these important questions before the lower courts are to confront them.
The Supreme Court in Baker v. Carr, supra, dealt extensively with the doctrine of the “political question.” The Court’s remarks indicate that the political question doctrine, as set forth in cases such as Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 549, 66 S.Ct. 1198, 90 L.Ed. 1432 (1946), is reserved for cases involving a conflict between the federal judiciary and coordinate branches of the federal government, or cases where judicially manageable standards are lacking. The doctrine is not meant to be a catch-all to avoid the necessity of grappling with sensitive issues. The political question doctrine does not immunize state legislative action from scrutiny by the federal judiciary to determine whether federal constitutional standards have been complied with. As Mr. Justice Brennan said for the majority:
“The question here is the consistency of state action with the Federal Constitution. We have no question decided, or to be decided, by a political branch of government coequal 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. Judicial standards under the Equal Protection Clause are well-developed and familiar, and it has been open to courts since the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment to determine, if on the particular facts they must, that a discrimination reflects no policy, but simply arbitrary and capricious action.” Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. at 226, 82 S.Ct. at 715 (emphasis added).
The same Mr. Justice Brennan, who wrote for the majority in Baker v. Carr, went on to strongly intimate that, given a sufficient record, partisan gerrymandering would violate the Equal Protection Clause. Fortson v. Dorsey, 379 U.S. 433, 85 S.Ct. 498, 13 L.Ed.2d 401 (1965); Burns v. Richardson, 384 U.S. 73, 86 S.Ct. 1286, 16 L.Ed.2d 376 (1966).
“It might well be that, designedly or otherwise, a multi-member constituency apportionment scheme, under the circumstances of a particular case, would operate to minimize or cancel out the voting strength of racial or political elements of the voting population. When this is demonstrated it will be time enough to consider whether the system still passes constitutional muster.” 379 U.S. at 439, 85 S.Ct. at 501.
“Where the requirements of Reynolds v. Sims [377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 *857L.Ed.2d 506] are met, apportionment schemes including multi-member districts will constitute an invidious discrimination only if it can be shown that ‘designedly or otherwise, a multimember constituency apportionment scheme, under the circumstances of a particular case, would operate to minimize or cancel out the voting strength of racial or political elements of the voting population.’ ” 384 U.S. at 88, 86 S.Ct. at 1294.
Fortson and Bums both involved multimember constituency apportionments, whereas the Delaware apportionment calls for single member districts, but if partisan gerrymandering is proscribed in one instance then logic requires that it be proscribed in the other. Perhaps partisan gerrymandering may be more discernable in one instance than the other, but difficulties of proof should not contract the scope of constitutional protection.
Concededly, gerrymandering is fairly deep in the “political thicket.” Nevertheless, to allow a legislature to deprive any group of fair representation in any manner would be to condone invidious discrimination of the sort condemned in Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 81 S.Ct. 125, 5 L.Ed.2d 110 (1960). Further the underlying rationale of Baker v. Carr, supra, is that voters aggrieved by apportionment discriminations may appear in Federal Court to vindicate their rights. Since the discrimination worked by partisan gerrymandering is as sinister as that worked by malapportionment — both operate to nullify the voting power of certain elements of the citizenry — it would seem that the rationale of Baker v. Carr, supra, requires that those whose votes are debased by partisan gerrymandering be afforded the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment.
For the aforementioned reasons, regardless of the delicate nature of the issues presented, I am unable to conclude that partisan gerrymandering, sufficiently demonstrated, is permissible under the Fourteenth Amendment.
A brief examination of the record in this case as it relates to gerrymandering will demonstrate the flagrant abuses of partisanship. On June 22, 1964 Governor Carvel called a meeting of the leaders of both parties. At this meeting the Governor stated, according to Senator Reynolds duPont, that “the majority party was the majority party and it was going to do the reapportionment.” Record at 1407. Accordingly, Mr. Latchum, a former chairman of the Democratic City Committee was asked to reapportion the city of Wilmington. Mr. McGinnis, Governor Carvel’s Administrative Assistant, was asked to reapportion rural New Castle County. Mr. Hughes, President of the Kent County Department of Elections and former chairman of the Kent County Democratic Committee, was requested to reapportion Kent County. And, Mr. West, Chairman of the Sussex County Democratic Committee, was asked to reapportion Sussex County.
Subsequently, at the commencement of the debate on Senate Bills 332 and 336, Senator duPont introduced Senate Resolution 131 which provided for recording the proceedings of the Senate during the debate on the reapportionment bills. The resolution was defeated on a straight party vote, and sc the verbatim remarks of the participants to the reapportionment debates are not available. However, according to Senator duPont, Senator Allen Cook, president pro tempore stated, “in effect, that this was the majority party’s Bill, and that they were going to make their best efforts, because they were the majority, to take care of the Democratic party in the redistricting.” Record at page 1471.
I believe that these isolated and fragmentary remarks bespeak an intent to maximize the participation of the majority party in the legislature. My brother Biggs’ findings of fact demonstrate that this intent was carried out in Wilmington and in rural New Castle County. The conclusion is inescapable that the “policy” behind Senate Bills 332 and 336 was to maximize the number of districts returning members of the ma*858jority party. To this end certain district boundaries were drawn with regard to the political affiliations of the inhabitants. Such a “policy” is what the Supreme Court had in mind in Baker v. Carr when it spoke of a discrimination reflecting “no policy, but simply arbitrary and capricious action.” To concentrate on the political affiliations of the citizenry in drafting a scheme of reapportionment is to employ an impermissible standard.
Accordingly, I would agree with my brothers that the reapportionment plan before the Court violates the one man-one vote formula of Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964). However, I would also hold the Bills unconstitutional because of partisan gerrymandering in Wilmington, in rural New Castle County, and with respect to the number of Representatives and Senators assigned to Wilmington vis-á-vis rural New Castle County.