Heiser v. Rhodes

• Decision Date: 27 October 1969
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 7259.
• Citation: 305 F. Supp. 269
• Parties: Karl HEISER, Plaintiff, v. James A. RHODES, individually and as Governor of the State of Ohio, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Ohio

305 F. Supp. 269

Karl HEISER, Plaintiff, v. James A. RHODES, individually and as Governor of the State of Ohio, et al., Defendants.

Civ. No. 7259.

United States District Court S. D. Ohio, W. D.

October 27, 1969.

Arnold Morelli, Bauer & Morelli, Cincinnati, Ohio, for plaintiff.

Julius J. Nemeth, Asst. Atty. Gen., Columbus, Ohio, Arthur M. Ney, Asst. Hamilton County Prosecutor, Cincinnati, Ohio, for defendants.

Before WEICK, Circuit Judge, and PORTER and HOGAN, District Judges.

OPINION AND ORDER

HOGAN, District Judge.

On September 18, 1969, the defendants, who include the election officials of the State of Ohio, rejected the candidacy of the plaintiff for the office of member of the State Board of Education from the First Ohio District on the ground that he was not a qualified voter residing in the territory comprising the First District.

This action was promptly filed by the plaintiff in two capacities, the one being as a qualified elector of the State and the other being as a potential candidate. The relief sought by the plaintiff includes the following:

a) The declaration that Ohio Revised Code § 3301.011 (the Ohio apportionment statute applicable to the State School Board) is invalid under the 663 (1962); and Wesberry v. Sanders, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d principles set forth in Baker v. Carr, 376 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 526, 11 L.Ed.2d 481 (1964); and Lucas v. Rhodes, 389 U.S. 212, 88 S.Ct. 416, 19 L.Ed.2d 423 (1967).

b) An injunction prohibiting the defendants from "allowing a vote upon the office of the State Board of Education" until the district lines are drawn to satisfy the principles in the above cases.

c) An alternative order (based on the contention of the plaintiff that the present Congressional districting statute, Ohio Revised Code § 3521.01, as amended in 1968, applies to and covers School Districts) directing that the election, insofar as State Board of Education members be concerned, be held in eight districts for eight members, with the district lines corresponding to the present Congressional district lines.

d) Finally, for an order directing the defendants to place the name of the plaintiff on the ballot as a candidate for the office of State Board of Education from the First District, the lines of the First District being those set forth in the Congressional redistricting of 1968.

In 1967 the Ohio Legislature divided the State into 24 different districts for Congressional purposes. In each was to be elected one member of Congress in the 1968 general election. At the same time the State was divided into 24 districts for several other purposes; one was the election periodically from each of such districts of two delegates to the national convention of each of the major political parties; another was for the purpose of electing periodically from each of those 24 districts of a committeeman and a committeewoman to serve on the State Central Committees of each of the two major political parties; another was for the election in 1967 of 24 members of the Ohio State Board of Education, one from each of the 24 districts. The Congressional districting statute of the Ohio Legislature of 1967, then O.R.C. § 3521.01, was read into or adopted by reference in the statutes pertaining to these other offices. For example, the one dealing with the State Board of Education, § 3301.01, provided that the boundaries of the 24 districts and the counties composing each district "shall coincide with the boundaries and counties comprising each of the 24 Congressional districts as such latter districts were in lawful existence on March 1, 1967, under § 3521.01 of the Revised Code. One member of the State Board of Education shall be elected from each of the 24 districts created in this section." Whereas, a congressman is elected from each district every two years, as are all state central committeemen and committeewomen, and whereas, elections are held every four years for all delegates to the national conventions, that is not so in respect of the State Board of Education. The term of each member is six years. However, the original 24 elected in 1967 drew lots to determine which 8 of them would serve for two years, which 8 for four, and which 8 for six; the coming election in Ohio therefore involves eight districts and eight offices, each of the offices being for a six-year term. (O.R.C. § 3301.021)

The plaintiff resides on East Sharon Road in Glendale, Hamilton County, Ohio. That territory was included in the First Ohio Congressional District in the Ohio apportionment statute of 1967 and was literally included, therefore, (we say "literally" to avoid entanglement with that part of the Ohio statute reading "lawfully") within the First Ohio District for State Board of Education purposes.

In 1967 the Ohio Congressional apportionment statute of 1967 was attacked in the Northern District of Ohio as unconstitutional under Wesberry v. Sanders, supra. In the same case, attack was made on those two Ohio statutes which "adopted" the Congressional districting statute for boundary and apportionment purposes, i. e., State central committee members and delegates to national conventions. The board of education boundary and apportionment statute, incorporating the same Congressional statute by reference, was not attacked in the Northern District case. In December, 1967, the Supreme Court of the United States held the basic statute and the two "adopters" unconstitutional under Wesberry. Thereafter, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio enjoined the holding of elections in Ohio for congressmen and the two types of party nominees until Ohio was redistricted for those purposes in accordance with the "one-man one-vote" principle. In 1968, the Ohio Legislature adopted a new Congressional districting and apportionment statute—§ 3521.01. The Northern District Court approved that reapportionment and future elections for such offices.

For the purposes of Congressional elections, the plaintiff's residence "60 East Sharon Road" left the Second Ohio Congressional District and was transited into the First Ohio Congressional District. As a matter of fact, plaintiff filed for and ran for Congress from the First Ohio Congressional District in the general elections in 1968. In the summer of 1969 he filed as a candidate for the State Board of Education from the First District. The Ohio statute requires a candidate for the State Board of Education to be a "qualified elector residing in the territory comprising the district from which he is elected." The Ohio election officials, the defendants (omitting the defendant Governor, who has been voluntarily dismissed from this case) rejected the plaintiff's candidacy on the ground that he resided in the "Second Congressional District" as it "lawfully" existed (?—it obviously did not) in 1967. It is conceded that the plaintiff is otherwise fully qualified as a candidate and the sole ground of the rejection was nonresidence.

We pass the tempting question of whether Ohio, in 1967 or thereafter, has ever defined any district boundaries for the election of State School Board members. It defined them as coinciding with the boundaries of Congressional districts as they were "lawfully in existence on March 1, 1967," and as the Supreme Court rather succinctly pointed out in one sentence, "The districts as defined in Ohio in 1967 were unlawful."

Be that as it may, this much is certain —if the one-man one-vote principles (taught in Wesberry and Baker v. Carr) apply to the Ohio State Board of Education, i. e., to the offices of the 24 members, § 3301.01 of the Revised Code of Ohio—the statute under which the 1969 election for School Board members is being held—is clearly unconstitutional. The boundaries of both the First and Second Ohio Congressional Districts substantially differed in the Congressional redistrictings of 1967 and 1968, and that it true of practically all of the other 22 Ohio districts.

The position of the defendant voting officials is that the Ohio State Board of Education is an "administrative," as distinguished from "legislative," body and that Baker and Wesberry apply only to legislative offices. The defendants rely on Sailors v. Board of Education, 387 U.S. 105, 87 S.Ct. 1549, 18 L.Ed.2d 650 (1967) and on the Court's own summary of Sailors at page 485 of Avery v. Midland County, 390 U.S. 474, 88 S.Ct. 1114 at page 1120, 20 L.Ed.2d 45 (1967): "The Court rested on the administrative nature of the area school board's functions * * *"

The plaintiff, on the other hand, contends that the "one-man, one-vote" principle applies to all elective offices (including offices which a state could concededly leave to the appointive process but which the state has chosen to leave to the electoral process) in which is reposed "the authority to make a substantive number of decisions that affect all citizens," or "the power to make a large number of decisions having a broad range of impact on all the citizens." See Avery v. Midland County, supra, at pages 481 and 483, 88 S.Ct. at pages 1118 and 1119, and cf. Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 83 S.Ct. 801 (1963) and Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 86 S.Ct. 1079, 16 L.Ed.2d 169, 9 L.Ed.2d 821 (1966).

The legislative v. administrative controversy arising from Baker and Wesberry has been a troublesome one for lower Federal and the State courts. See, for examples, Strickland v. Burns, 256 F.Supp. 824 at 836 (M.D.Tenn., 1966); Hyden v. Baker, 286 F.Supp. 475 (M.D. Tenn., 1968) and Hadley v. Junior College District, 432 S.W.2d 328 (Mo., 1968). The majority and dissenting opinions in those cases pend upon and clearly present the legislative v. adminstrative issue. The Hadley case involves a Missouri Junior College Board, the powers of which are quite similar to the powers of the Ohio State Board of Education (the Ohio Board's powers are set forth in Ohio Revised Code § 3301.07). Probable...