Cousins v. City Council of City of Chicago

• Citation: 322 F. Supp. 428
• Decision Date: 22 January 1971
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 70 C 3202.
• Parties: William COUSINS et al., Plaintiffs, v. CITY COUNCIL OF the CITY OF CHICAGO, Richard J. Daley, individually and as Mayor of the City of Chicago, and Board of Election Commissioners of the City of Chicago, Defendants.
• Court: United States District Courts. 7th Circuit. United States District Court (Northern District of Illinois)

322 F. Supp. 428

William COUSINS et al., Plaintiffs, v. CITY COUNCIL OF the CITY OF CHICAGO, Richard J. Daley, individually and as Mayor of the City of Chicago, and Board of Election Commissioners of the City of Chicago, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 70 C 3202.

United States District Court, N. D. Illinois, E. D.

January 22, 1971.

Robert Plotkin, Michael L. Shakman, Thomas N. Todd and Gerald Mindell, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiffs.

Richard L. Curry, Corp. Counsel, City of Chicago, Allen Hartman, First Asst. Corp. Counsel, Edmund Hatfield, Asst. Corp. Counsel, and Earl L. Neal, Sp. Asst. Corp. Counsel, William R. Ming, Jr., Chicago, Ill., for defendants.

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

PERRY, District Judge.

The above-entitled cause came on before the Court, sitting without a jury, on December 23, 1970, on Plaintiffs' application for a preliminary and temporary injunction. Thomas N. Todd, Robert Plotkin and Michael L. Shakman appearing for the plaintiffs, and Richard L. Curry, Corporation Counsel of the City of Chicago, Earl L. Neal, Special Assistant Corporation Counsel, Allen Hartman, First Assistant Corporation Counsel, and Edmund Hatfield and Gayle F. Haglund, Assistant Corporation Counsel, appearing for the defendants City Council of the City of Chicago, and Richard J. Daley, individually and as Mayor of the City of Chicago, and William R. Ming, Jr., appearing for the defendant Board of Election Commissioners of the City of Chicago, and depositions having been taken by plaintiffs in open court on December 28th and 29th, 1970, of Aldermen Thomas E. Keane, Claude W. B. Holman, John J. Hoellen and Paul T. Wigoda of the City Council of Chicago, and Lewis W. Hill, Commissioner of Development and Planning of the City of Chicago, the hearing on plaintiffs' application for a preliminary and temporary injunction was held on December 29, 30 and 31, 1970, and on January 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, and 18, 1971, the Court on said days having heard the testimony and examined the proofs offered by the respective parties, and having heard the closing arguments of the parties on January 18, 1971, and the Court having, pursuant to Rule 65 (a) (2) of the Rules of Civil Procedure for the United States District Courts, advanced the trial of this action on the merits and consolidated it with the hearing on plaintiffs' application for a preliminary and temporary injunction, as this Court has in the course of such hearing repeatedly informed the parties it was doing, the Court, being fully advised in the premises, now makes the findings of fact as follows:

FINDINGS OF FACT.

1. This is a case brought under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the United States Code, Title 42, Sections 1971, 1973, 1981, 1983, 1985, 1986 and 1988, and Illinois Revised Statutes, Chap. 24, par. 21-36 2. Plaintiffs William Cousins, Jr., A. A. Rayner, Jr., Leon M. Despres, William Singer and George Barr McCutcheon are residents, citizens, voters and aldermen of the City of Chicago.

3. Plaintiff Graciano Lopez is a citizen and voter of the City of Chicago and a candidate for alderman in the forthcoming election to be held on February 23, 1971.

4. Plaintiff Independent Voters of Illinois is a voluntary unincorporated association.

5. Plaintiff Committee for an Effective City Council is a voluntary unincorporated association.

6. Plaintiffs William Cousins, Jr., A. A. Rayner, Jr., Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Rosemary Gulley, Rev. Richard Lawrence, Timuel D. Black, Jr., and Andrew Crout are black persons.

7. Plaintiff Graciano Lopez is of Puerto Rican origin and ancestry.

8. Defendant City Council of the City of Chicago is the legislative body of the City of Chicago. It is comprised of 50 aldermen, one elected from each of Chicago's 50 wards.

9. On November 5, 1970, the City Council of Chicago consisted of 47 members, three vacancies having been occasioned by death after the general aldermanic election. Of the 47 living aldermen, 10 aldermen were black. The other aldermen all had black constituents in their wards in varying numbers.

10. Defendant Richard J. Daley is the Mayor of the City of Chicago and, as such, is the chief executive officer of said city. As mayor, defendant Daley presides over defendant City Council; defendant Daley is also Chairman of the Democratic County Central Committee of Cook County, the governing body of the Cook County Democratic organization.

11. Defendant Board of Election Commissioners of Chicago is the governmental agency charged by law with the duty of administering the election laws applicable to the election of aldermen in the City of Chicago.

12. Plaintiffs have failed to establish that in this cause that there is any class of "all black voters of the City of Chicago" within the meaning of Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Similarly plaintiffs have failed to establish that in this cause is a class of "all black candidates or prospective black candidates for aldermen in the City of Chicago or for any other public office to be elected in whole or in part by the voters of Chicago or by a segment of such voters."

Plaintiffs have demonstrated that if there were such classes their claims are not typical of such classes and plaintiffs have likewise demonstrated that they could not fairly and adequately protect the interests of any such class. Similarly, plaintiffs have not been authorized to represent in this cause the black voters of the City of Chicago, or any segment thereof or the black candidates or prospective black candidates for public office in the City of Chicago or any segment thereof. On November 5, 1970, when the ward redistricting ordinance came before the City Council of the City of Chicago, it was composed of 47 aldermen of whom 10 were black persons. Of those black aldermen all save the plaintiffs Cousins and Rayner were among the 41 aldermen who voted for the re-districting ordinance. Only six aldermen, five of whom are among the plaintiffs in this lawsuit and Casimir Staszcuk, voted against the ordinance.

13. The plaintiffs have failed to establish that they, or any of them, are authorized to represent all voters and persons of Puerto Rican or other Latin American origin and ancestry in Chicago; and plaintiffs have failed to establish that plaintiffs are authorized to represent all candidates and prospective candidates of Puerto Rican or other Latin American origin and ancestry in Chicago. Plaintiffs have failed to establish that plaintiffs' claims are typical of the claims of those classes, or that plaintiffs will fairly and adequately protect the interests of those classes.

14. Plaintiffs have failed to establish that in this cause that there is any class of "independent voters of the City of Chicago" within the meaning of Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Plaintiffs have demonstrated that if there were such classes their claims are not typical of such classes and plaintiffs have likewise demonstrated that they could not fairly and adequately protect the interests of any such class. Similarly, plaintiffs have not been authorized to represent in this cause the "independent voters of the City of Chicago" within the meaning of Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

15. On November 5, 1970, the defendant City Council enacted a redistricting ordinance and map of 50 wards.

16. This redistricting ordinance was enacted pursuant to Section 21-36 of the Municipal Code of Illinois (Ill.Rev.Stat. 1969, ch. 24, par. 21-36), which provides:

"The city of Chicago shall be divided into fifty wards. In the formation of wards the population of each shall be as nearly equal as practicable and each shall be composed of contiguous and compact territory."

17. The redistricting ordinance of November 5, 1970, was enacted in accordance with an order entered by the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on September 11, 1968, in Sherman H. Skolnick et al. v. Mayor and City Council, of Chicago, et al., No. 66 C 2134. This order was affirmed by the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, 415 F.2d 1291 (1969); cert. denied, 397 U.S. 954, 90 S.Ct. 984, 25 L.Ed.2d 138 (1970).

18. The redistricting ordinance and map were drawn at public hearings conducted by a subcommittee of the Committee on Committees and Rules of the Defendant, City Council of Chicago. Sixteen such public hearings were held in the City Hall of Chicago between October 13, 1970 and November 4, 1970, and recorded in full. The verbatim transcript of these hearings, 716 pages in length, has been filed with this Court, has been received in evidence and is part of the record herein.

19. The redistricting was based on mathematical data on population, as was and is required by State statute and Federal Court order, both mentioned above, data prepared by an agency other than the legislative redistricting body — that is, by the Federal Bureau of the Census, which compiled the data for its own administrative purposes in taking a national head count.

That record demonstrates that the sole basis for the shaping and formation of the wards in the City of Chicago drawn at those public hearings was the then available census data with respect to the population of the several census tracts of the City of Chicago.

The 1960 United States Census is the last federal census indicating the numbers of Black, Latin American and other ethnic groups within the City of Chicago. Similar data to be compiled in the 1970 United States Census is not presently available. Such data compiled in the 1960 United States Census understated the non-white population nationally by at least 10 percent and by more than 10 percent understated the nonwhite population in Chicago.

20. The members of the Defendant, City Council of Chicago, are elected from single-member districts, as required by State statute.

21. The redistricting ordinance enacted November 5, 1970, is based on the...