Daly v. Hunt

• Decision Date: 27 August 1996
• Docket Number: No. 95-1933,95-1933
• Parties: 143 A.L.R. Fed. 779, 65 USLW 2166, 111 Ed. Law Rep. 1126 Jack W. DALY; Vynone D. Williams; Kerry P. Humphrey; Aileen B. Lockhart; Mark E. Courtney; James W. Lewis, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. James B. HUNT, Jr., as Governor of the State of North Carolina; Dennis A. Wicker, as President of the North Carolina State Senate and as Lieutenant Governor; Harold J. Brubaker, as Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives; Mecklenburg County Board of Elections, an agency of the State of North Carolina and the individual members of the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections; Isaac Heard, Jr.; William M. Miller; William R. Miller, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 1212

93 F.3d 1212

143 A.L.R. Fed. 779, 65 USLW 2166,

111 Ed. Law Rep. 1126

Jack W. DALY; Vynone D. Williams; Kerry P. Humphrey Aileen B. Lockhart; Mark E. Courtney; James W Lewis, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. James B. HUNT, Jr., as Governor of the State of North Carolina; Dennis A. Wicker, as President of the North Carolina State Senate and as Lieutenant Governor; Harold J Brubaker, as Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives; Mecklenburg County Board of Elections, an agency of the State of North Carolina and the individual members of the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections; Isaac Heard, Jr.; William M. Miller; William R. Miller Defendants-Appellants.

No. 95-1933.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued March 4, 1996.

Decided Aug. 27, 1996.

ARGUED: Tiare Bowe Smiley, Special Deputy Attorney General, North Carolina Department of Justice, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellants. Nathanael Kevin Pendley, The Pendley Law Offices, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Michael F. Easley, Attorney General of North Carolina, Charles M. Hensey, Special Deputy Attorney General, North Carolina Department of Justice, Raleigh, North Carolina; James O. Cobb, Ruff, Bond, Cobb, Wade & McNair, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellants.

Before LUTTIG, Circuit Judge, CHAPMAN, Senior Circuit Judge, and CLARKE, Senior United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Senior Judge CHAPMAN wrote the opinion, in which Judge LUTTIG and Senior Judge CLARKE concurred.

OPINION

CHAPMAN, Senior Judge:

This action involves a challenge to the apportionment ¹ of the electoral districts for the Board of Commissioners and Board of Education of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Plaintiffs-Appellees claim that the voting districts at issue violate the constitutional principle of one person, one vote because the voting-age populations of the districts are not substantially equal. In other words, Plaintiffs claim that the districting plan violates the Equal Protection Clause because each voter in a district with fewer eligible voters has a greater voice in electing a representative than does a voter in a district with more eligible voters.

On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court ruled that the districting plan is unconstitutional because the deviation among the voting-age populations of the districts exceeds the maximum allowable level. The court also determined that Defendants-Appellants offered no legitimate justification for the large variances in voting-age population among the districts. Accordingly, the court granted summary judgment for Plaintiffs and enjoined Defendants from conducting elections under the challenged legislation.

Defendants appeal the district court's order. They claim that the district court erred in using voting-age population instead of total population as the basis for comparing the voting districts. For the reasons that follow, we vacate the district court's ruling and remand for further proceedings.

I.

The material facts of this case are essentially undisputed. Prior to 1990, the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners had seven members: four were elected from single-member districts, and three were elected at large. In addition, at that time the Mecklenburg County Board of Education had nine members, all elected at large.

The federal decennial census of 1990 indicated that the boundaries of the four single-member districts of the Board of Commissioners needed to be redrawn because of shifts in population. Also, about that time the public began to express interest in enlarging the size of the Board of Commissioners from seven members to nine. In response, the Board appointed a committee, known as the Blue Ribbon County Governance Committee, to provide recommendations about the size of the Board and the boundaries for the voting districts. The Blue Ribbon Committee recommended increasing the Board of Commissioners from seven members to nine, six elected from single-member districts and three elected at large. The Committee also proposed a districting map depicting the boundaries of the six single-member districts. The Board approved the Committee's recommendations and placed the proposal on the 1992 general election ballot. The voters approved the changes effective for the 1994 election cycle.

After the changes to the Board of Commissioners were approved, but before they were implemented, public interest also arose about changing the method of electing members of the Board of Education, from the existing all-at-large system to a district system similar to that used for the Board of Commissioners. In the 1993 session of the North Carolina General Assembly, Senate Bill 613 was introduced, which provided that six members of the Board of Education would be elected from single-member districts and the remaining three members would be elected at-large. In addition, the bill revised the newly created districts for the Board of Commissioners and provided that those same districts would also be used for the Board of Education. Senate Bill 613 was enacted by the General Assembly on June 16, 1993 and approved by the voters of Mecklenburg County on November 2, 1993.

Plaintiffs-Appellees filed suit on November 8, 1993 challenging the election districts established by Senate Bill 613 for the Board of Commissioners and the Board of Education. All Plaintiffs are residents and registered voters of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. They allege that the new voting districts violate the one person, one vote principle because the populations of the districts are not sufficiently equal. According to Plaintiffs, the initial reapportionment plan for the Board of Commissioners that was drafted by the Blue Ribbon Committee yielded a maximum deviation of only 1.55% in terms of total population. ² In comparison, the reapportionment plan of Senate Bill 613 increased the maximum deviation to 8.33% in terms of total population. J.A. at 74a. Plaintiffs claim that this increase demonstrates that the new districting plan was not the result of a good-faith effort to achieve districts as nearly of equal population as is practicable. Moreover, Plaintiffs' principal argument in support of their claim of vote dilution is that the maximum deviation of 16.17% in terms of voting-age population among the districts under the new plan ³ is unconstitutionally large.

Both parties moved for summary judgment. On March 30, 1995, the district court issued an order granting Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, denying Defendants' motion, and enjoining Defendants from conducting elections under the challenged plan. The district court determined that the districting plan violated the Equal Protection Clause because the deviation of 16.17% in terms of voting-age population exceeds the maximum allowable deviation of 10%.

Defendants appealed. They claim that the district court erred in using voting-age population, rather than total population, as the proper criterion for determining compliance with the one person, one vote principle in this action. Defendants contend that they are entitled to summary judgment because the stipulated maximum deviation of 8.33% in terms of total population is de minimis as a matter of law.

Plaintiffs respond that the district court was correct in using voting-age population because that figure more accurately represents actual voting strength in the districts. In addition, Plaintiffs claim on appeal that even if total population is used, they can nevertheless maintain a viable case of vote dilution under the Equal Protection Clause even when the maximum population deviation is less than 10%.

II.

The issues before the court present questions of law and are therefore subject to de novo review. Duvall v. Bristol-Myers-Squibb Co., 65 F.3d 392, 395 (4th Cir.1995), cert. granted, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 2575, 135 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1996). We address these issues below after a brief overview of the Supreme Court's one person, one vote cases.

A.

The equal protection guarantee of "one person, one vote" ⁴ requires that representatives to an elected body are elected from voting districts of substantially equal population. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 577, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 1389-90, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964). This principle ensures that every voter, no matter what district he or she lives in, will have an equal say in electing a representative. It also ensures that every person receives equal representation by his or her elected officials. The United States Supreme Court has applied the one person, one vote principle to elections for congressional representatives, Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 526, 11 L.Ed.2d 481 (1964); ⁵ state legislative representatives, Reynolds v. Sims, supra; and local governmental representatives, Avery v. Midland County, 390 U.S. 474, 88 S.Ct. 1114, 20 L.Ed.2d 45 (1968).

In the landmark apportionment case of Reynolds v. Sims, the Supreme Court established that the one person, one vote principle is inherent in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Reynolds Court recognized that "the fundamental principle of representative government in this country is one of equal representation for equal numbers of people, without regard to race, sex, economic status, or place of residence within a State." 377 U.S. at 560-61, 84 S.Ct. at 1381. Accordingly, the Court held that "the Equal Protection Clause requires that a State make an honest and good faith effort to construct districts, in both houses of its legislature, as nearly of equal population as is practicable." Id. at 577, 84 S.Ct. at 1390.

The Court in Reynolds realized, however, "that it is a practical impossibility to arrange legislative districts so that each one has an identical number of residents, or citizens, or voters. Mathematical exactness or precision is hardly...