Baker v. Carr

• Citation: 179 F. Supp. 824
• Decision Date: 21 December 1959
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 2724.
• Parties: Charles BAKER et al., Plaintiffs, v. Joe C. CARR et al., Defendants.
• Court: United States District Courts. 6th Circuit. United States District Court of Middle District of Tennessee

179 F. Supp. 824

Charles BAKER et al., Plaintiffs, v. Joe C. CARR et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 2724.

United States District Court M. D. Tennessee, Nashville Division.

December 21, 1959.

Denney, Leftwich & Osborn, Nashville, Tenn., Hobart Atkins, Knoxville, Tenn., Chandler, Manire & Chandler, Memphis, Tenn., for plaintiff.

George McCanless, Atty. Gen. of State of Tennessee, Allison B. Humphreys, Sol. Gen., State of Tennessee, Nashville, Tenn., for defendant.

Robert H. Jennings, Jr., Harris Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., for City of Nashville, Tenn.

J. W. Anderson, City Atty., E. K. Meacham, Chattanooga, Tenn., for City of Chattanooga, Tenn.

Before MARTIN, Circuit Judge, and BOYD and MILLER, District Judges.

PER CURIAM.

The original plaintiffs and intervening plaintiffs, citizens and qualified voters residing in different areas of Tennessee, seek to challenge in this action under the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment the existing legislative apportionment in Tennessee. Briefly summarized, the contentions of the plaintiffs¹ are as follows:

The Constitution of Tennessee (Article 2, Sections 4, 5 and 6) directs the legislature at the expiration of each 10-year period after 1871 to make an enumeration of the qualified voters and to apportion the members of the legislature among the several counties or districts according to the number of qualified voters therein. It provides for 99 members of the House of Representatives and 33 members of the Senate. Despite the mandatory requirements of the state constitution, no reapportionment has been enacted by the legislature since the Act of 1901, Acts 1901, c. 122, and even that Act was passed without the enumeration of voters required by the Constitution of the State. Although persistent demands have been made upon the legislature to reapportion the state for legislative purposes in accordance with the constitutional command, and although numerous bills have been introduced in the legislature to accomplish this purpose, the distribution of legislative seats remains as provided for in the Act of 1901. Such legislative distribution is grossly disproportionate to the distribution of population in the state, a condition brought about by shifts or changes in population since 1901. The inevitable result of this violation of the constitutional mandate is a gross inequality of legislative representation, a debasement of the voting rights of large numbers of citizens, and hence a denial of the equal protection of the law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Illustrating the inequality, it is pointed out that a minority of approximately 37 per cent of the voting population of the state now controls 20 of the 33 members of the Senate. It is further alleged that such inequality of representation has resulted in continuous and systematic legislative discrimination against the plaintiffs and others similarly situated with respect to the allocation of the burdens of taxation and the distribution of funds derived from the state through the exercise of the taxing power, notably funds for the support of the public schools, the maintenance of roads and highways and other purposes.

Named as defendants in the action are the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Co-ordinator of Elections, and the Members of the State Board of Elections. No remedy is sought by the plaintiffs which would contemplate direct action against the state legislature or its members to require them to reapportion the legislative districts. Specifically, the plaintiffs request that the Court declare unconstitutional the legislative Reapportionment Act of 1901 as well as the Code provisions of Tennessee, T.C.A. § 3-101 et seq. implementing that Act as being violative of the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that the Court then either (a) require by injunction that the defendants take necessary steps to hold an election by means of which the members of the next legislature would be elected from the state at large without regard to counties or districts, or (b) direct the defendants to hold an election by means of which the members of the legislature would be elected from counties and districts in accordance with the constitutional formula by applying mathematically the federal census of 1950.

The action is presently before the Court upon the defendants' motion to dismiss predicated upon three grounds: first, that the Court lacks jurisdiction of the subject matter; second, that the complaints fail to state a claim upon which relief can be granted; and third, that indispensable party defendants are not before the Court.

The question of the distribution of political strength for legislative purposes has been before the Supreme Court of the United States on numerous occasions. From a review of these decisions there can be no doubt that the federal rule, as enunciated and applied by the Supreme Court, is that the federal courts, whether from a lack of jurisdiction or from the inappropriateness of the subject matter for judicial consideration, will not intervene in cases of this type to compel legislative reapportionment. Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 549, 66 S.Ct. 1198, 90 L.Ed. 1432; Cook v. Fortson and Turman v. Duckworth, 329 U.S. 675, 67 S.Ct. 21, 91 L.Ed. 596; Colegrove v. Barrett, 330 U. S. 804, 67 S.Ct. 973, 91 L.Ed. 1262; MacDougall v. Green, 335 U.S. 281, 69 S.Ct. 1, 93 L.Ed. 3; South v. Peters, 339 U.S. 276, 70 S.Ct. 641, 94 L.Ed. 834; Remmey v. Smith, 342 U.S. 916, 72 S.Ct. 368, 96 L.Ed. 685; Anderson v. Jordan, 343 U.S. 912, 72 S.Ct. 648, 96 L.Ed. 1328; Kidd v. McCanless, 352 U.S. 920, 77 S.Ct. 223, 1 L.Ed.2d 157; Radford v. Gary, 352 U.S. 991, 77 S.Ct. 559, 1 L.Ed.2d 540.

In view of this array of decisions by our highest court, charting the unmistakable course which this Court must pursue in the instant case, it is unnecessary to consider decisions by lower federal courts. It is significant to point out that the case of Kidd v. McCanless, supra, involved the identical apportionment statutes and the identical state of facts with respect to apportionment of representatives in Tennessee, as the present action, the appeal in that case by the plaintiffs from the adverse decision of the Supreme Court of Tennessee being dismissed by the Supreme Court of the United States upon the authority of Colegrove v. Green, supra, and Anderson v. Jordan, supra. Moreover, the facts in the recent case of Radford v. Gary, supra, decided February 25, 1957, are substantially parallel to the facts of the present case. The plaintiffs attacked the existing legislative apportionment in Oklahoma, alleging inequalities in legislative representation and a consequent violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The relief sought was not only a mandatory injunction against the members of the legislature, but in the alternative that the members of the legislature be elected at large until constitutional reapportionment could be effected. A three-judge federal district court dismissed the action (Radford v. Gary, D. C., 145 F.Supp. 541) and the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the judgment of the district court by a per curiam opinion upon the authority of Colegrove v. Green, supra, and Kidd v. McCanless, supra. The Court can find no way in the present case to escape the compelling authority of this ruling as well as the other rulings of the Supreme Court herein cited.²

The wisdom and soundness of the non-intervention rule consistently followed by the Supreme Court are strikingly pointed up when the question of an appropriate judicial remedy is considered. As stated, the plaintiffs do not even insist that the Court could or should take any direct action against the legislature itself, by mandamus or otherwise, to compel the individual members of the legislature to perform their constitutional duties to reapportion the state legislative...