Baker v. REGIONAL HIGH SCH. DIST. NO. 5
| Decision Date | 20 May 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. N-74-75.,N-74-75. |
| Citation | 432 F. Supp. 535 |
| Parties | John E. BAKER et al. v. REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 5 et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut |
Ralph G. Elliot, Alcorn, Bakewell & Smith, Hartford, Conn., Ralph K. Winter, Jr., James O'Connor Shea, New Haven, Conn., for plaintiffs.
Gerald P. Dwyer, William J. Cousins, Charles L. Flynn, S. Robert Jelley, New Haven, Conn., for defendants.
This case concerns the constitutionality of an apportionment plan for the Board of Education of Regional High School District No. 5. The pending question can be understood best when viewed against the background of this protracted dispute.
Plaintiffs are residents, taxpayers, and electors of the town of Orange. They filed this lawsuit over three years ago against defendant Regional High School District No. 5, its Board of Education, the Board members, the District superintendent, and the treasurers and clerks of the towns of Orange, Woodbridge, and Bethany. District No. 5 was formed in 1952-53 by the voters of the towns of Orange, Bethany, and Woodbridge for the purpose of providing facilities for and administering the education of students in grades 7 to 12 of the public schools. Intervenors are voters, residents and selectmen of the towns of Woodbridge and Bethany.
When District No. 5 was established, a Regional Board of Education was organized as an elective body having nine members. Three members of the Board were to be elected by the voters of each of the three towns in the District. In other words, each of the three towns was an election district from which three Board members were elected.
More than two years ago, this Court ruled that this allocation of membership on the District Board of Education was unconstitutional because it substantially diluted the votes of Orange electors.1 Baker, et al. v. Regional High School District No. 5, et al., Civil No. N-74-75 (D.Conn.1974), aff'd, 520 F.2d 799 (2d Cir. 1975), cert. denied sub nom. Nonnewaug Regional School District No. 14, et al. v. Scott, 424 U.S. 965, 96 S.Ct. 1458, 47 L.Ed.2d 731 (1976). When that ruling was filed, the Court deferred consideration of prospective relief to afford the Connecticut General Assembly an opportunity to devise a legislative solution to the problems encountered in correcting the malapportionment of regional school boards.
The legislature responded by enacting Public Act 75-644. This statute, approved on July 9, 1975, provides an elaborate procedure for reconstituting regional school boards to conform to federal constitutional requirements. One aspect of this procedure is the formation within each regional school district of a District Reapportionment Committee (DRC). A DRC was duly appointed in District No. 5, and after extensive deliberations, the Committee approved, by a majority vote, a reapportionment plan for the District. Pursuant to Public Act 75-644, the DRC transmitted the plan to the State Board of Education. On December 7, 1976, the State Board of Education voted to reject the plan because "it failed to meet federal constitutional standards." The Board advised that the plan should be modified to avoid dilution of the voting strength of the voters of the town of Orange.
On January 5, 1977, the intervenors in this case, the Woodbridge and Bethany members of the DRC, appealed the Board of Education determination by filing an action in the Court of Common Pleas. On February 2, 1977, Judge Dorsey of the Court of Common Pleas stayed further proceedings with respect to the reapportionment of District No. 5 until determination of the action in the state court, or until further order of this Court.
On January 27, 1977, plaintiffs moved in this Court for an order requiring the District Board of Education to adopt weighted voting until such time as the Court would be able to determine whether the District has been properly reapportioned.2
Intervenors moved to intervene in opposition to plaintiffs' request. A hearing was held at which time all counsel agreed to submit to the Court the question of the constitutionality of the apportionment plan adopted by the DRC, but rejected by the State Board of Education. In addition, counsel have submitted briefs on the constitutionality of an apportionment plan based on weighted voting.
A preliminary question is whether the motion to intervene should be granted. Intervenors claim that their interests as voters, residents, and parents of school children are affected by the proceedings in this action. Specifically, they allege that a ruling by the Court granting the relief sought by plaintiffs' motion, imposition of weighted voting, would violate their Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection. Moreover, intervenors contend that no existing party to this action adequately represents their interests.
It seems clear that intervenors meet the requirements of Fed.R.Civ.P. 24(a)(2). Their interests are directly affected by any apportionment plan that is approved. Assuming, arguendo, that weighted voting would deny intervenors' rights to equal protection, then the granting of plaintiffs' motion would impair the ability of intervenors to protect their interests. In fact, intervenors have taken up the laboring oar in opposing plaintiffs' motion. The principal defendants, District No. 5 and its Board of Education, have taken no position on the motion. The foregoing reasons indicate that the genuine controversy now before the Court is between plaintiff and intervenors. Accordingly, the motion to intervene is granted.
The next question is to determine what issues on the merits are appropriately before this Court and the order in which they should be considered. The motion that occasioned the parties' return to this Court is the plaintiffs' motion to impose weighted voting as interim relief pending a final determination of prospective relief. Obviously the plaintiffs' motion was triggered by the State Board's rejection of the plan adopted by the DRC, and intervenors' appeal of the Board's decision filed in the Court of Common Pleas. Fearing that the procedure contemplated by the legislature would be stalled, plaintiffs returned to this Court to seek interim relief. In a technical sense, all that is pending before me is plaintiffs' motion for interim relief. However, as previously mentioned, on the hearing of this motion, all counsel agreed that this Court should decide the merits of the federal constitutional challenge to the DRC's plan.
Of course, there are limits on the extent to which parties can, even by agreement, legitimate a court's authority to adjudicate. Plainly the parties could not confer subject matter jurisdiction if it were lacking. But there is no doubt that this Court has subject matter jurisdiction over the essential dispute between the parties, i. e., whether the original apportionment was consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment and if not, what prospective equitable relief the plaintiffs are entitled to in order to vindicate their constitutional rights. It is in the course of determining the appropriateness of prospective equitable relief that the Court is asked to adjudicate the constitutionality of the DRC's plan. In effect, the plaintiffs believe they are entitled to interim relief because in their view the DRC has failed to adopt a plan that meets constitutional standards, and the request for interim relief is opposed on the ground that the DRC plan is constitutional. Thus, in a very real sense, the entitlement of the plaintiffs to some form of interim relief depends on whether or not the DRC has adopted a plan that meets federal constitutional standards. Of course, this Court has no appellate jurisdiction to review the decision of the State Board of Education rejecting the DRC's plan. But since the validity of that plan under the Fourteenth Amendment is an issue inextricably bound up in determination of plaintiffs' entitlement to interim relief, this Court, in the exercise of its original jurisdiction, can decide the issue of the plan's constitutionality. Moreover, the exercise of such jurisdiction is plainly appropriate in view of the state court's stay pending further order of this Court and the expressed preference of all counsel for decision here. Indeed, whether the DRC's plan meets federal constitutional standards should be decided first, because if it does, the availability of a plan formulated pursuant to state law and lawful as a matter of federal law would be a sufficient reason for this Court to decline to order some other plan as interim relief.
On October 7, 1976, the DRC voted to recommend the following plan ("the 3-3-3 plan") to the State Board of Education:
The District No. 5 Regional School Board of Education shall be composed of nine (9) members elected at large. Of the nine (9) members, three (3) are to be residents of Bethany; three (3) are to be residents of Woodbridge; three (3) are to be residents of Orange. Each member is to have one vote.
Intervenors in this case, the Woodbridge and Bethany members of the Reapportionment Committee, voted for this plan; the Committee members from Orange voted against it.
Plaintiffs' claim is that the 3-3-3 plan is unconstitutional because it dilutes the voting power of voters in Orange. The basis for this claim is two-fold. First, plaintiffs point to the fact that 55% of the population in the District resides in Orange. Accordingly, plaintiffs contend that the one person-one vote doctrine requires a plan that entitles Orange voters to a majority of the representatives on the Regional Board of Education. Second, plaintiffs contend that the 3-3-3 plan permits representatives from the smaller towns of Bethany and Woodbridge to wield majority power on the Board. Intervenors dispute this interpretation of the plan, and claim that it is constitutional.
Nearly three years ago, this Court stated that Connecticut's efforts to establish regional school...
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Baker v. Regional High School Dist. No. 5
...This Court held that the Plan satisfied constitutional requirements, but retained jurisdiction of the case. Baker v. Regional School District No. 5, 432 F.Supp. 535 (D.Conn.1977). The Plan was then approved by the State Board of Education. On January 17, 1978, it was submitted to a vote by ......