Baker v. Regional High School Dist. No. 5

• Decision Date: 12 September 1979
• Docket Number: Civ. No. N-74-75.
• Citation: 476 F. Supp. 319
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
• Parties: John E. BAKER et al. v. REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 5, et al.

476 F. Supp. 319

John E. BAKER et al. v. REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 5, et al.

Civ. No. N-74-75.

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

September 12, 1979.

Ralph G. Elliot, Hartford, Conn., for plaintiffs.

Ralph K. Winter, Jr., James O'Connor Shea, New Haven, Conn., for intervenors.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

NEWMAN, Circuit Judge.^*

This is the third time that the constitutionality of an apportionment plan for the Board of Education of Regional High School District No. 5 has been before this Court. The issue now, as before, is whether the existing District No. 5 plan is consistent with the one person-one vote requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment.

District No. 5 consists of three towns, Bethany, Orange, and Woodbridge; its Board of Education is responsible for administering grades 7 to 12 of these towns' public schools. When District No. 5 was first established, the Board consisted of nine members, three of whom were elected from each of the three constituent towns. The towns, however, have substantially different populations, Orange being approximately twice as populous as Woodbridge and four times as populous as Bethany. In response to a suit by residents and taxpayers of Orange, this Court declared that the allocation of membership on the Board violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it diluted the votes of the Orange voters. Baker v. Regional High School District No. 5, Civil No. 74-75 (D.Conn.1974), aff'd, 520 F.2d 799 (2d Cir. 1975), cert. denied sub nom. Nonnewaug Regional School District No. 14 v. Scott, 424 U.S. 965, 96 S.Ct. 1458, 47 L.Ed.2d 731 (1976). Consideration of prospective relief was deferred to allow the Connecticut General Assembly an opportunity to authorize procedures for an appropriate solution.

The Assembly responded by enacting a statute, Public Act 75-644, which provided for the reconstitution of regional school districts through the instrumentality of a District Reapportionment Committee (DRC). In each case, the DRC was to develop a plan that would be submitted for approval to the State Board of Education, and then to the voters of the regional district's constituent towns. District No. 5 duly appointed a DRC; the plan that emerged provided that the nine Board members were to be elected at large, thus weighting the votes of all electors equally. However, the plan also contained a novel requirement that there must be three members of the Board residing in each of the three towns (the "3-3-3 Residency Plan"). The State Board of Education rejected this Plan, however, because it felt that the plan violated the Equal Protection Clause. Following a state court proceeding,¹ plaintiffs presented the issue of the 3-3-3 Residency Plan's constitutionality to this Court. The Woodbridge and Bethany members of the DRC intervened, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 24(a)(2), in favor of the Plan. 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 the voters of the three constituent towns and was rejected.

The DRC then proceeded to develop a second new plan. This provided for a 13-member Board; seven members elected by voters from Orange, four by voters from Woodbridge, and two by voters from Bethany (the "7-4-2" Plan). Each member is to have one vote. The apportionment of the 13 seats is roughly consistent with the population of the three towns. However, the new Plan includes the following ingenious requirement: "the Board may not act on a majority composed solely of representatives from the Town of Orange or solely of representatives from the Towns of Bethany and Woodbridge." This Plan was approved by the State Board of Education and, on September 25, 1978, was also approved by the voters of each town. It is now in effect.

The intervenors now apply to this Court for a determination that the 7-4-2 Plan is constitutional. The plaintiffs concede that the Plan's distribution of Board members among the three towns meets the one person-one vote requirement of the Equal Protection Clause. They express serious doubts, however, about whether the provision forbidding actions by a majority composed solely of the members from the largest town, or from the two smaller towns, is constitutionally acceptable. But the plaintiffs do not seek invalidation of the Plan. Instead, they ask this Court not to decide the case, on the ground that jurisdiction is lacking, and that a decision at this time would be "jurisprudentially premature and unwarranted." Intervenors respond that the Plan is in effect, and that there is no reason to delay final disposition of the case. In addition, they point out that Public Act 77-352 permits towns to withdraw from regional school districts as a matter of right only until October, 1979, and that their informed consideration of this "concededly extreme option, as well as others, would be greatly enhanced" by a final disposition.

To begin with, plaintiffs' doubts about the jurisdiction of this Court may be quickly resolved. The intervenors have in effect asked for a declaratory judgment that the 7-4-2 Plan presently in operation in District No. 5 meets constitutional standards. The test for determining whether an action for declaratory judgment satisfies the case or controversy requirement of Article III is whether there is a substantial controversy between parties having adverse legal interests that is of sufficient immediacy to warrant such a declaration of rights. Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 312 U.S. 270, 273, 61 S.Ct. 510, 85 L.Ed. 826 (1941). See Lake Carriers Ass'n v. MacMullan, 406 U.S. 498, 92 S.Ct. 1749, 32 L.Ed.2d 257 (1972). Plaintiffs' doubts about the constitutionality of the present Plan, and their opposition to the previous Plan, establish the adverse legal interests of the parties. Although the plaintiffs do not seek invalidation of the present Plan at this time, they may clearly do so at any moment in the future; if successful, such a suit would invalidate the Plan and require a new proposal, a new submission to the State Board of Education, and a new election. Since the 7-4-2 Plan is currently in effect, the threat of such legal action by the plaintiffs creates a controversy of the requisite immediacy. Moreover, the intervenors' towns have a legal right to withdraw from District No. 5 if they act before October, 1979, and a decision on the constitutionality of the Plan would be relevant to the exercise of this right. There is thus no constitutional bar to this Court's exercise of jurisdiction under the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201 (1976). See Technical Tape Corp. v. Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co., 200 F.2d 876 (2d Cir. 1952).

The second question raised by the plaintiffs —whether a constitutional decision should be avoided on prudential grounds—is a considerably closer one. This is a case of first impression. Since the Supreme Court declared the apportionment of elective state bodies to be a justiciable issue, Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962), the federal courts have confronted an impressive variety of electoral permutations, including voting by geographic region, Town of Lockport v. Citizens for Community Action at the Local Level, Inc., 430 U.S. 259, 97 S.Ct. 1047, 51 L.Ed.2d 313 (1977); Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964), special-interest electorates, Hill v. Stone, 421 U.S. 289, 95 S.Ct. 1637, 44 L.Ed.2d 172 (1975); Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District, 410 U.S. 719, 93 S.Ct. 1224, 35 L.Ed.2d 659 (1973), multimember districts, Chapman v. Meier, 420 U.S. 1, 95 S.Ct. 751, 42 L.Ed.2d 766 (1975); White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 93 S.Ct. 2332, 37 L.Ed.2d 314 (1973), and super-majority requirements, Gordon v. Lance, 403 U.S. 1, 91 S.Ct. 1889, 29 L.Ed.2d 273 (1970). But there do not appear to be any cases that have considered the constitutionality of a plan that would forbid action by certain defined combinations of elected representatives.

Not only is there a lack of judicial precedent, but there is little certainty about the manner in which the 7-4-2 Plan will operate.² The danger it presents is that it would dilute the votes of those voters in the town or towns whose representatives alone comprised a majority on a particular vote, but were unable to act. For example, a proposal supported only by the seven representatives from Orange would be defeated, while a proposal supported by any other combination of seven representatives would be successful, thus diluting the vote of an Orange resident in that circumstance. On the other hand, the Plan's limitation on majority action applies to the representatives of Woodbridge and Bethany in those instances when they alone constitute a majority. While those from Orange may act only if they secure the support of at least one representative from either of the other towns, those from the other towns may act only if they secure the support of one of the Orange representatives. In practice this arrangement might operate in a fair manner, even though the voters of the largest town can be denied the exercise of their majority position. Without further information about the actual operation of the Plan, it is difficult to determine what its actual effect will be.

Given the lack of prior judicial experience with this type of plan, and the uncertainty about the actual manner in which the Plan will operate, the only remaining basis for judgment would be an evaluation of the Plan on its face. Such an evaluation, however, does not yield a conclusive answer. Because the Plan links the voting power of the Board members to their geographic origin, it cannot be regarded as unquestionably constitutional, as the intervenors urge. In ...