Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris Ponterio v. Morris, s. 87-1022

• Decision Date: 22 March 1989
• Docket Number: 87-1112,Nos. 87-1022,s. 87-1022
• Citation: 103 L.Ed.2d 717,489 U.S. 688,109 S.Ct. 1433
• Parties: BOARD OF ESTIMATE OF CITY OF NEW YORK, et al., Appellants, v. Beverly MORRIS et al. Frank V. PONTERIO, Appellant, v. Beverly MORRIS, Joy Clarke Holmes and Joanne Oplustil
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

489 U.S. 688

109 S.Ct. 1433

103 L.Ed.2d 717

BOARD OF ESTIMATE OF CITY OF NEW YORK, et al., Appellants,

v Beverly MORRIS et al.

Frank V. PONTERIO, Appellant,

v. Beverly MORRIS, Joy Clarke Holmes and Joanne Oplustil.

Nos. 87-1022, 87-1112.

Argued Dec. 7, 1988.

Decided March 22, 1989.

Syllabus

New York City's Board of Estimate consists of the mayor and two other members elected citywide, each of whom casts two votes, plus the elected presidents of the city's five boroughs, each of whom casts one vote. Appellees, residents and voters of Brooklyn, the most populous borough, charging that the city charter's sections governing the board's composition are inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, brought suit in the District Court, which concluded that the board was a nonelective, nonlegislative body not subject to the rule established by Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506, and other reapportionment cases. The Court of Appeals reversed, finding that the board's selection process must comply with the reapportionment cases' so-called "one-person, one-vote" requirement, since its members ultimately are chosen by popular vote. On remand, the District Court determined that applying the Abate v. Mundt, 403 U.S. 182, 91 S.Ct. 1904, 29 L.Ed.2d 399, population per representative methodology to the disparate borough populations produced a total deviation of 132.9% from voter equality among the electorates, and that the city's explanations for this range neither required nor justified such a gross deviation. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding, inter alia, that the presence of citywide representatives did not warrant departure from the Abate methodology and, thus, that the District Court's finding of a 132.9% deviation was correct.

Held: The Board of Estimate's structure is inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because, although the boroughs have widely disparate populations, each has equal representation on the board. Pp. 692-703.

(a) Board membership elections are local elections subject to review under the prevailing reapportionment doctrine. The board, composed of officials who become members as a matter of law upon their elections, has a significant range of fiscal and legislative functions common to municipal governments, including assisting in the formulation of the city's budget, and controlling land-use, contract, and franchise powers. That the citywide members enjoy a 6-to-5 voting majority does not render the board's composition constitutional, since the borough presidents control the outcome of board decisions anytime the citywide members do not vote together and always control budgetary decisions because the mayor has no vote on such matters. Moreover, the Reynolds- Abate approach should not be put aside in favor of the theoretical Banzhaf Index—which produces a standard deviation of 30.8% for nonbudget matters and a larger figure for budget items by mathematically calculating a voter's power to determine the outcome of an election—since the latter approach tends to ignore partisanship, race, voting habits, and other characteristics having an impact on general lection outcomes. Pp. 692-699.

(b) The presence of citywide members is a major component to be factored into the process of determining the deviation between more or less populous boroughs. This approach—which yields a standard deviation of 78%—recognizes that voters in each borough vote for, and are represented by, both their borough president and the citywide members, thus departing from the lower courts' approach which treated the five boroughs as single-member districts, each with a representative having a single vote. Pp. 699-701.

(c) The city's proffered governmental interests—that the board is essential to the successful government of New York City, is effective, and accommodates natural and political boundaries as well as local interests—do not suffice to justify a 78% deviation from the one-person, one-vote ideal, particularly because the city could be served by alternative ways of constituting the board that would minimize the discrimination in voting power. Pp. 701-703.

831 F.2d 384 (CA2 1987) affirmed.

WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and MARSHALL, O'CONNOR, SCALIA, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which STEVENS, J., joined, post, p. 703. BLACKMUN, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, post, p. 703.

Peter L. Zimroth, New York City, for appellants.

Richard David Emery, New York City, for appellees.

Justice WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Board of Estimate of the City of New York consists of three members elected citywide, plus the elected presidents of each of the city's five boroughs. Because the boroughs have widely disparate populations—yet each has equal representation on the board—the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that this structure is inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We affirm.

Appellees, residents and voters of Brooklyn, New York City's most populous borough, commenced this action against the city in December 1981.¹ They charged that the city's charter sections that govern the composition of the Board of Estimate ² are inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as construed and applied in various decisions of this Court dealing with districting and apportionment for the purpose of electing legislative bodies. The District Court dismissed the complaint, 551 F.Supp. 652 (EDNY 1982), on the ground that the board was not subject to the rule established by Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964), its companion cases, and its progeny, such as Abate v. Mundt, 403 U.S. 182, 91 S.Ct. 1904, 29 L.Ed.2d 399 (1971), because in its view the board is a nonelective, nonlegislative body. The Court of Appeals reversed. 707 F.2d 686 (CA2 1983). Because all eight officials on the board ultimately are selected by popular vote, the court concluded that the board's selection process must comply with the so-called "one person, one vote" requirement of the reapportionment cases. The court remanded to the District Court to ascertain whether this compliance exists. Bifurcating the proceedings, the District Court determined first, that applying this Court's methodology in Abate v. Mundt, supra, to the disparate borough populations produced a total deviation of 132.9% from voter equality among these electorates, 592 F.Supp. 1462 (EDNY 1984); and second, that the city's several explanations for this range neither require nor justify the electoral scheme's gross deviation from equal representation. 647 F.Supp. 1463 (EDNY 1986). The court thus found it unnecessary to hold that the deviation it identified was per se unconstitutional.

The Court of Appeals affirmed. 831 F.2d 384 (CA2 1987). Tracing the imperative of each citizen's equal power to elect representatives from Reynolds v. Sims to Abate v. Mundt and beyond, the court endorsed the District Court's focus on population per representative. The court held that the presence of the citywide representatives did not warrant departure from the Abate approach and that the District Court's finding of a 132% deviation was correct. Without deciding whether this gross deviation could ever be justified in light of the flexibility accorded to local governments in ordering their affairs, the Court of Appeals, agreeing with the District Court, held inadequate the city's justifications for its departure from the equal protection requirement that elective legislative bodies be chosen from districts substantially equal in population, especially since alternative measures could address the city's valid policy concerns and at the same time lessen the discrimination against voters in the more populous districts. We noted probable jurisdiction in both Nos. 87-1022 and 87-1112, 485 U.S. 986, 108 S.Ct. 1288, 99 L.Ed.2d 498 (1988).³

As an initial matter, we reject the city's suggestion that because the Board of Estimate is a unique body wielding non-legislative powers, board membership elections are not subject to review under the prevailing reapportionment doctrine. The equal protection guarantee of "one person, one vote" extends not only to congressional districting plans, see Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 526, 11 L.Ed.2d 481 (1964), not only to state legislative districting, see Reynolds v. Sims, supra, but also to local government apportionment. Avery v. Midland County, 390 U.S. 474, 479-481, 88 S.Ct. 1114, 1117-1118, 20 L.Ed.2d 45 (1968); Abate v. Mundt, supra, 403 U.S., at 185, 91 S.Ct., at 1906. Both state and local elections are subject to the general rule of population equality between electoral districts. No distinction between authority exercised by state assemblies, and the general governmental powers delegated by these assemblies to local, elected officials, suffices to insulate the latter from the standard of substantial voter equality. See Avery v. Midland County, supra, 390 U.S., at 481, 88 S.Ct., at 1118. This was confirmed in Hadley v. Junior College Dist. of Metropolitan Kansas City, 397 U.S. 50, 90 S.Ct. 791, 25 L.Ed.2d 45 (1970):

"[W]henever a state or local government decides to select persons by popular election to perform governmental functions, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that each qualified voter must e given an equal opportunity to participate in that election, and when members of an elected body are chosen from separate districts, each district must be established on a basis that will insure, as far as is practicable, that equal numbers of voters can vote for proportionally equal numbers of officials." Id., at 56, 90 S.Ct., at 795.

These cases are based on the...