Bryant v. Whitcomb, IP 69-C-115.

• Decision Date: 03 February 1970
• Docket Number: No. IP 69-C-115.,IP 69-C-115.
• Citation: 419 F. Supp. 1290
• Parties: Mason BRYANT et al., Plaintiffs, v. Edgar D. WHITCOMB et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Indiana

419 F. Supp. 1290

Mason BRYANT et al., Plaintiffs, v. Edgar D. WHITCOMB et al., Defendants.

No. IP 69-C-115.

United States District Court, S. D. Indiana, Indianapolis Division.

February 3, 1970.

James Manahan, Indianapolis, Ind., for plaintiffs.

Richard C. Johnson, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, Ind., for defendants.

OPINION

STECKLER, Chief Judge.

This suit questions the validity of the Indiana statutes providing for municipal government in Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, on the basis that these statutes dilute the voting rights of a cognizable, racial minority in violation of the First, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Jurisdiction is founded upon 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Plaintiff Mason Bryant is a Negro residing within Marion County, Indiana, and is a resident and voter in the Center Township Ghetto Area found to exist within Marion County, Indiana, by the three-judge court in the case of Chavis v. Whitcomb, 305 F.Supp. 1364 (S.D.Ind.1969). Much of the same evidence presented to the three-judge court in the Chavis action pertaining to that area has been presented in this cause and the findings therein with regard to the Center Township Ghetto Area and the cognizable, racial minority within that area are found to exist in this suit. For the reasons stated in the Chavis case, those plaintiffs who are not residents of the Ghetto Area are non-suited in this cause.

The defendants in this action are the Governor of the State of Indiana, the Mayor of the City of Indianapolis, and the members of the majority party of the legislative bodies for local government in Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana.

The statutes challenged are provisions of Chapter 143 of the Acts of the Indiana General Assembly for the year 1909, and Chapter 173 of the Acts of the Indiana General Assembly for the year 1969, as they relate to electoral districting. The challenge to the 1909 Act is made only to the extent that it might be revived by a judicial declaration that the 1969 Act is unconstitutional. In view of the opinion in this case, it will not be necessary to give consideration to the validity of the 1909 Act.

After a careful analysis of the Act and the federal constitutional questions presented, the Court finds that the Act does contain unconstitutional provisions. However, each of the defects noted can be cured by implementation or other means as pointed out later in this opinion.

The evidence submitted was voluminous and consisted of plaintiffs' Exhibits A to QQ, and defendants' Exhibits 1 through 24, and certain responses of defendants to requests to admit and to interrogatories of plaintiffs. The Court has also taken judicial notice of the United States census figures for the years 1950 and 1960, so far as pertinent, and of all acts of the Indiana General Assembly so far as relevant to Chapter 173 of the Acts of the Indiana General Assembly for the year 1969. Briefs and arguments of counsel have been complete and helpful.

Both the plaintiffs and the defendants rely heavily on the history of the development of local government in Indianapolis and Marion County to support their respective contentions.

Plaintiffs asserted that for over one hundred years the statutes pertaining to local government have been written and rewritten with the primary purpose of vesting near complete control with the then current majority, and with the necessary result of diluting the voting rights, and political power, of identifiable minority groups.¹ They alleged that Chapter 173 of the Acts of 1969, popularly known as "Unigov," is simply the latest example of such legislative action by the dominant majority under the guise of municipal reform and metropolitan government. They contended that Unigov makes no major changes in local government other than to extend the voting district for the election of the executive and legislative branches of local government from the existing city limits to the county boundaries. This change confers voting rights on numerous individuals in the middle and upper class suburbs which are nearly all white.² The ultimate result, plaintiffs alleged, is to dilute substantially the possibility that the cognizable, racial minority in the Center Township Ghetto Area would be able to pursue effectively political action to further their interests.

In essence, plaintiffs contend that the statute is simply a racial gerrymandering of local government boundaries within the meaning of Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 81 S.Ct. 125, 5 L.Ed.2d 110 (1960), and an unconstitutional dilution of voting powers as defined in Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U.S. 544, 89 S.Ct. 817, 22 L.Ed.2d 1 (1969).

The defendants, however, contend that Unigov is a completely valid, and necessary, legislative effort to reorganize local government to enable it to meet the ever-increasing demands being made upon it; and specifically to consolidate functions of the city and the county and numerous and fragmented elements of local government to create a viable unit for an expanding metropolitan area. Defendants point out that while the boundaries of the City of Indianapolis in the past may have roughly conformed to the urbanized area, they have not in recent years kept up with the expansion of the urbanized area. As a result, a gap has existed between the problems created by urbanization and the ability of government to cope with it in any coordinated and orderly fashion.

Defendants have maintained that the statute does not discriminate against anyone, and in fact gives every resident an equal right to elect governmental officials. Defendants also have contended that the voting rights of no citizen have been curtailed, but on the contrary every citizen in the county has been given a more representative voice in the government as it affects him. They also point out that before the enactment of Chapter 173 citizens living outside the City of Indianapolis were affected in certain functions by determinations of officials of the city who were not elected by them.

The United States Supreme Court has decided that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and the rights protected thereby, are applicable to state legislative actions which alter the boundaries of local units of government or which pertain to the electoral districting of local governmental officials.

Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 81 S.Ct. 125, 5 L.Ed.2d 110 (1960), involved the validity of an Alabama statute which made substantial alterations to the boundaries of the City of Tuskegee, Alabama. Petitioners alleged that the sole purpose of that act was to disenfranchise Negro citizens by changing the boundaries in such a manner that all but four or five of the four hundred Negro voters were placed outside the new city boundaries. The principal contention in support of the legislation was that the establishment of local units of government, and the boundaries thereof, was a proper and lawful purpose for a state legislature and not subject to judicial review. The opinion held that if the legislative act was designed to accomplish an unlawful purpose such as alleged by the petitioners, the statute was reviewable to protect the rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution.

Avery v. Midland County, 390 U.S. 474, 88 S.Ct. 1114, 20 L.Ed.2d 45 (1968), questioned the manner of selection of the Midland County, Texas, Commissioners Court. Midland County had a population of about 70,000. The Commissioners Court was composed of five members—one elected at large from the entire county and the other four from districts whose populations were approximately 67,906; 852; 414; and 828. The decision in that case held that such a vast imbalance violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which was applicable to local units of government.

Justice White, in the majority opinion in Avery v. Midland County, supra, however, stated:

"This Court is aware of the immense pressures facing units of local government, and of the greatly varying problems with which they must deal. The Constitution does not require that a uniform straightjacket bind citizens in devising mechanisms of local government suitable for local needs and efficient in solving local problems. Last Term, for example, the Court upheld a procedure for choosing a school board that placed the selection with school boards of component districts even though the component boards had equal votes and served unequal populations. Sailors v. Board of Education, 387 U.S. 105, 87 S.Ct. 1549, 18 L.Ed.2d 650 (1967). The Court rested on the administrative nature of the area school board's functions and the essentially appointive form of the scheme employed. In Dusch v. Davis, 387 U.S. 112, 87 S.Ct. 1554, 18 L.Ed.2d 656 (1967), the Court permitted Virginia Beach to choose its legislative body by a scheme that included at-large voting for candidates, some of whom had to be residents of particular districts, even though the residence districts varied widely in population.

"The Sailors and Dusch cases demonstrate that the Constitution and this Court are not roadblocks in the path of innovation, experiment, and development among units of local government. We will not bar what Professor Wood has called `the emergence of a new ideology and structure of public bodies, equipped with new capacities and motivations . . .' R. Wood, 1400 Governments, at 175 (1961). Our decision today is only that the Constitution imposes one ground rule for the development of arrangements of local government: a requirement that units with general governmental powers over an entire geographic area not be apportioned among single-member districts of substantially unequal population."

The Court notes, although it is not now in issue, that Chapter 173 requires the twenty-five single-member districts to be as nearly equal as practicable in population, and that plaintiffs have not contended that the Avery holding...