Donovan v. Suffolk Cnty. Apportionment Comm'rs

• Decision Date: 05 October 1916
• Citation: 225 Mass. 55,113 N.E. 740
• Parties: DONOVAN v. SUFFOLK COUNTY APPORTIONMENT COMMISSIONERS. HORMEL v. SAME.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

225 Mass. 55

113 N.E. 740

DONOVAN

v.SUFFOLK COUNTY APPORTIONMENT COMMISSIONERS.

HORMEL

v.SAME.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Oct. 5, 1916.

Report from Supreme Judicial Court, Suffolk County.

Petitions by James Donovan and by Her man Hormel against commissioners, elected to divide Suffolk county into representative districts and to apportion among such districts the 54 members of the House of Representatives allotted to the county, to have their report declared void, and for a writ of mandamus directing them to make a new division and apportionment. Heard on report by a single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court. Division and apportionment held void, and commissioners directed to proceed to a new apportionment.

See, also, 113 N. E. 581.

Nathan Matthews, Arthur D. Hill, Francis G. Goodale, and Herbert B. Ehrmann, all of Boston, for petitioners.

Walter A. Buie, of Boston, for respondents.

RUGG, C. J.

[1] These petitions are brought to set aside a report of the commissioners (elected according to St. 1913, c. 835, pt. 4, § 390) dividing Suffolk county into representative districts and apportioning among them the number of representatives allotted under St. 1916, c. 270, § 24, on the ground that it violates the rights of the petitioners secured by article 21 of the amendments to the Constitution. Since the decision of Attorney General v. Suffolk County Apportionment Commissioners, 113 N. E. 581, wherein it was necessary to declare their first report manifestly contrary to the provisions of the Constitution, the commissioners have filed this new and second report of apportionment.

The present report is assailed as to four districts, each coterminous with a ward of Boston. District No. 3, containing 4,854 legal voters, is given two representatives or one for 2,427 legal voters. District No. 5, with 7,946 legal voters, is given three representatives. District No. 6, with 8,618 legal voters, is given two representatives. District No. 23, with 5,596 legal voters, is given one representative. The disparity between the smallest and largest number of legal voters for one representative is the difference between 2,427 in district No. 3 and 5,596 in district No. 23, or 3,169. Each voter in districts 3 and 5 is given more than twice the voting power for representatives in the general court given to each voter in district No. 23. District No. 5 is given one more representative than is given to 672 more legal voters in district No. 6. District No. 3 is given one more representative than is given to district No. 23 with 742 more voters.

The mandate of the Constitution is that the county shall be divided ‘into representative districts * * * so as to apportion the representation assigned * * * equally, as nearly as may be, according to the relative number of legal voters in the several districts.’ It is manifest that the constitutional mandate has not been followed in this report. It is not an approximation to equality to allot three representatives to 7,946 voters and only two representatives to 8,618 voters, and to allot two representatives to 4,854 voters and one representative to 5,596 voters. The number of these representatives is in inverse proportion to the number of voters. It requires no argument to demonstrate that a reversal of this allotment would be a much nearer approach to equality. This report confers special power in the election of representatives to voters in favored districts as compared with voters in other districts against which discrimination is made. This disparity in favor of the privileged districts as against the disparaged districts is not insignificant or negligible, but, beside the additional discriminatory representative to each favored district, is 672 in one instance and 742 in another, in themselves very considerable numbers as compared with 3,258, which is the representative unit of Suffolk county.

Whenever this kind of inequality of apportionment has been before the courts, it has been held to be contrary to the Constitution. It has been said to be ‘arbitrary and capricious and against the vital principle of equality.’ Giddings v. Blacker, 93 Mich. 1, 16, 52 N. W. 944,16 L. R. A. 402;Parker v. Powell, 133 Ind. 178, 197, 32 N. E. 836,33 N. E. 119,18 L. R. A. 567;Denney v. Basler, 144...