Holmes v. Farmer
| Decision Date | 10 April 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 83-149-A,83-149-A |
| Citation | 475 A.2d 976 |
| Parties | John A. HOLMES, Jr., et al. v. Susan L. FARMER et al. ppeal. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
This is an appeal by the plaintiffs 1 from a judgment of the Superior Court dismissing their complaint challenging the constitutionality of the legislation reapportioning and redistricting the Rhode Island Legislature, specifically the House of Representatives.
The plaintiffs claimed that the reapportionment plans violated the Rhode Island Constitution's requirement of compactness; that the plans violated the equal-protection clauses of the United States' and Rhode Island's Constitutions because of population inequality among the districts; that certain defendant legislators engaged in an unlawful civil conspiracy to deprive voters of their right to equal protection; that the plans were gerrymandered to serve political purposes and to dilute the voting strength of women and various racial, ethnic, religious, and political groups; and that the plans violated the Rhode Island constitutional requirement of partial compliance with the municipal-representation apportionment formulae. The plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment, injunctive relief, and a court-ordered redistricting plan.
The case was originally consolidated with Licht v. Quattrocchi (No. 82-1494 R.I. Superior Court--a suit challenging the redistricting of the Senate), concerned with the validity of the Senate redistricting. The issues concerning the redistricting of the House of Representatives (House plan) were specifically severed. The trial court ruled that the Senate plan was unconstitutional, and this court upheld that judgment. Licht v. Quattrocchi, R.I., 449 A.2d 887 (1982). 2 This appeal involves only the validity of the House plan.
The claims against the individual House defendant legislators were dismissed prior to trial because of their immunity from civil suit. The plaintiffs made various other motions for summary judgment and dismissal, but the court declined to rule on these during trial.
Evidence described as highly technical by the trial justice was presented by experts throughout the three-week trial along with approximately forty exhibits. During trial plaintiffs called the consultant to the General Assembly's Reapportionment Commission and various state legislators to testify concerning the formation of the House plan. The trial justice ruled this testimony inadmissible on the grounds of privilege and relevance.
On the basis of evidence presented, which the trial justice found credible, the following facts were found.
According to the 1980 census, the population of the State of Rhode Island was 947,154; therefore, the ideal district population for each of the 100 House districts was 9,472.
The cities of Providence and Newport contained, under the 1974 House districting, districts or portions of districts that comprised population in numbers that exceeded the number of seats to which these cities would now be entitled if their populations were divided by the ideal district population. Between the 1970 and the 1980 censuses, Newport lost 15.3 percent of its population, the adjoining town of Middletown lost 41.2 percent of its population, and the town of Jamestown grew 38.8 percent in population, all of which changes necessitated substantial alterations in district lines.
Prior to the 1982 Reapportionment Act, one House district, No. 45, was overrepresented by 64 percent and another district, No. 58, was underrepresented by 69 percent. In the House plan enacted, the total maximum deviation, which is the sum of the percentage deviations of the most underrepresented and the most overrepresented districts, is 11.5 percent, or 1,090 people. The major reason for this particular deviation is a population disparity in the plan between district 24, which is overrepresented by 5.827 percent, and district 25, which is underrepresented by 5.679 percent. This particular disparity, evidence established, resulted from a mathematical error in drawing the boundary lines between districts 24 and 25. Without this error, the total maximum deviation of the House plan, excluding the two districts, would be 5.4 percent, or 518 people. The average deviation overall in the House plan is 1.9 percent, or 180 people, and the median deviation in the plan is 2.1 percent, or 199 people. If one excludes districts 24 and 25, the formation of which, as we have said, resulted from a mathematical error, no district in the plan deviates more than 2.7 percent from the ideal. Forty-five of the districts have deviations of less than 2 percent, and nineteen of the districts in the plan have deviations of less than 1 percent.
Between the 1970 census and the 1980 census, the population of Rhode Island decreased by .3 percent, or 2,569 people. Also, 129,980 people shifted from district to district within the state between the time that the then-existing House district lines were created in 1974 and the time the 1980 census was conducted. When the General Assembly was reapportioned in 1982, 76.8 percent of the population within the State carried over within the same districts.
The number of crossings of municipal boundaries involved in the House plan is seventy-four. The plaintiffs' proposed reapportionment plan would have contained sixty-eight municipal boundary crossings.
The evidence established that there are twenty-five recognized neighborhoods within the city of Providence. Consequently, the division of Providence into eighteen representative districts or parts of districts necessitated a substantial number of crossings of neighborhood lines. The court also found that there are approximately twenty recognized neighborhoods within the city of Newport.
The court found that district 98 in the House plan enacted comprises the island of Jamestown and part of the city of Newport, which are contiguous on a shore-to-shore basis by virtue of the Newport Bridge.
The percentage of black population in the Providence districts remained substantially unchanged in the 1982 reapportionment. The districts in the 1982 House plan contain districts that range in black population from 9.62 percent to 44.47 percent. The court ruled that the evidence did not demonstrate minority-voter dilution but rather that the plan preserves the political strength of minorities in Providence and Newport. This ruling has not been appealed by plaintiffs.
The trial justice dismissed plaintiffs' complaint and upheld the validity of the House reapportionment plan.
The plaintiffs raise five issues, three of which we deal with here:
1. Whether the trial justice correctly upheld the legislators' and their aide's invocation of the privilege contained in the speech in debate clause.
2. Whether the House plan violates the Rhode Island constitutional requirement that districts be as compact as possible.
3. Whether there is a violation of the federal and state equal-protection clause.
We need not deal with the issues of the relevancy of the excluded testimony, nor need we deal with the trial justice's refusal to declare the reapportionment commission's consultant an adverse witness because our ruling on the first issue is dispositive of those matters.
On numerous occasions during trial, plaintiffs attempted to introduce evidence from Dr. Anthony Coelho, the legislative aide to the General Assembly's Reapportionment Commission; Speaker of the House Matthew J. Smith; Representatives Joseph DeAngelis and Zygmunt J. Friedemann; and Senator Lila M. Sapinsley, concerning the formation of the state reapportionment plan. The evidence was principally offered to show that the Reapportionment Commission used a ± 2.5 percent target deviation in drawing district lines, that the commission members were politically motivated when they decided on district boundaries, and that the members were ignorant of applicable laws by which they were required to abide.
The trial justice excluded this testimony on two grounds: (1) that under R.I. Const., art. IV, sec. 5, 3 the legislators and their aides enjoyed a constitutional privilege from testifying concerning their words and conduct in the execution of their legislative duties and (2) that the evidence was irrelevant. At first he allowed Senator Sapinsley to testify because she allegedly waived her privilege, but he later sustained defendants' objections to her testimony on relevancy grounds.
There has never been an interpretation or application of Rhode Island's "speech in debate clause" by this court. 4 In order to interpret this provision adequately, we must look at the history of this section as well as the interpretation of a similar provision in the United States Constitution (Art. I, Sec. 6). 5 We do not accept plaintiff's contention that there is a relevant difference between the federal provision ("speech or debate") and the state provision ("speech in debate").
English history provides the origin of freedom of speech for legislators. The language in both the federal and state speech in debate clause appears to be taken directly from the English Bill of Rights of 1689. 6 As the United States Supreme Court pointed out in Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 202-03, 26 L.Ed. 377, 391 (1881):
"Many of the colonies, which afterwards became States in our Union, had similar provisions in their charters or in bills of rights, which were part of their fundamental laws; and the general idea in all of them, however expressed, must have been the same, and must have been in the minds of the members of the constitutional convention."
The speech in debate clause was first recorded in 1542 in the Speaker's Petition that defined the relationship between Parliament and the...
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