Honsey v. Donovan
| Decision Date | 04 December 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 4-64-Civ. 169.,4-64-Civ. 169. |
| Citation | 236 F. Supp. 8 |
| Parties | Milton C. HONSEY, Connie Burchett, Harold H. Hoffmann, Donald L. Huber, Clark Mac Gregor, Glenn G. C. Olson, Stanley W. Olson, Richard J. Parish and Kenneth Wolfe, Plaintiffs, v. Joseph L. DONOVAN, Secretary of State of the State of Minnesota, Eugene A. Monick, Auditor of Ramsey County, Minnesota, Robert F. Fitzsimmons, Auditor of Hennepin County, Minnesota, Kenneth W. Campbell, Auditor of Anoka County, Minnesota, Carl D. Onischuk, Auditor of Dakota County, Minnesota, Individually as Auditors of Their Respective Counties and as Representatives of All County Auditors of the State of Minnesota, Defendants. Donald Sinclair, Rudolph Hanson, William C. Novosad, A. P. Lofgren, Charles Cheney, Richard C. Bergan, S. W. Rodekuhr, Martin L. Vanseth, and David G. Kankel, Intervening Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Minnesota |
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Vernon E. Bergstrom and Clayton L. LeFevere, of Howard, Peterson, LeFevere, Lefler & Hamilton, Minneapolis, Minn., for plaintiffs.
Walter F. Mondale, Atty. Gen., State of Minnesota, and John F. Casey, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen., Saint Paul, Minn., for defendant Joseph L. Donovan.
William B. Randall, County Atty., Ramsey County, and Thomas M. Quayle, Asst. County Atty., Ramsey County, Saint Paul, Minn., for defendant Eugene A. Monick.
George M. Scott, County Atty., Hennepin County, Minneapolis, Minn., for defendant Robert F. Fitzsimmons.
Robert W. Johnson, County Attorney, Anoka County, Anoka, Minn., for defendant Kenneth W. Campbell.
J. Jerome Kluck, County Atty., Dakota County, Hastings, Minn., for defendant Carl D. Onischuk.
Gordon Rosenmeier and John E. Simonett, Little Falls, Minn., for intervenors Donald Sinclair and Rudolph Hanson.
William P. Scott, of Scott & Miller, Gaylord, Minn., for intervenor William C. Novosad.
Lyman A. Brink, of Brink & Sobolik, Hallock, Minn., for intervenors A. P. Lofgren, Charles Cheney, Richard C. Bergan, C. W. Rodekuhr, Martin L. Vanseth and David G. Kankel.
Before BLACKMUN, Circuit Judge, DEVITT, Chief District Judge, and NORDBYE, District Judge.
This suit, instituted June 4, 1964, is based on those civil rights statutes which are now compiled as 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) and (4). It challenges the validity of the present apportionment of both houses of the bicameral Minnesota legislature.
The nine plaintiffs are residents and qualified voters of Anoka, Dakota, Hennepin, and Ramsey Counties, respectively; these embrace the State's Twin City metropolitan area. The complaint seeks, among other relief, (a) to have the most recent Minnesota legislative redistricting act, Laws 1959, Ex.Sess., ch. 45, now M.S.A. §§ 2.02 to 2.715, inclusive, declared void and violative of both the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States and the equal-apportionment-of-both-houses-by-population requirement1 of Article IV, § 2, of the Constitution of the State of Minnesota; (b) to restrain the defendant Donovan, who is the Minnesota Secretary of State, and the other defendants, who are the auditors of the four named counties, individually and as representatives of all other Minnesota county auditors, from performing acts necessary for the election of members of the state legislature, under the existing statutes, until the legislative districts have been properly reapportioned; and (c) to direct that elections for legislators be at large until new and proper apportionment legislation has been enacted. The defendants by their answer ask that the suit be dismissed or, in the alternative, that the court defer action until the adjournment of the forthcoming 1965 regular legislative session.
Inasmuch as the suit is one to restrain the enforcement and execution of Minnesota statutes by a state officer, this three-judge district court was designated. 28 U.S.C. §§ 2281, 2284(1).
The pertinent facts are established by the original parties by admissions in the pleadings and by stipulation. The last of the original briefs was filed on August 26. Shortly after the case was so submitted and before a decision was rendered, intervenors Sinclair and Hanson presented their joint application under Rule 24(a) (2), F.R.Civ.P., for leave to intervene as additional defendants as of right. The application, as authorized by 28 U.S.C. § 2284(5), was promptly heard by Judge Devitt and, with all of us concurring, was granted with permission to the intervenors and the plaintiffs to file affidavits and additional briefs.2 By stipulations and with the court's consent, the other seven intervenors named in the title were also permitted to intervene as additional defendants. The last of the second set of briefs was received on October 30.
Intervenors Sinclair and Hanson are, respectively, residents and qualified voters of Marshall and Freeborn Counties, Minnesota. Mr. Sinclair is a Minnesota state senator representing the Sixty-seventh Legislative District consisting of Kittson, Marshall and Roseau Counties in northwestern Minnesota. Mr. Hanson is a Minnesota state senator representing the Ninth Legislative District consisting of Freeborn County in southern Minnesota. Intervenor Novosad is a resident, a qualified voter and the auditor of Sibley County in south central Minnesota. Intervenors Lofgren, Cheney, Bergan, Rodekuhr, Vanseth, and Kankel are the respective auditors of the six counties of Kittson, Marshall, Roseau, Pennington, Polk, and Red Lake, comprising the northwestern corner of the State.
Although the complaint requested injunctive relief, this aspect of the case, so far as the 1964 elections for the Minnesota House were concerned, was not seriously pressed upon us. Indeed, the plaintiffs by their brief stated that they did not "insist" that the 1964 candidates run at large. In view of this partial concession and in view of the lateness of the hour when the complaint was filed, we deemed it both unnecessary and undesirable to interfere with the then pending and now immediately past primary and general elections. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 585, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964). Those elections have taken place in due course.
The earlier Minnesota reapportionment case. A suit similar to this one and for like relief, and alleging deprivation of rights guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment, was instituted in this court in 1957 against the defendant Donovan, two of the same county auditors, and others. It attacked the Minnesota legislative apportionment effected by Laws 1913, ch. 91. The 1913 Act was then still in effect even though the Minnesota Constitution, art. IV, § 23, calls for reapportionment at the first legislative session after each federal census.3 The statutory three-judge federal court designated to hear that case recognized "the unmistakable duty of the State Legislature to reapportion itself periodically in accordance with recent population changes", noted that the legislature was then soon to be elected in its entirety and was to convene in early January 1959, and observed that "It is not to be presumed that the Legislature will refuse to take such action as is necessary to comply with its duty under the State Constitution." Although retaining jurisdiction, the court deferred decision on the issues "in order to afford the Legislature full opportunity to `heed the constitutional mandate to redistrict.'" Magraw v. Donovan, 163 F.Supp. 184, 187-188 (D. Minn.1958).
Pending this deferral of decision, the 1959 Minnesota legislature effected the State's current apportionment which, as the original parties by the pleadings concede, is "based, somewhat, on the 1950 federal census". Thereafter the plaintiffs in the 1957 suit moved, under Rule 41(a) (2), F.R.Civ.P., to dismiss that action without prejudice. Judge Bell granted that motion. Magraw v. Donovan, 177 F.Supp. 803 (D.Minn.1959).4
The federal constitutional development. Since the enactment of the 1959 statute and since the termination of the Magraw litigation the federal constitutional picture has been brought into focus and greatly clarified. The United States Supreme Court, in a series of now well-known decisions, has taken positive action with respect to the federal constitutional aspects of state legislative districting. The first three cases, decided near the end of the Court's 1961 term, were Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962), Scholle v. Hare, 369 U.S. 429, 82 S.Ct. 910, 8 L.Ed.2d 1 (1962), and WMCA, Inc. v. Simon, 370 U.S. 190, 82 S.Ct. 1234, 8 L.Ed.2d 430 (1962). A detailed analysis of those cases and of their respective procedural approaches is not necessary here. It suffices merely to say that, among other things, they established (a) that the very civil rights statutes invoked by the plaintiffs here afford a United States district court jurisdiction over a claim of alleged federal unconstitutionality of state legislative districting; (b) that plaintiffs who are qualified to vote for members of a state legislature have standing to sue; and (c) that, in the setting of those cases, an allegation of a denial of the equal protection of the laws under the fourteenth amendment presents a justiciable constitutional cause of action. Clearly, these cases establish the jurisdiction of this court for the present action, the present plaintiffs' standing to sue, and the existence here of a justiciable controversy.
This trilogy was followed by Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 83 S.Ct. 801, 9 L.Ed.2d 821 (1963), which concerned the constitutionality of the use of Georgia's county-unit system in a primary election for the nomination of a United States Senator and state-wide officers and is the source, p. 381, 83 S.Ct. 809, of Mr. Justice Douglas' pronouncement, in a majority setting, of the "one person, one vote" concept, and by Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 526, 11 L.Ed. 2d...
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