Kruidenier v. McCulloch
| Decision Date | 15 April 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 52012,52012 |
| Citation | 142 N.W.2d 355,258 Iowa 1121 |
| Parties | Elizabeth KRUIDENIER, Robert R. Rigler, LaMar Foster, Sr., and Thomas S. Hefley, Appellants, v. W. E. McCULLOCH, Auditor of Polk County, Iowa, and Harold E. Hughes, Governor of State of Iowa, Gary L. Cameron, Secretary of State, Lorne R. Worthington, State Auditor, Paul Franzenburg, State Treasurer, Kenneth E. Owen, Secretary of Agriculture, in their elective capacities and also collectively and individually as the Executive Council of the State of Iowa, and Lawrence F. Scalise, Attorney General, and Robert D. Fulton, Lieutenant Governor, Appellees. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
David W. Belin, of Herrick, Langdon, Sandblom & Belin, Des Moines, for appellants.
Lawrence F. Scalise, Atty. Gen., and Timothy McCarthy, Sol. Gen., for appellees.
The following opinion of Justice Mason, except for Divisions IX and XII and certain statements in Division XIII related thereto, is adopted as the opinion of the court with all justices concurring therein, except that Justice Larson dissents from Division X of the opinion.
The opinion of Justice Stuart is adopted as the opinion of the court in lieu of said Divisions IX and XII and certain statements in said Division XIII related thereto.
Divisions IX and XII, and the statements related thereto in Division XIII of the opinion of Justice Mason, are a dissent to the opinion of Justice Stuart, with Justices Thornton, Rawlings and Becker joining therein.
This suit was instituted by appellants, citizens and qualified voters of Cedar, Chickasaw and Polk County, one a state senator, another a representative, as a class action in their own behalf and in behalf of other Iowa voters similarly situated. Defendants are state and county officials charged with performing various duties in counection with conducting elections in Iowa.
Plaintiffs' petition, as amended, in seven divisions, attacks the constitutionality of the temporary reapportionment plans adopted by the Sixtieth, special session (Senate File 1, chapter 1) and Sixty-first (Senate File 568, chapter 88) General Assemblies as in violation of Sections 1, 2 and 6 of Article I of the Iowa Constitution and the equal protection clause of section 1 of Amendment 14 to the United States Constitution. Constitutional questions are raised as to sections 34, 35, 36 and 37 of Article III of the Iowa Constitution and as to multi-member districts. The relief sought is to obtain an adjudication the plans referred to are unconstitutional.
Defendants, by way of counterclaim, ask for declaratory judgment adjudging Senate File 568, Acts of the Sixty-first General Assembly (1965 temporary or statutory apportionment plan), to be a constitutionally valid interim plan of apportionment.
Trial to the court resulted in decree dismissing plaintiffs' petition and declaratory judgment declaring constitutional Senate File 568, Acts of the Sixty-first General Assembly, as an interim plan of apportionment. Plaintiffs appeal.
This is the second appeal in this case. See Kruidenier v. McCulloch, 257 Iowa ---, 136 N.W.2d 546, which reversed the sustaining of defendants' special appearance and remanded the cause for trial.
I. The 1965 temporary reapportionment plan fixed the number of senators at 61 and apportions them in districts whereby each district has one senator except Polk County, which constitutes the 20th district, with five senators to be elected at large, except Black Hawk County (32nd district) and Linn County (24th district) each with three senators to be elected at large, and the following counties, each constituting separate districts, with two senators to be elected at large: Dubuque County (30th district); Pottawattamie County (13th district); Scott County (15th district) and Woodbury County (37th district).
The plan provides that the House of Representatives 'shall be apportioned on a population basis.' Forty-six counties would each comprise one district and each elect one representative, 17 additional districts are comprised of two counties each with each district entitled to one representative, and the counties of Louisa and Muscatine are combined into a single district with two representatives to be elected at large. In addition, said 1965 temporary reapportionment plan provides the counties of Cerro Gordo, Webster, Story, Jasper, Johnson, Clinton, Wapello, Marshall, Des Moines and Lee shall comprise one district each and each shall elect two representatives; Dubuque County shall comprise one district and shall elect three representatives; Pottawattamie County shall comprise one district and shall elect four representatives; the counties of Scott, Woodbury and Black Hawk shall comprise one district each and each shall elect five representatives; Linn County shall comprise one district and shall elect six representatives; Polk County shall comprise one district and elect eleven representatives.
II. The 1904 amendments (Article III, sections 34, 35 and 36) provided for express repeal of the same sections in the Constitution of 1857. Article III, section 34, as then amended, provides:
'The Senate shall be composed of fifty members to be elected from the several senatorial districts, established by law and at the next session of the general assembly held following the taking of the state and national census, they shall be apportioned among the several counties or districts of the state, according to population as shown by the last preceding census.'
Article III, section 35, as amended, provides:
Article III, section 36, as amended, provides:
'The General Assembly shall, at the first regular session held following the adoption of this amendment, and at each succeeding regular session held next after the taking of such census, fix the ratio of representation, and apportion the additional representatives, as herein before required.'
The 1928 amendment contained no such repealer and dealt with only one section of the apportionment provisions (section 34) by adding thereto the words 'but no county shall be entitled to more than one (1) senator'.
Senate File 1 (the 1964 temporary reapportionment plan) was repealed by Senate File 568 (the 1965 temporary reapportionment plan) which was enacted as chapter 88, Laws of the Sixty-first General Assembly, June 3, 1965, after this action was commenced.
III. Divisions I and II of plaintiffs' petition allege the 1964 temporary reapportionment plan of the Iowa legislature should be declared invalid under sections 1, 2 and 6 of Article 1 of the state constitution and as in violation of the equal protection clause of section 1 of Amendment 14 of the Constitution of the United States because the plan provides that senators and representatives be elected at large from certain districts including the district of Polk County.
Divisions III and IV correspond to Divisions I and II except they attack the 1965 temporary apportionment plan as invalid under the state and federal constitutions because the plan does not have a uniform operation and grants to certain citizens or classes of citizens within the state of Iowa, privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens in that said plan provides for senators to be elected at large from certain districts including the district of Polk County. The issue plaintiff urges is the constitutionality of at-large elections in multi-member districts.
Division V asserts the method of apportionment of the Senate of the state of Iowa established by the original constitution of the state as amended in 1904 and prior to the Amendment of 1928 is constitutional; the Amendment of 1928 that added to section 34, Article III, the phrase, 'no county shall be entitled to more than one (1) senator', is unconstitutional; and therefore the apportionment of the Iowa Senate is governed by the provisions of the 1904 amendment, Article III, section 34, which apportions the Senate on the basis of population and further declares that '(t)he Senate shall be composed of fifty members'; the 1964 and the 1965 temporary reapportionment plans, each of which provides for more than 50 senators, are therefore unconstitutional.
Division VI is in the alternative and prays that the court find sections 34, 35, 36 and 37 of Article III of the Constitution of Iowa are each and all inseparable, that the provisions for apportionment found in said Article are invidiously discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional and void and the 1964 and 1965 temporary reapportionment plans do not have a uniform operation because they do not provide for subdistricting and are therefore unconstitutional. In this division plaintiffs attack the holding of the three-judge federal court that section 37, Article III, of the Iowa Constitution is severable from sections 34, 35 and 36 of Article III.
Division VII is a combination of the prior provisions asking the court find the existing reapportionment plans unconstitutional because they do not provide for subdistricting and because they provide for a Senate of more than 50 members.
Briefly, plaintiffs make these allegations: (A) Polk County citizens vote for 11 legislators, single-member districts for only one, (B) Polk County citizens vote for five senators, single-member districts for only one, (C) Polk County residents do not have 'identifiable constituencies', (D) The plan does not have a uniform operation and so citizens in Polk County are deprived of equal protection of the laws, (E) At-large elections...
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