Lytle v. Commissioners of Election of Union County, 74--1619

• Decision Date: 25 November 1974
• Docket Number: No. 74--1619,74--1619
• Citation: 509 F.2d 1049
• Parties: Robert LYTLE, Appellee, v. COMMISSIONERS OF ELECTION OF UNION COUNTY et al., Appellants. Thomas C. McCAIN et al., Appellees, v. Charles E. LYBRAND et al., Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 1049

509 F.2d 1049

Robert LYTLE, Appellee, v. COMMISSIONERS OF ELECTION OF UNION COUNTY et al., Appellants.

Thomas C. McCAIN et al., Appellees, v. Charles E. LYBRAND et al., Appellants.

No. 74--1619.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued June 4, 1974.

Decided June 17, 1974.

Certiorari Denied Nov. 25, 1974.

See 95 S.Ct. 515.

C. Tolbert Goolsby, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen. of S.C., Karen LeCraft Henderson, Asst. Atty. Gen. of S.C. (Daniel R. McLeod, Atty. Gen. of S.C., Bruce W. White, Union County Atty., and Charles W. Coleman, Edgefield County Atty., on brief), for appellants.

David Ross Clarke and James Jacobsen, Mauldin, S.C., for appellee Robert Lytle.

Armand Derfner, Charleston, S.C. (Epstein & McClain, Charleston, S.C., Laughlin McDonald, Morris Brown, Atlanta, Ga., Emily Carssow, Athens, Ga., and Neil Bradley, Atlanta, Ga., on brief), for appellees Edgefield County.

Before CRAVEN, RUSSELL and FIELD, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

The plaintiffs in these two cases challenge the constitutional validity of the statutory provisions for the election of the members of the Boards of Control ¹ of Union and Edgefield Counties, South Carolina. ² In both Counties the members of these governing Boards are elected at large but each member must reside in separate fixed districts of the County. The districts vary in population--substantially so in Union County--and in classification between urban and rural. Because both actions involved the same legal principles, they were consolidated for hearing and were disposed of in a single decree in the District Court and have been heard in this Court together.

In its decree, the District Court held that, since the several districts in the two Counties were 'of unequal proportion' in population and 'finding neither rational nor compelling circumstances justifying the formation of the unequally populated districts', the residency requirements for members of the two Boards were 'violative of the 'one-man, one-vote' principle and are constitutionally unacceptable.' It granted the Counties until May 1, 1975 to enact a plan for the election of the members of the two Boards that would comply with the constitutional standards as it had stated them and ordered by way of temporary relief that the nomination and election of such members for the currently slated 1974 election be at large without any residency requirements. In order to make effective this latter remedy, it ordered reopened the filing date of candidates for nomination in the party primaries to be held on July 16, 1974.

The defendants have appealed and, in connection therewith, have sought from the District Court a stay of its order pending disposition on the merits. When that application was denied, they applied to this Court for a stay under Rule 8(a), F.R.A.P. At the hearing on the motion to stay, it was agreed that the motion for a stay and a hearing of the appeal on the merits could be appropriately heard together and a determination on the merits would be dispositive of the motion to stay. We proceed accordingly to a consideration of the merits of the controversy.

The Supreme Court has not decreed absolute rigidity in the application of the 'one man, one-vote' rule as enunciated in Wesberry v. Sanders (1964) 376 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 526, 11 L.Ed.2d 481, and succeeding cases, to elections to public office at all levels of federal and state government. In congressional elections, for instance, 'only the limited population variances which are unavoidable despite a good-faith effort to achieve absolute equality, or for which justification is shown' are constitutionally permissible. Kirkpatrick v. Preisler (1969) 394 U.S. 526 at 531, 89 S.Ct. 1225, at 1229, 22 L.Ed.2d 519. Recognizing that such a rule of equal representation could not be automatically applied to local government, and, if applied, might 'impair the normal functioning of state and local governments', the Court substantially relaxed the rule of mathematical exactness for the election of state legislators in Mahan v. Howell (1973) 410 U.S. 315, at 323, 93 S.Ct. 979, at 984, 35 L.Ed.2d 320. In so doing, it accepted the argument that 'maintaining the integrity of political subdivision lines' in such elections 'is a rational one' and will justify some departure from the rule adopted in Preisler of congressional elections. ³ The 'absolute rule' of Preisler has been even further relaxed by the Court in its review of the constitutionality of representational structures at the strictly local governmental level, such as is involved in this case. Cf., Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Water District (1973) 410 U.S. 719, 93 S.Ct. 1224, 35 L.Ed.2d 659. In these circumstances it was accepted that 'each citizen's constitutional right to equal representation must be reconciled with the need for flexibility in designing local structures.' Note, 72 Mich.L.Rev. 869 (1974). Accordingly, in Dusch v. Davis (1967) 387 U.S. 112, 87 S.Ct. 1554, 18 L.Ed.2d 656, it was held that local government officials elected at large may validly be required to be residents of particular areas or districts within the local governmental unit, even though such areas or districts have wide populational variances. Such decision recognized the wisdom of creating an institutional framework of local government that would assure 'that councilmen with knowledge of the particular problems of each of the heterogeneous boroughs would be serving on the council.' Note, 81 Harv.L.Rev. 154. And, because the local unit had a mixed economic base, the guaranty of regional representation under a system of equal voting represented 'a sound compromise between urban and rural interests at the local level' ⁴ and, just as the maintenance of 'the integrity of political subdivision lines' provided a rational basis for the population variances in Mahan, so this attempt to balance urban and rural interests provided a rational basis for the addition of the residence requirement for candidates under a plan of at-large voting. Such a plan does not violate the rationale of the 'one-man, one-vote' cases. Its residence requirement constitutes only a basis for qualification of candidates, not for voting or representation. ⁵ What it seeks is the avoidance of that 'uniform straitjacket * * * in devising mechanisms of local government suitable for local needs and efficient in solving local problems', deplored in Avery. ⁶ As a matter of fact, the members, elected at-large, are answerable to and are representative of the entire constituency. The value of the residency provision, though, is that it provides an additional mechanism whereby territorial interests may be articulated through a representative who, though elected by the voters of the County as a whole, has a unique awareness and understanding of the problems and interest of the subdivision. This is a legitimate interest to be considered in fashioning a plan of local government.

Of course, there are limits to this electoral flexibility for local governmental units. When the residential areas are so drawn as to make it possible for the minority in numbers, whether it be urban or rural, to control the governing board, such an arrangement will transcend the constitutional bounds authorized under Dusch. The heart of Dusch is its approval of a 'rational' balancing of interests, with appropriate regard for the distribution of population, in the constituency of the local governing board. It assumes the fairness of a scheme that allows some force to territorial interests, but at the same time it requires that the accommodation of territorial interests shall not nullify what are the proper rights of the majority in population. Accordingly, if the plan of election arbitrarily overbalances rural over urban or vice versa, judicial remedy is available. It was because of such a situation that an earlier plan involving the governmental unit in Dusch was judicially disapproved and the 'Seven-Four' plan was devised.

The plaintiffs assert that any plan that detracts in any particular from an absolute rule both for voting and for residence of candidates is invalid. In the context of fixing the structures of local governmental units there may be relaxation of the absolute rule, if the reason therefor is as stated in Mahan, 'rational'. An attempt through a residency requirement to strike a balance between the interests of the rural and urban areas in a county, provided voting rights for both areas are protected by at-large elections, meets the 'rational' test. The plaintiffs, however, argue...