Meyer v. Campbell

Decision Date31 August 1967
Docket NumberNo. 52580,52580
PartiesAugust T. MEYER et al., Appellees, v. Maurice CAMPBELL et al., Appellants.
CourtIowa Supreme Court

Hanson & Barron, Audubon, and Alan Loth, Fort Dodge, for appellants.

Wunschel & Schechtman, Carroll, for appellees.

LARSON, Justice.

Plaintiffs are citizens and registered voters in fourteen different townships in Carroll County, Iowa, who bring suit on behalf of all Carroll County voters similarly situated.

Defendants other than the county superintendent are duly elected, qualified and acting members of the Carroll County Board of Education, one from each of the four districts and one from the whole area.

This suit questions the composition of the board, plaintiffs claiming the board as it is now composed does not meet the constitutional requirements of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, and Sections 1, 2 and 6 of the 'Bill of Rights' of the Iowa Constitution.

Plaintiffs pray (1) for a declaratory judgment that the present apportionment of the board is unconstitutional, (2) for an order requiring future elections of all members of the board be at large, (3) in the alternative, that the board be required to redistrict itself constitutionally by August 1966 or terminate the present terms on September 1, 1966, requiring all to be elected at large, and (4) that the court retain jurisdiction until these orders are carried out. They further alleged irreparable damage if that relief be delayed and asked that the board be enjoined from performing its statutory duties until the members are chosen on a population basis. A temporary injunction was issued on June 22, 1966, and on January 6, 1967, the trial court found for plaintiffs, declared the manner and method of selection of the board members was unconstitutional and issued a permanent injunction prohibiting the members from performing any and all legislative acts or functions pursuant to Chapter 275 of the Code. Defendants appeal and, on application to this court, the injunction was stayed pending appeal.

We affirm the decision on the constitutional question and set aside the injunction. Pending consideration of the matter by the 63rd General Assembly in 1969, jurisdiction of the matter is retained.

Two primary questions are posed by this appeal: 1. Do the equal protection guarantees require this county board of education to be elected by population rather than selected by area? 2. Should a decree invalidating the method of selecting the board also terminate its acts before the legislature has an opportunity to provide another permissible method?

There is little or no dispute as to the facts involved. The county board of education is a unique body created by Code Chapter 273. It has 'direction' of the 'county school system' excluding independent and consolidated school districts with their own high schools (Code Section 273.2).

Before 1948 the board members were appointed by a convention of delegates appointed by the local school boards (Code 1946, Chapter 271). The Iowa Constitution, Article IX, Section 15, authorizes the legislature to 'provide for the educational interest of the State in any other manner that to them shall seem best and proper,' and does not require the election of the members of the education boards. The State can, of course, constitutionally refuse to set up an elective process for the selection of municipal officials; it can appoint them all. Metropolitan Railroad Co. v. District of Columbia, 132 U.S. 1, 10 S.Ct. 19, 33 L.Ed. 231. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506, cannot be read to guarantee a 'right to an elective process' in the selection of officials of sub-state governmental units who are currently appointed.

The 52nd General Assembly changed the method of selecting the board members. The present provisions as found in Section 273.3 of the 1966 Code are: 'The territory of the entire county shall be divided into four election areas, as nearly as possible of equal size and contiguous territory, to be designated as the first, the second, the third and the fourth election areas. Where districts have territory in more than one county (as in this case), the district will belong to the election area of the county where the school buildings are located. In the event of changes in the limits of school districts, the county board of education shall make any such adjustments as may be necessary to equalize the territorial size of the election areas, provided that no such change shall be made less than sixty days prior to the date of the annual school election.'

Section 273.4 provides: 'The county board of education shall consist of five members, electors of the county, one member to be elected from each of the four election areas by the electors of the respective areas, one member to be elected at large from the area of the county school system by the electors thereof. * * * Vacancies on said board shall be filled * * * by appointment by the remaining members of the board * * *.'

In the case at bar there is no complaint as to the area size, but the issue raised relates to the differences in the population of these areas. The court correctly found they were disproportionate because there are 10,200 people in Area II, many more than in the other three areas which are fairly equal. As permitted in Section 273.2 of the Code, Area II was enlarged by the voluntary joining of the area by the people of the Carroll Independent District, which included the City of Carroll and its high school. Carroll's population was listed at 7,682 people. However, the voluntariness of the inclusion of the Carroll Independent District will not affect its citizens' rights to equal protection under the law. Lucas v. Forty-fourth General Assembly of the State of Colo., 377 U.S. 713, 84 S.Ct. 1459, 12 L.Ed.2d 632 (1964); Bianchi v. Griffing, D.C., 238 F.Supp. 997, 999 (1965).

I. Appellees contend the equal protection clauses of the state and federal constitutions are violated by the method of selection of the members of the county board of education (Amendment 14 of the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 6 of the Iowa Constitution), and urge us to extend the 'one man-one vote' rule announced in Reynolds v. Sims, supra, and in Kruidenier v. McCulloch, 258 Iowa 1121, 142 N.W.2d 355, to the selection of members of county boards of education.

In the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court of Sailors et al. v. Board of Education, 387 U.S. 105, 87 S.Ct. 1549, 18 L.Ed.2d 650, under the date of May 22, 1967, the court made this statement: 'We find no constitutional reason why state or local officers of the nonlegislative character involved here may not be chosen by the governor, by the legislature, Or by some other appointive means rather than by an election.' (Emphasis added.) It seemed to hold the county board of education, which performs essentially administrative functions, is not legislative in the 'classical sense' so as to fall under the requirements of Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 83 S.Ct. 801, 9 L.Ed.2d 821 (1963), and Reynolds v. Sims, supra, although it does not pass on the question we have here where the legislature has provided for the election of such county board.

Justice Douglas, in Sailors, does not elaborate as to what is meant by 'other appointive means rather than by an election,' but we are of the opinion this refers to appointment by a person or persons who have been properly elected by the people on a population basis.

When the legislature changed the method of selection of the county boards to elective rather than appointive, appellees contend, the members of the county boards then became the direct representatives of the people, and the state and federal constitutions require their election on an equal representation basis. We agree. The fact that an elective method of selection has been chosen implies that each citizen is thought to have an equal stake in their composition. See article by Professor Weinstein, 65 Columbia L.Rev. 31--33 (1965).

Thus, at the outset we are faced with three important questions: 1. Is the doctrine enunciated in Gray v. Sanders and Reynolds v. Sims applicable to inferior bodies delegated some legislative and administrative functions? 2. Are the functions delegated to the county boards of education in Iowa legislative in nature so as to fall under the requirements of Gray v. Sanders and Reynolds v. Sims? 3. Since the Iowa legislature has required that members of the board be elected, is the question of whether their function is primarily legislative or administrative decisive?

II. The doctrine of equal representation or, as it is more commonly known, 'the one man-one vote system', as a constitutional requirement under the Fourteenth Amendment, is of recent origin and has received the most diligent consideration and analysis by the United States Supreme Court. Shortly after the landmark case of Baker v. Carr (1962), 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663, which held that the question of legislative reapportionment was a justiciable issue, the doctrine of equal representation came into its own in the case of Gray v. Sanders (1963), supra, as a protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

In Gray v. Sanders a Georgia county unit system was held unconstitutional as applied to a state-wide primary election because the votes of certain Georgia citizens were accorded less weight merely because of where they resided. The court stated at pages 379 and 380 of 372 U.S., page 808 of 83 S.Ct.: 'The concept of 'we the people' under the Constitution visualizes no preferred class of voters but equality among those who meet the basic qualifications.'

Moreover, in Wesberry v. Sanders (1964), 376 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 526, 11 L.Ed.2d 481, the court set out the test for the constitutionality of congressional districting. The test was one of substantial equality of...

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