Parella v. Montalbano

• Decision Date: 09 June 2006
• Docket Number: No. 2003-595-Appeal.,2003-595-Appeal.
• Citation: 899 A.2d 1226
• Parties: Joseph F. PARELLA et al. v. Joseph A. MONTALBANO, in his official capacity as President of the Rhode Island Senate et al.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

899 A.2d 1226

Joseph F. PARELLA et al. v. Joseph A. MONTALBANO, in his official capacity as President of the Rhode Island Senate et al.

No. 2003-595-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

June 9, 2006.

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Karen A. Pelczarski, Esq., Providence, for Plaintiff.

John A. Tarantino, Esq., Providence, for Joseph A. Montalbano, in his capacity as President of the R.I. Senate.

Normand G. Benoit, Esq., Providence, for William J. Murphy, in his capacity as the Speaker of the R.I. House of Representatives.

Present: WILLIAMS, C.J., GOLDBERG, FLAHERTY, and ROBINSON, JJ.

OPINION

Justice GOLDBERG, for the Court.

This appeal requires the Supreme Court to pass upon the constitutionality of G.L. 1956 § 22-1-2, the Senate redistricting statute, to decide whether the enactment violates the Compactness Clause of the Rhode Island Constitution.¹ The facts of this case are largely undisputed and concern events that are unique and unprecedented in Rhode Island history. In November 1994, a majority of the electorate voting in a statewide election adopted amendments to articles 7 and 8 of the Rhode Island Constitution that, commencing in January 2003, eliminated approximately one-quarter of the seats in the General Assembly.² This constitutional change, implemented for the 2002 general election and colloquially referred to as "downsizing," converted the 2002 decennial reapportionment of the Legislature — that typically would address changes in population — to a transformation of the General Assembly. Ordinarily, a decennial reapportionment is based on population shifts and involves a careful balancing of competing interests and adherence to federal and state constitutional principles of fair representation. See Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900, 915, 115 S.Ct. 2475, 132 L.Ed.2d 762 (1995) ("Electoral districting is a most difficult subject for legislatures, and so the States must have discretion to exercise the political judgment necessary to balance competing interests."). However, the 2002 redistricting coupled with a reduced number of districts made this constitutionally mandated task even more complicated and problematic.

To accomplish this undertaking, the General Assembly established a Special Commission on Reapportionment (commission), which consisted of sixteen members — five members of the House of Representatives, five members of the Senate, and six public members. See P.L.2001, ch. 315, § 1(a). The commission conducted public hearings throughout the state and ultimately recommended Senate and House district reapportionment plans. After additional public hearings and minor technical adjustments, these reapportionment plans were enacted by the General Assembly. See § 22-1-2 and G.L.1956 § 22-2-2. This appeal concerns a challenge to the constitutionality of four Senate districts in the East Bay.³

On August 22, 2002, the plaintiffs,⁴ residents and registered voters of Barrington Warren, Bristol, Tiverton, and Little Compton, the communities comprising Senate Districts 9,⁵ 10, 11, and 12, filed suit in Superior Court challenging the redistricting statute. Because the relief plaintiffs sought also affected Senate District 13, an order issued on August 23, 2002, requiring that all candidates for Senate Districts 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 be named as additional defendants. The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint adding Mary Ann Edwards, Charles S. Levesque, J. Clement Cicilline, and Teresa Paiva-Weed as defendants.

In their suit, plaintiffs contended that the districts failed to meet the constitutional mandate that they be as compact or contiguous in territory as possible. The plaintiffs argued that the disputed Senate districts did not follow natural, historic, geographic, or political lines.

On May 5, 2003, the case was tried before a justice of the Superior Court sitting without a jury. After several days of testimony, the trial justice rendered a thorough, well-reasoned, comprehensive forty-eight page decision. She reviewed the testimony of the witnesses and recognized that plaintiffs bore the burden of proving, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the redistricting statute violated the federal and state constitutions. The trial justice discussed the history of the redistricting statute and exhaustively reviewed both federal and state decisional law concerning reapportionment. Based on these findings of fact, settled jurisprudence, and the standard of review in such matters, the trial justice concluded that "[t]he [C]ompactness [C]lause is violated only when a reapportionment plan creates districts solely for political considerations, without reference to other policies, in such a manner that the plan demonstrates a complete abandonment of any attempt to draw equal, compact and contiguous districts."⁶ The trial justice found that the Senate redistricting statute did not violate the Compactness Clause requirement nor was it a complete abandonment of the requirement of equally compact and contiguous districts. She held that the plan did not violate the United States or Rhode Island Constitution.

Three of the plaintiffs, Joseph F. Parella, William Enos, and Gary Mataronas (collectively, plaintiffs),⁷ are before the Supreme Court on appeal from the judgment entered in favor of the defendants.⁸ The plaintiffs argue that the trial justice erred by allocating to them the burden to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the configuration of the disputed Senate districts lacked a sufficient rationale. The plaintiffs also argue that the trial justice erred by disregarding "territorial restraints" in determining whether the compactness requirement was met and by not giving sufficient weight to the fact that the Senate districts were not "as compact in territory as possible." The plaintiffs' final claim of error is that the trial court erred by overlooking evidence of gerrymandering⁹ in favor of incumbent senators. For the reasons stated herein, we concur with the well-reasoned analysis that the trial justice set forth. Because we agree with the decision and cannot improve upon it in any meaningful way, we adopt the trial justice's decision as our own, supplementing it with the following resolution of issues that were raised on appeal through counsels' provocative arguments to this Court.¹⁰

Standard of Review

In Holmes v. Farmer, 475 A.2d 976 (R.I.1984), this Court declared that legislative judgments in the redistricting area are entitled to deference and that our review of the compactness requirement is limited. Id. at 986. We declared that "[t]he framers of the Constitution `clearly intended to leave the [L]egislature with a wide discretion as to the territorial structuring of the electoral districts.'" Id. In addition, the United States Supreme Court repeatedly has held that "redistricting and reapportioning legislative bodies is a legislative task which the * * * courts should make every effort not to pre-empt." McDaniel v. Sanchez, 452 U.S. 130, 150 n. 30, 101 S.Ct. 2224, 68 L.Ed.2d 724 (1981) (quoting Wise v. Lipscomb, 437 U.S. 535, 539, 98 S.Ct. 2493, 57 L.Ed.2d 411 (1978)). Consequently, this Court's review of legislative judgments in a redistricting case is limited to ensuring that the General Assembly "did not act `without a rational or legitimate basis.'" Holmes, 475 A.2d at 986 (quoting Opinion to the Governor, 101 R.I. 203, 211, 221 A.2d 799, 803 (1966)).

In Holmes, we also held that the Compactness Clause of the Rhode Island Constitution "requires the districts to be as territorially compact `as possible.'" Id. This requirement dictates that the Compactness Clause is violated "`only when a reapportionment plan creates districts solely for political considerations, without reference to other policies, in such a manner that the plan demonstrates a complete abandonment of any attempt to draw equal, compact and contiguous districts.'" Id. Thus, we conclude that the trial justice was correct in her reluctance to invade the jurisdiction and judgment of a coequal branch of government in the redistricting domain, especially when the General Assembly has provided a sufficient rationale to justify its decisions.

Burden of Proof

The plaintiffs argue that the trial justice erroneously assigned to them the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the challenged Senate districts lacked "sufficient rationale." However, every statute enacted by the Legislature is presumed constitutional and will not be invalidated by this Court unless the party challenging the statute proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the legislative enactment is unconstitutional. State v. Russell, 890 A.2d 453, 458 (R.I.2006). Because redistricting is a legislative function, we decline to reallocate the burden of proof to the General Assembly. To do so would directly undermine the narrow standard of judicial review we accord to all acts of the Legislature. Accordingly, the trial justice was correct in allocating this time-honored burden of proof — beyond a reasonable doubt — to the plaintiffs, who were challenging the constitutionality of the Senate redistricting plan.

For these reasons and those set forth in the annexed decision of the Superior Court,¹¹ the judgment is affirmed and the papers in this case are remanded to the Superior Court.

Justice SUTTELL did not participate.

APPENDIX A

STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS

PROVIDENCE, SC

SUPERIOR COURT

JOSEPH F. PARELLA, MURIEL KANE, REV. JAMES C. MILLER, KATHLEEN D. BAZINET, RAYMOND CORDEIRO, RICHARD RUGGIERO, DR. ROBERT C. ARRUDA, DAVID E. BARBOZA, DAVID ESTY, HALSEY C. HERRESHOFF, DONALD BOLLIN, MANUEL R. CABRAL, PAUL E. CARROLL, JOHN H. FERNANDES, CLAUDETTE J. LINHARES, JAMES TOWERS, LEONARD C. WRIGHT, WILLIAM ENOS, RICHARD D. HART, KENNETH J. FAGUNDES, JANE P. CABOT, RONALD COFFEY and GARY MATARONAS

VS.

WILLIAM IRONS, in his official capacity as Majority Leader of the Rhode Island Senate; EDWARD S. INMAN, III, in his...