State ex rel. South St. Paul v. Hetherington
| Decision Date | 13 November 1953 |
| Docket Number | No. 36051,36051 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. SOUTH ST. PAUL et al. v. HETHERINGTON et al. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.
1. A commissioner district may be composed of contiguous territory although two municipalities within its boundaries are separated from each other by intervening territory which also belongs to the district.
2. The court will be slow to exercise its jurisdiction to set aside the redistricting of a county where it appears that the board by any exercise of sound discretion has effected that reasonable approximation to equality which is required by the statutory command that the districts shall contain as nearly as practicable equal populations.
3. A judicial question arises whenever an act of reapportionment is clearly and palpably tainted with an abuse of discretion.
4. The legislature, in providing that when it appears after a state or federal census that 30 percent or more of a county's population resides in one district the county must be redistricted, did not adopt such percentage figure to indicate that anything less necessarily constituted reasonable equality.
5. The board of commissioners in redistricting are vested with a broad discretion to effect as nearly as practicable an equal population for the various districts and mathematical equality is not required.
6. In redistricting a county pursuant to the statutory requirement that the commissioner districts shall 'contain as nearly as practicable an equal population', M.S.A. § 375.02, a proper exercise by the county commissioners of their discretion requires a close approximation to equality and that unnecessary inequalities be avoided insofar as may be practicable under the existing circumstances.
7. Public officers are presumed to have done their duty and acted within the limits of their statutory powers and the burden to overcome the presumption rests with the party contending to the contrary.
Fallon Kelly, South St. Paul, Sullivan, Stringer, Donnelly & Sharood, St. Paul, for appellants.
R. C. Nelsen, County Atty., Hastings, for respondents.
Plaintiffs appeal from a judgment dismissing an order to show cause in the nature of an alternative writ of mandamus and sustaining the action of the county commissioners as to their manner of redistricting Dakota county, as required by M.S.A. § 375.02, into districts composed of contiguous territory and containing as nearly as practicable an equal population.
The primary issue is whether proof of a gross disparity in the population of the various county commissioner districts in and of itself, without more, establishes that the board of commissioners has not complied with § 375.02 in redistricting the county. Secondary issues arise as to the requirements of contiguity of territory and as to the jurisdiction of the district court.
On June 10, 1952, pursuant to § 375.02, which requires a redistricting whenever one county commissioner district is found to contain 30 percent or more of the population of the county (according to the latest federal or state census), the defendant Board of Commissioners of Dakota County, Minnesota, redistricted the county. The plaintiffs do not contest the fact that redistricting was necessary, nor do they contest the validity of the procedures followed by the board in effecting the redistricting. The plaintiffs' only objection is to the results of the redistricting. Before redistricting, according to the 1950 federal census, the populations of the five commissioner districts were:
1st District 7,406 or 15.07%
2nd District 16,576 or 33.74%
3rd District 13,242 or 26.96%
4th District 6,461 or 13.15%
5th District 5,446 or 11.08%
After redistricting the populations were:
1st District 7,992 or 16.27%
2nd District 13,653 or 27.79%
3rd District 12,630 or 25.71%
4th District 7,140 or 14.53%
5th District 7,716 or 15.70%
A comparison of the figures shows that, although the redistricting effected a partial equalization and brought the 2nd District within the limit of 30 percent, comparatively little was done to erase the gross disparity between the population of that district and the respective populations of the 1st, 4th, and 5th Districts. As a result the 2nd and 3rd Districts with 53 percent of the total population are given two members on the board, whereas the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd with only 46 percent of the population are given three commissioners.
Plaintiffs commenced an action to have the redistricting resolution of the board declared null and void and to mandamus the board to redistrict in accordance with § 375.02. The court upon stipulated facts concluded that the board's redistricting action was not erroneous, arbitrary, unreasonable, unlawful, or contrary to law and that the districts as redistricted are composed of contiguous territory and contain as nearly as practicable an equal population. Plaintiffs' appeal is taken from the judgment dismissing what was in effect an alternative writ of mandamus.
1. Plaintiffs contend that the 3rd District, as redistricted, is not composed of contiguous territory--as required by § 375.02--because two municipalities within such district, namely, the city of West St. Paul and the village of Inver Grove, are not contiguous to each other. There is no merit to this contention. Obviously a commissioner district may be composed of contiguous territory although two municipalities within its boundaries are separated from each other by intervening territory which also belongs to the district.
2--3. Although mandamus does not lie to control or interfere with the manner in which county commissioners exercise their discretion in discharging their statutory duty to redistrict their county, it does lie to set the exercise of that discretion into motion where the board fails to act or to obtain a new and bona fide exercise of discretion when it appears that the board has acted without discretion or in a clearly arbitrary and capricious manner. 1 The court will be slow to exercise its jurisdiction to set aside the redistricting of a county where it appears that the board by any exercise of sound discretion has effected that reasonable approximation to equality which is required by the statutory command that the districts shall contain as nearly as practicable equal populations. 2 A judicial question arises, however, whenever an act of reapportionment is clearly and palpably tainted with an abuse of discretion. 3
4. We come to the primary issue of whether proof of a gross disparity in the population of the commissioner districts in and of itself, without more, establishes that the board has abused its discretion and thereby failed to comply with § 375.02. In seeking to ascertain whether there has been an abuse of discretion it is of no significance that the redistricting has brought all districts below 30 percent of the county population as a whole. The legislature, in providing that when it appears after a state or federal census that 30 percent or more of a county's population resides in one district the county must be redistricted, did not indicate that anything less than such percentage figure necessarily constituted reasonable equality. The 30-percent figure merely designates the extreme limit beyond which inequalities in population can no longer be tolerated and require prompt corrective action. If it were otherwise the redistricting remedy provided by § 375.02 would become futile because its purpose could be defeated after each census merely by bringing the population of a district two or three percentage points below the 30-percent limit. No statute is to be given an absurd construction if the language thereof will reasonably bear any other construction. § 645.17(1).
5. Undoubtedly the board of commissioners in redistricting are vested with a broad discretion to effect as nearly as practicable an equal population for the various districts. Mathematical equality of course is not required. A well-established population trend may justify for the moment the award of a slightly greater representation to a district with a rapidly expanding population. Certain inequalities, not amounting to gross disparities, may be justified because of the complexities arising from the requirement that each district must be bounded by town, village, ward, or precinct lines. Clearly, however, the permissive use of ward and precinct lines obviates much of the difficulty in making a practical division of urban areas. It is also not to be overlooked that each redistricting problem is to be related to the time and conditions under which it takes place. It follows that as a result of modern roads, and other means of modern communication, sparsely settled areas no longer present the problem that once arose when it was difficult for the...
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