Wmca, Inc v. Lomenzo

• Decision Date: 15 June 1964
• Docket Number: No. 20,20
• Citation: 84 S.Ct. 1418,377 U.S. 633,12 L.Ed.2d 568
• Parties: WMCA, INC., et al., Appellants, v. John P. LOMENZO, Secretary of State of the State of New York, et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

377 U.S. 633

84 S.Ct. 1418

12 L.Ed.2d 568

WMCA, INC., et al., Appellants,

v John P. LOMENZO, Secretary of State of the State of New York, et al.

No. 20.

Argued Nov. 12 and 13, 1963.

Decided June 15, 1964.

[Syllabus from pages 633-634 intentionally omitted] Leonard B. Sand, Washington, D.C., for appellants.

Solicitor Gen. Archibald Cox for United States, amicus curiae, by special leave of Court.

Irving Galt, New York City, for appellees.

Mr. Chief Justice WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.

At issue in this litigation is the constitutional validity, under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, of the apportionment of seats in the New York Legislature.

I.

Appellants initially brought this action on May 1, 1961, in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York. Plaintiffs below included individual citizens and voters residing in five of the six most populous New York counties (Bronx, Kings, Nassau, New York and Queens), suing in their own behalf and on behalf of all New York citizens similarly situated. Appellees, sued in their representative capacities, are various state and local officials charged with duties in connection with reapportionment and the conducting of state elections. The complaint claimed rights under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1988, and asserted jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3).

Plaintiffs below sought a declaration that those provisions of the State Constitution which establish the formulas for apportioning seats in the two houses of the New York Legislature, and the statutes implementing them, are unconstitutional since violative of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. The complaint further asked the District Court to enjoin defendants from performing any acts or duties in compliance with the allegedly unconstitutional legislative apportionment provisions. Plaintiffs asserted that they had no adequate remedy other than the judicial relief sought, and requested the court to retain jurisdiction until the New York Legislature, 'freed from the fetters imposed by the Constitutional provisions invalidated by this Court, provides for such apportionment of the State legislature as will insure to the urban voters of New York State the rights guaranteed them by the Constitution of the United States.'

In attacking the existing apportionment of seats in the New York Legislature, plaintiffs below stated, more particularly, that:

'The provisions of the New York State Constitution, Article III, §§ 2—5, violate the XIV A mendment of the Constitution of the United States because the apportionment formula contained therein results, and must necessarily result, when applied to the population figures of the State in a grossly unfair weighting of both houses in the State legislature in favor of the lesser populated rural areas of the state to the great disadvantage of the densely populated urban centers of the state. * *

'As a result of the constitutional provisions challenged herein, the Plaintiffs' votes are not as effective in either house of the legislature as the votes of other citizens residing in rural areas of the state. Plaintiffs and all others similarly situated suffer a debasement of their votes by virtue of the arbitrary, obsolete and unconstitutional apportionment of the legislature and they and all others similarly situated are denied the equal protection of the laws required by the Constitution of the United States.'

The complaint asserted that the legislative apportionment provisions of the 1894 New York Constitution, as amended, are not only presently unconstitutional, but also were invalid and violative of the Fourteenth Amendment at the time of their adoption, and that '(t)he population growth in the State of New York and the shifts of population to urban areas have aggravated the violation of Plaintiffs' rights under the XIV Amendment.'

As requested by plaintiffs, a three-judge District Court was convened.¹ The New York City defendants admitted the allegations of the complaint and requested the Court to grant plaintiffs the relief they were seeking. The remaining defendants moved to dismiss. On January 11, 1962, the District Court announced its initial decision. It held that it had jurisdiction but dismissed the complaint, without reaching the merits, on the ground that it failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, since the issues raised were nonjusticiable. 202 F.Supp. 741. In discussing the allegations made by plaintiffs, the Court stated:

'The complaint specifically cites as the cause of this allegedly unconstitutional distribution of state legislative representation the New York Constitutional provisions requiring that:

'(a) '* * * the total of fifty Senators established by the Constitution of 1894 shall be increased by those Senators to which any of the larger counties become entitled in addition to their allotment as of 1894, but without effect for decreases in other large counties * * *'

'(b) no county may have 'four or more Senators unless it has a full ratio for each Senator * * *' and '(c) '* * * every county except Hamilton shall always be entitled (in the Assembly) to one member coupled with the limitation of the entire membership to 150 members * * *."²

Nothing that the 1894 Constitution, containing the present apportionment provisious, was approved by a majority of the State's electorate before becoming effective, and that subsequently the voters had twice disapproved proposals for a constitutional convention to amend the constitutional provisions relating to legislative apportionment, the District Court concluded that, in any event, there was a 'want of equity in the relief sought, or, to view it slightly differently, want of justiciability, (which) clearly demands dismissal.'

Plaintiffs appealed to this Court from the District Court's dismissal of their complaint. On June 11, 1962, we vacated the judgment below and remanded for further consideration in the light of Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663, which had been decided subsequent to the District Court's dismissal of the suit below. 370 U.S. 190, 82 S.Ct. 1234, 8 L.Ed.2d 430. In vacating and remanding, we stated:

'Our well-established practice of a remand for consideration in the light of a subsequent decision therefore applies. * * * (W)e believe that the court below should be the first to consider the merits of the federal constitutional claim, free from any doubts as to its justificability and as to the merits of alleged arbitrary and invidious geographical discrimination.'³

On August 16, 1962, the District Court, after conducting a hearing,⁴ dismissed the complaint on the merits, concluding that plaintiffs had not shown by a preponderance of the evidence that there was any invidious discrimination, that the apportionment provisions of the New York Constitution were rational and not arbitrary, that they were of historical origin and contained no improper geographical discrimination, that they could be amended by an electoral majority of the citizens of New York, and that therefore the apportionment of seats in the New York Senate and Assembly was not unconstitutional. 208 F.Supp. 368. Finding no failure by the New York Legislature to comply with the state constitutional pro- visions requiring and establishing the formulas for periodic reapportionment of Senate and Assembly seats, the court below relied on the presumption of constitutionality attaching to a state constitutional provision and the necessity for a clear violation 'before a federal court of equity will lend its power to the disruption of the state election processes * * *.' After postulating a number of 'tests' for invidious discrimination, inc uding the '(r)ationality of state policy and whether or not the system is arbitrary,' '(w)hether or not the present complexion of the legislature has a historical basis,' whether the electorate has an available political remedy, and '(g)eography, including accessibility of legislative representatives to their electors,' the Court concluded that none of the relevant New York constitutional provisions were arbitrary or irrational in giving weight to, in addition to population, 'the ingredient of area, accessibility and character of interest.' Stating that in New York 'the county is a classic unit of governmental organization and administration,' the District Court found that the allocation of one Assembly seat to each county was grounded on a historical basis. The Court noted that the 1957 vote on whether to call a constitutional convention was 'heralded as an issue of apportionment' by the then Governor, but that nevertheless a majority of the State's voters chose not to have a constitutional convention convened. The Court also noted that 'if strict population standards were adopted certain undesirable results might follow such as an increase in the size of the legislature to such an extent that effective debate may be hampered or an increase in the size of districts to such an extent that contacts between the individual legislator and his constituents may become impracticable.'⁵ As a result of the District Court's dismissal of the complaint, the November 1962 election of New York legislators was conducted pursuant to the existing apportionment scheme. A timely appeal to this Court was filed, and we noted probable jurisdiction on June 10, 1963, 374 U.S. 802, 83 S.Ct. 1691, 10 L.Ed.2d 1028.

II.

Apportionment of seats in the two houses of the New York Legislature is prescribed by certain formulas contained in the 1894 State Constitution, as amended. Reapportionment is effected periodically by statutory provisions, ⁶ enacted in compliance with the constitutionally established formulas. The county is the basic unit of area for apportionment purposes, except that two sparsely populated counties, Fulton and Hamilton, are treated as one. New York uses citizen population instead of...