Home/E.D. Arkansas/Yancey v. Faubus

Yancey v. Faubus

251 F. Supp. 998, 1965 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6938
District Court, E.D. Arkansas·Decided November 4, 1965·No. LR-64-C-96·Published·Cited by 10 cases

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

On January 28, 1965, this court held that the scheme of apportionment of the membership of the Arkansas Legislature prescribed by sections 2 and 3 of Amendment 45 to the 1874 Constitution of the State of Arkansas was unconstitutional, and that defendants, members of the Board of Apportionment created by section 1 of that Amendment, would be required to prepare and put into effect a constitutional reapportionment of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Yancey v. Faubus, E.D.Ark., 238 F.Supp. 290. An appropriate decree was entered from which there was no appeal.

On May 17, 1965, the Supreme Court of Arkansas held that as a matter of State constitutional law our decision that the former plan of apportionment was invalid did not affect adversely other sections of the Amendment, and that the Arkansas Legislature would continue to consist of a House of Representatives of 100 members and of a Senate of 35 members, and that the Board of Apportionment had the authority under section 1 of the Amendment to make a valid reapportionment. Faubus v. Kinney, 239 Ark. 443, 389 S.W.2d 887. 1

On July 15 of the current year the Board, in obedience to our decree, filed a plan of reapportionment, which plan is set forth as Appendix A to this opinion. The plan was filed originally with this court and not with the Secretary of State of the State of Arkansas as provided by section 4 of Amendment 45. While the written record before us does not expressly reflect that the plan has ever been filed with the Secretary of State, we have been advised informally *1000 that it was in fact filed with the Secretary after it was filed here.

In due course the plaintiff, John Yancey, a citizen and qualified elector of Pulaski County, filed objections to the plan. Objections have also been filed by intervenors, Cecil L. Alexander and Mac Evans, members of the Arkansas House of Representatives from Cleburne and Van Burén Counties, respectively, and by representatives of the Crawford County Bar Association. Plaintiff objects generally to the plan; the objections of the intervenors are not only general but also specific to the extent that the plan affects the House representation of Cleburne, Crawford, and Van Burén Counties.

The objections have been heard upon documentary evidence, prehearing briefs, and oral argument.

Under the prior apportionment the State of Arkansas contained 75 House districts, with each of the 75 counties being a district; the Senate was made up of members from 26 districts, and the districts and the membership of the Senate were “frozen” on the basis of distribution of Arkansas’ population according to the census of 1950.

Under the new plan the State has 44 House districts and 25 Senate districts. Some of the districts of both types contain more than one county and some of both types are to be represented by more than one member.

The record before us reflects, and we find, that in preparing and submitting its plan the Board undertook in good faith to make a valid reapportionment of the Legislature in conformity with the principles laid down in what we have called' the Reapportionment Cases, 2 which require that both houses of a bi-cameral State legislature be apportioned, insofar as practicable, so that each member of each house represents approximately the same number of people, but permitting limited consideration to be given to other relevant factors such as geography, political subdivisions, and the like. The political philosophy underlying those decisions is frequently referred to by the slogan, “one man, one vote.”

We further find that the Board in making its reapportionment gave primary consideration to population, as it was required to do; however, the Board in constituting the new districts undertook to respect county lines and to create districts of convenient size and numerous enough to insure maximum representation to the largest possible number of individual counties.

The reapportionment was made with reference to the 1960 census, according to which the ideal or normal ratio for House membership was one Representative for every 17,860 people and one Senator for every 51,028 people. Bearing in mind the Board’s approach to the problem, it was inevitable that the plan which the Board produced involved variations in both directions from the ideal ratios for both Houses. While a number of the variations are substantial, none of them exceeds the 15 percent suggested as tolerable in Toombs v. Fortson, N.D. Ga., 241 F.Supp. 65, and Wesberry v. Vandiver, N.D.Ga., 206 F.Supp. 276, rev’d, on other grounds, Wesberry v. Vandiver, 376 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 526, 11 L.Ed.2d 481.

In attacking the plan the objecting parties contend generally that in creating multi-county and multi-member districts for both Houses the Board acted unconstitutionally, and that the Board’s adherence to county lines in creating the respective districts created such dis *1001 parities of population among the several districts as to violate the “one man, one vote” philosophy of the Reapportionment Cases.

It is further contended by the intervenors that the inclusion of smaller counties, such as Cleburne, Crawford, and Van Burén, in districts containing one or more counties of large populations in effect disenfranchises the voters in the smaller counties and unconstitutionally discriminates against those voters.

The Board denies that any of those contentions possess merit.

At the outset of discussion we will say that it is not our function to effect revisions of the plan when such revisions are unnecessary to satisfy constitutional requirements. We further recognize that the question is not whether the plan adopted by the Board is the best that could be devised. There are indeed instances where a district is not comprised of the most compatible counties, based on their diverse geographic and political compositions. In fact, it defies imagination to contrive a scheme that would meet with everyone’s satisfaction. Moreover, the constitutionality of the plan cannot be measured fairly by reference to isolated, individual examples. We must determine whether the Board has in good faith fashioned a reapportionment plan complying with the rulings of the United States Supreme Court. The Board was faced with a difficult task due to the unequal distribution of the population of the State, in that a solution to one problem might well have given rise to others of equal or greater seriousness. In performing its task, the Board was entitled to some measure of administrative or legislative discretion, and in the permissible area of such discretion we will not substitute our judgment for that of the Board.

In appraising the plan it is our duty to look at it as a whole, to consider its rationality, its historical basis, and its overall conformity or lack of conformity to the requirement that each Representátive and each Senator must represent substantially the same number of people so that the vote of each voter will ultimately have approximately the same weight as that of every other voter.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Yancey v. Faubus, 251 F. Supp. 998, 1965 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6938 (E.D. Ark. 1965).

251 F. Supp. 998 (Yancey v. Faubus) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Newton v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated
958 F. Supp. 248 (W.D. North Carolina, 1997)
Jeffers v. Clinton
730 F. Supp. 196 (E.D. Arkansas, 1990)
Kelly v. Bumpers
340 F. Supp. 568 (E.D. Arkansas, 1972)
Rockefeller v. Smith
440 S.W.2d 580 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1969)
Baker v. Ellington
273 F. Supp. 174 (M.D. Tennessee, 1967)
Newbold v. Osser
230 A.2d 54 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1967)
Jones v. Falcey
222 A.2d 134 (New Jersey Superior Court App Division, 1966)
Harris v. Anderson
412 P.2d 457 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 1966)