Lead Opinion
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Burton concur.
This case is appropriately here, under § 266 of the Judicial Code, 28 U. S. C. § 380, on direct review of a judgment of the District Court of the Northern District of Illinois, composed of three judges, dismissing the complaint of the appellants. These are three qualified voters in Illinois districts which have much larger populations than other Illinois Congressional districts. They brought this suit against the Governor, the Secretary of State, and the Auditor of the State of Illinois, as members ex officio of the Illinois Primary Certifying Board, to restrain them, in effect, from taking proceedings for an election in November 1946, under the provisions of Illinois law governing Congressional districts. Illinois Laws of 1901, p. 3. Formally, the appellants asked for a decree, with its incidental relief, § 274 (d) Judicial Code, 28 U. S. C. § 400, declaring these provisions to be invalid because they violated various provisions of the United States Constitution and § 3 of the Reapportionment Act of August 8, 1911, 37 Stat. 13, as amended, 2 U. S. C. § 2a, in that by reason of subsequent changes in population the Congressional districts for the election of Representatives in the Congress created by the Illinois Laws of 1901 (111. Rev. Stat. Ch. 46 (1945) §§ 154-56) lacked compactness of terri
The District Court was clearly right in deeming itself bound by Wood v. Broom, supra, and we could also dispose of this case on the authority of Wood v. Broom. The legal merits of this controversy were settled in that case, inasmuch as it held that the Reapportionment Act of June 18, 1929, 46 Stat. 21, as amended, 2 U. S. C. § 2 (a), has no requirements “as to the compactness, contiguity and equality in population of districts.” 287 U. S. at 8. The Act of 1929 still governs the districting for the election of Representatives. It must be remembered that not only was the legislative history of the matter fully considered in Wood v. Broom, but the question had been elaborately before the Court in Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375, and Carroll v. Becker, 285 U. S. 380, argued a few months before Wood v. Broom was decided. Nothing has now been adduced to lead us to overrule what this Court found to be the requirements under the Act of 1929, the more so since seven Congressional elections have been held under the Act of 1929 as construed by this Court. No manifestation has been shown by Congress even to question the correctness of that which seemed compelling to this Court in enforcing the will of Congress in Wood v. Broom.
But we also agree with the four Justices (Brandéis, Stone, Roberts, and Cardozo, JJ.) who were of opinion that the bill in Wood v. Broom, supra, should be “dismissed for want of equity.” To be sure, the present complaint, unlike the bill in Wood v. Broom, was brought under the Federal Declaratory Judgment Act which, not having been enacted until 1934, was not available at the time of Wood v. Broom. But that Act merely gave the federal courts competence to make a declaration of rights even though
We are of opinion that the appellants ask of this Court what is beyond its competence to grant. This is one of those demands on judicial power which cannot be met by verbal fencing about “jurisdiction.” It must be resolved by considerations on the basis of which this Court, from time to time, has refused to intervene in controversies. It has refused to do so because due regard for the effective working of our Government revealed this issue to be of a peculiarly political nature and therefore not meet for judicial determination.
This is not an action to recover for damage because of the discriminatory exclusion of a plaintiff from rights enjoyed by other citizens. The basis for the suit is not a private wrong, but a wrong suffered by Illinois as a polity. Compare Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536 and Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268, with Giles v. Harris, 189 U. S. 475. In effect this is an appeal to the federal courts to reconstruct the electoral process of Illinois in order that it may be adequately represented in the councils of the Nation. Because the Illinois legislature has failed to revise its Congressional Representative districts in order to reflect great changes, during more than a generation, in the distribution of its population, we are asked to do this, as it were, for Illinois.
The appellants urge with great zeal that the conditions of which they complain are grave evils and offend public morality. The Constitution of the United States gives ample power to provide against these evils. But due regard for the Constitution as a viable system precludes judicial correction. Authority for dealing with such problems resides elsewhere. Article I, § 4 of the Constitution provides that “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for . . . Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, . . .” The short of it is that the Constitution has conferred upon Congress exclusive authority to secure fair representation by the States in the popular House and left to that House determination whether States have fulfilled their responsibility. If Congress failed in exercising its powers, whereby standards of fairness are offended, the remedy ultimately lies with' the people. Whether Congress faithfully discharges its duty or not, the subject has been committed to the exclusive control of Congress. An aspect of government from which the judiciary, in view of what is involved, has been excluded by the clear intention of the Constitution cannot be entered by the federal courts because Congress may have been in default in exacting from States obedience to its mandate.
The one stark fact that emerges from a study of the history of Congressional apportionment is its embroilment in politics, in the sense of party contests and party interests. The Constitution enjoins upon Congress the duty of apportioning Representatives “among the several States . . . according to their respective Numbers, . . .”
To sustain this action would cut very deep into the very being of Congress. Courts ought not to enter this political thicket. The remedy for unfairness in districting is to secure State legislatures that will apportion properly, or to invoke the ample powers of Congress. The Constitution has many commands that are not enforceable by courts because they clearly fall outside the conditions and purposes that circumscribe judicial action. Thus, “on Demand of the executive Authority,” Art. IV, § 2, of a State it is the duty of a sister State to deliver up a fugitive from justice. But the fulfilment of this duty cannot be judicially enforced. Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66. The duty to see to it that the laws are faithfully executed cannot be brought under legal compulsion, Mississippi v. Johnson, 4 Wall. 475. Violation of the great guaranty of a republican form of government in States cannot be challenged in the courts. Pacific Telephone Co. v. Oregon, 223 U. S. 118. The Constitution has left the performance of many duties in our governmental scheme to depend on the fidelity of the executive and legislative action and, ultimately, on the vigilance of the people in exercising their political rights.
Dismissal of the complaint is affirmed.
For opinions of Rutledge and Black, JJ., see post, pages 564, 566.
These years were chosen at random.
Concurrence Opinion
I concur in the result. But for the ruling in Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, I should have supposed that the provisions of the Constitution, Art. I, § 4, that “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for . . . Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations . . .”; Art. I, § 2, vesting in Congress the duty of apportionment of representatives among the several states “according to their respective Numbers”; and Art. I, § 5, making each House the sole judge of the qualifications of its own members, would remove the issues in this case from justiciable cognizance. But, in my judgment, the Smiley case rules squarely to the contrary, save only in the matter of degree.
Moreover, we have but recently been admonished again that it is the very essence of our duty to avoid decision upon grave constitutional questions, especially when this may bring our function into clash with the political departments of the Government, if any tenable alternative ground for disposition of the controversy is presented.
I was unable to find such an alternative in that instance. There is one, however, in this case. And I think the gravity of the constitutional questions raised so great, together with the possibilities for collision above mentioned, that the admonition is appropriate to be followed here. Other reasons support this view, including the fact
Assuming that that decision is to stand, I think, with Mr. Justice Black, that its effect is to rule that this Court has power to afford relief in a case of this type as against the objection that the issues are not justiciable.
In the later case of Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1, the Court disposed of the cause on the ground that the 1929 Reapportionment Act, 46 Stat. 21, did not carry forward the requirements of the 1911 Act, 37 Stat. 13, and declined to decide whether there was equity in the bill. 287 U. S. 1, 8. But, as the Court’s opinion notes, four justices thought the bill should be dismissed for want of equity.
In my judgment this complaint should be dismissed for the same reason, iissuming that the controversy is justiciable, I think the cause is of so delicate a character, in view of the considerations above noted, that the jurisdiction should be exercised only in the most compelling circumstances.
As a matter of legislative attention, whether by Congress or the General Assembly, the case made by the complaint is strong. But the relief it seeks pitches this Court into delicate relation to the functions of state officials and Congress, compelling them to take action which heretofore they have declined to take voluntarily or to accept the alternative of electing representatives from Illinois at large in the forthcoming elections.
The shortness of the time remaining makes it doubtful whether action could, or would, be taken in time to secure for petitioners the effective relief they seek. To force
If the constitutional provisions on which appellants rely give them the substantive rights they urge, other provisions qualify those rights in important ways by vesting large measures of control in the political subdivisions of the Government and the state. There is not, and could not be except abstractly, a right of absolute equality in voting. At best there could be only a rough approximation. And there is obviously considerable latitude for the bodies vested with those powers to exercise their judgment concerning how best to attain this, in full consistency with the Constitution.
The right here is not absolute. And the cure sought may be worse than the disease.
I think, therefore, the case is one in which the Court may properly, and should, decline to exercise its jurisdiction.
United States v. Lovett, 328 U. S. 303, concurring opinion at 320: “But the most fundamental principle of constitutional adjudication is not to face constitutional questions but to avoid them, if at all possible. And so the ‘Court developed, for its own governance in the cases confessedly within its jurisdiction, a series of rules under which it has avoided passing upon a large part of all the constitutional questions pressed upon it for decision/ ”
Want of equity jurisdiction does not go to the power of a court in the same manner as want of jurisdiction over the subject matter. Thus, want of equity jurisdiction may be waived. Matthews v. Rodgers, 284 U. S. 521, 524-525 and cases cited.
“The power of a court of equity to act is a discretionary one. . . . Where a federal court of equity is asked to interfere with the enforcement of state laws, it should do so only ‘to prevent irreparable injury which is clear and imminent.’ ” American Federation of Labor v. Watson, 327 U. S. 582, 593, and cases cited.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
The complaint alleges the following facts essential to the position I take: Appellants, citizens and voters of Illinois, live in congressional election districts, the respective populations of which range from 612,000 to 914,000. Twenty other congressional election districts have populations that range from 112,116 to 385,207. In seven of
In the present suit the complaint attacked the 1901 State Apportionment Act on the ground that it among other things violates Article I and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Appellants claim that since they live in the heavily populated districts their vote is much less effective than the vote of those living in a district which under the 1901 Act is also allowed to choose one Congressman, though its population is sometimes
It is difficult for me to see why the 1901 State Apportionment Act does not deny appellants equal protection of the laws. The failure of the Legislature to reapportion the congressional election districts for forty years, despite census figures indicating great changes in the distribution of the population, has resulted in election districts the populations of which range from 112,000 to 900,000. One of the appellants lives in a district of more than 900,000 people. His vote is consequently much less effective than that of each of the citizens living in the district of 112,000. And such a gross inequality in the voting power of citizens irrefutably demonstrates a complete lack of effort to make an equitable apportionment. The 1901 State Apportionment Act if applied to the next election would thus result in a wholly indefensible discrimination against appellants and all other voters in heavily populated districts. The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids such discrimination. It does not permit the States to pick out certain qualified citizens or groups of citizens and deny them the right to vote at all. See Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536, 541; Nixon v. Condon, 286 U. S. 73. No one would deny that the equal protection clause would also prohibit a law that would expressly give certain citizens a half-vote and others a full vote. The probable effect of the 1901 State Apportionment Act in the coming election will be that certain citizens, and among them the appellants, will in some instances have votes only one-ninth as effective in choosing representatives to Congress as the votes of other citizens. Such discriminatory legislation seems to me exactly the kind that the equal protection clause was intended to prohibit.
It is true that the States are authorized by § 2 of Article I of the Constitution to legislate on the subject of congressional elections to the extent that Congress has not done so. Thus the power granted to the State Legislature on this subject is primarily derived from the Federal and not from the State Constitution. But this federally-granted power with respect to elections of Congressmen is not to formulate policy but rather to implement the policy laid down in the Constitution, that, so far as feasible, votes be given equally effective weight. Thus, a state legislature cannot deny eligible voters the right to vote for Congressmen and the right to have their vote counted. It can no more destroy the effectiveness of their vote in part and no more accomplish this in the name of “apportionment” than under any other name. For legislation which must inevitably bring about glaringly unequal representation in the Congress in favor of special classes and groups should be invalidated, “whether accomplished ingeniously or ingenuously.” Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128, 132. See also Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268, 272.
Had Illinois passed an Act requiring that all of its twenty-six Congressmen be elected by the citizens of one county, it would clearly have amounted to a denial to the citizens of the other counties of their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. And I cannot imagine that an Act that would have apportioned twenty-five Congressmen to the State’s smallest county and one Congressman to all the others, would have been sustained by any court. Such an Act would clearly have violated the con
It is contended, however, that a court of equity does not have the power, or even if it has the power, that it should not exercise it in this case. To do so, it is argued, would mean that the Court is entering the area of “political questions.” I cannot agree with that argument. There have been cases, such as Coleman v. Miller, supra, pp. 454, 457, where this Court declined to decide a question because it was political. In the Miller case, however, the question involved was ratification of a constitutional amendment, a matter over which the Court believed Congress had been given final authority. To have decided that question would have amounted to a trespass upon the constitutional power of Congress. Here we have before us a state law which abridges the constitutional rights of citizens to cast votes in such way as to obtain the kind of congressional representation the Constitution guarantees to them.
It is true that voting is a part of elections and that elections are “political.” But as this Court said in Nixon
In this case, no supervision over elections .is asked for. What is asked is that this Court do exactly what it did in Smiley v. Holm, supra. It is asked to declare a state apportionment bill invalid and to enjoin state officials from enforcing it. The only difference between this case and the Smiley case is that there the case originated in the state courts while here the proceeding originated in the Federal District Court. The only type of case in which this Court has held that a federal district court should in its discretion stay its hand any more than a state court is where the question is one which state courts or administrative agencies have special competence to
Nor is there any more difficulty in enforcing a decree in this case than there was in the Smiley case. It is true that declaration of invalidity of the State Act and the enjoining of state officials would result in prohibiting the State from electing Congressmen under the system of the old congressional districts. But it would leave the State free to elect them from the State at large, which, as we held in the Smiley case, is a manner authorized by the Constitution. It is said that it would be inconvenient for the State to conduct the election in this manner. But it has an element of virtue that the more convenient method does not have — namely, it does not discriminate against some groups to favor others, it gives all the people an equally effective voice in electing their representatives as is essential under a free government, and it is constitutional.
People v. Thompson, 155 Ill. 451, 40 N. E. 307; Fergus v. Marks, 321 Ill. 510, 152 N. E. 557; Fergus v. Kinney, 333 Ill. 437, 164 N. E. 665; People v. Clardy, 334 Ill. 160, 165 N. E. 638; People v. Blackwell, 342 Ill. 223, 173 N. E. 750; Daly v. Madison County, 378 Ill. 357, 38 N. E. 2d 160. Cf. Moran v. Bowley, 347 Ill. 148, 179 N. E. 526.
28 U. S. C. 41 (14); Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678.
Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355; Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375; Carroll v. Becker, 285 U. S. 380; Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1; Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536, 540; McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1, 23-24; see also cases collected in 2 A. L. R. note, 1337 et seq.
Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433, 438, 467.
Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123; Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U. S. 378, 393.