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The Illinois Congressional Redistricting Case
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Extract
Unsuccessful as plaintiffs and appellees in a prayer for relief under the Federal Declaratory Judgment Act of 1934, as amended, from the effects of the inequitable and outmoded act of Illinois of 1901 creating the present Congressional districts, Kenneth W. Colegrove (who in other capacities is chairman of the department of political science at Northwestern University and secretary-treasurer of the American Political Science Association), Peter J. Chamales, attorney, and Kenneth C. Sears, professor of law at the University of Chicago, have nevertheless received from the District Court and from the Supreme Court encouraging dicta and dissent which foreshadow new developments in election law.
The legislature of Illinois has repeatedly refused to redistrict the state for Congressional representation, despite grave and increasing population shifts. A new but inequitable Congressional redistricting act, passed by the General Assembly in 1931, was declared unconstitutional by the state supreme court because it violated federal law and the provision of the Illinois constitution requiring that “all elections shall be free and equal.” Ten years later, when a similar attack was made on the long-standing and much more discriminatory act of 1901, the Illinois supreme court took an opposite view, declaring that the constitutional section is addressed primarily to the legislature and that to argue for a requirement, in all cases, that districts be equal in population “is to assert a millennium which cannot be reached.”
- Type
- American Government and Politics
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1946
References
1 Title 28, U. S. C., sec. 400.
2 Laws of Ill., 1901, p. 3; Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 46, secs. 154–156.
3 Moran v. Bowley, 347 Ill. 148, 179 N. E. 526 (1931).
4 Art. II, sec. 18.
5 Daly v. Madison County, 378 Ill. 357, 38 N. E. (2nd) 160 (1941).
6 Title 28, U. S. C., sec. 380; Judicial Code, sec. 266.
7 Colegrove et al. v. Green et al., 64 F. Supp. 632.
8 Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1 (1932).
9 Title 2, U. S. C., sec. 2a.
10 37 Stat. L. 13.
11 Title 28, U. S. C., secs. 345, 380; Judicial Code, secs. 238, 266.
12 285 U. S. 355. Cf. Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375 (1932), affirming a decision of the New York court of appeals; and Carroll v. Becker, 285 U. S. 380 (1932), affirming a decision of the supreme court of Missouri.
13 16 Stat. L. 140.
14 Cf. Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371 (1880); Ex parte Yarbrough 110 U.S. 651 (1883); U. S. v. Classic et al., 313 U. S. 299 (1940); Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649 (1944).
15 17 Stat. L 28.
16 Colegrove et al. v. Green et al., No. 804, Oct. Term, 1945; decided June 10, 1946. 66 S. Ct. Rept. 1198, Advance Sheet of July 1, 1946; also L. Ed. S. Ct. Rept., Advance Sheet, July, 1946, 1242 et seq.
17 Mr. Justice Jackson did not participate in the case, and the office of Chief Justice was vacant.
18 A petition and also a motion for rehearing were submitted in August, 1946, pointing out that a full bench is now available, that only three Justices were earlier “in accord in opinion,” that the Court has been reluctant to decide a constitutional question without the concurrence of a majority of a full bench since the opinion by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in the cases of Briscoe v. Commonwealth Bank of Kentucky and City of New York v. Miln, reported together, 8 Peters 118 (1834), that the inadvertent injury done to the declaratory judgment should be corrected, and that the “timing” factor is now more favorable for relief since the Illinois legislature would have two years to redistrict for the next Congressional elections.
19 Relief in equity has been denied by a three-judge federal District Court in Georgia, where plaintiffs sought to enjoin certification of a nomination for governor because popular vote has been disregarded under the “county unit system.” Turman et al. v. Duckworth et al., District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, Civil, Action 3013, decided August 24, 1946. Petition for certiorari is being submitted to the Supreme Court. Dr. Cullen B. Gosnell, professor of political science at Emory University, was one of the plaintiffs in this case.
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