Jewell v. Miller County Election Commission

Daniel J. JEWELL and Bryan Rodgers v. MILLER
COUNTY ELECTION COMMISSION, et al.; Gary
Bailey, et al., Intervenors

95-1322                                            ___ S.W.2d ___

                    Supreme Court of Arkansas
               Opinion delivered February 3, 1997


Appeal & error -- abstract flagrantly deficient -- judgment affirmed. -- 
     Where it was confronted with a six-volume record of some 1500
     pages plus exhibits and was provided with a nine-page abstract
     that left out the most basic information and was otherwise
     most difficult to decipher, the supreme court held that
     appellants' abstract did not comply with Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 4-2;
     deeming it flagrantly deficient, the court affirmed the
     judgment.


     Appeal from Miller Circuit Court; John Lineberger, Circuit
Judge on Assignment; affirmed.
     Law Firm of Stephen T. Arnold, by: Stephen T. Arnold, for
appellants.
     Thomas H. Johnson, for appellees.
     Atchley, Russell, Waldrop, & Hlavinka, L.L.P., by: J. Dennis
Chambers, for appellees-intervenors.

     David Newbern, Justice.
     This appeal has arisen from the tortured recent history of
city government in Texarkana.  The issue presented is whether the
General Assembly's attempt to remedy the situation by passage of
Act 8 of the First Extraordinary Session of 1995 violates the
constitutional prohibition against special or local legislation. 
Ark. Const. amend. 14.  The Circuit Court held Act 8 was not
unconstitutional.  We affirm the decision because the appellants'
abstract is flagrantly deficient.
     Texarkana has a city-manager form of government.  Prior to and
during the six-year duration of the dispute over the manner of
electing the City's directors, four directors were elected from
discrete districts, and three were elected at large.  That system
was held to violate the federal Voting Rights Act because it
deprived African-American citizens of an equal opportunity to
participate in the political process.  Williams v. City of
Texarkana, 861 F. Supp. 756 (W.D. Ark. 1992), supp. op., 861 F. Supp. 771 (W.D. Ark. 1993).  At a subsequent election, the voters
of Texarkana approved a system by which six directors would be
elected from districts and one at large, i.e., a "6-1 plan."  For
some time thereafter, incumbent officials declined to hold an
election under the 6-1 plan as they claimed they interpreted the
order of the United States District Court to require that all seven
directors be elected from districts.  The argument on the other
side was that the District Court order contained no provision
suggesting the system approved by the voters would be considered
illegal.  
     On appeal, the District Court's order was affirmed, and the
argument that the 6-1 plan would violate the Voting Rights Act was
rejected.  The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth
Circuit declined to rule on that issue as it had not been decided
by the District Court.  Williams v. City of Texarkana, 32 F.3d 1265
(8th Cir. 1994).  The parties appeared again before the District
Court which accepted a settlement on attorney's fees but declined
to rule further in the matter as it involved interpretations of
state law on the manner of calling special elections.  The parties
continued to wrangle.
     Act 8 is the second of two attempts by the General Assembly to
deal with the situation.  The first, Act 750 of 1995, was opined by
the Attorney General to be ineffective in prescribing a means of
electing officials under a system of government already adopted. 
Act 8 purports to accomplish that purpose.  
     The contention that Act 8 is unconstitutional is based on its
opening provision that it applies
     
     only to a city with the city manager form of government in
     which the Arkansas city is divided by a street state line from
     an incorporated city or town in an adjoining state and the
     city or town in the adjoining state is of greater population
     than the Arkansas city or town....

     As mentioned above, the Miller County Circuit Court determined
that Act 8 was not in violation of Amendment 14 to the Constitution
of Arkansas.  From the appellants' abstract of the Circuit Court's
order, we cannot determine why.  The judgment is abstracted as
follows: "December 15, 1995 judgment holding that Act 8 of the
First Extraordinary Session of 1995 is constitutional."  Other
parts of the abstract are equally cryptic.  Pleadings and exhibits
are referred to without any designation as to who presented them.
     Jolly v. Hartje, 294 Ark. 16, 740 S.W.2d 143 (1987), is one of
many cases in which we have expressed the need for an abstract of
the record sufficient to allow us to know what happened in the
case.  We wrote:

          This four-volume record contains 551 pages.  We do not
     suggest that irrelevant portions of the trial proceedings
     should be abstracted.  Indeed, the rules provide that the
     abstract should consist of "only" such material parts as are
     necessary to an understanding of all questions presented to
     this court for decision. ... Ordinarily the basic pleadings
     and judgment or decree appealed from are essential
     constituents of the abstract, as we have frequently noted.  

294 Ark. at 18, 740 S.W.2d  at 144 (citations omitted).
     Here, we are confronted with a record of some 1500 pages plus
exhibits in six volumes.  We have a nine-page abstract that leaves
out the most basic information and is otherwise most difficult to
decipher.  The appellants' abstract does not comply with Arkansas
Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Rule 4-2.  We deem it flagrantly
deficient, and thus we affirm the judgment.  Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 4-
2(b)(2). 
     Affirmed.