In re Reapportionment of Towns of Woodbury & Worcester
Annotate this Case
In re Reapportionment of Towns of Woodbury & Worcester (2002-304);
177 Vt. 556; 861 A.2d 1117
2004 VT 92
[Filed 13-Sep-2004]
ENTRY ORDER
2004 VT 92
SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 2002-304
MARCH TERM, 2004
In re Reapportionment of Towns of Woodbury } Original Jurisdiction
and Worcester }
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}
}
In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:
¶ 1. Petitioners, citizens of the towns of Woodbury and
Worcester, challenge the Legislature's 2002 reapportionment of voting
districts for the Vermont House of Representatives on grounds that
placement of their towns in the new Lamoille-Washington-1 district violates
constitutional and statutory requirements. We deny petitioners' challenge.
¶ 2. To maintain equal representation in the General Assembly,
the constitution requires the Legislature to reapportion its voting
districts after each decennial census. See Vt. Const. ch. II, § 73. While
the primary constitutional criteria is numerical equality, the Legislature
must also "seek to maintain geographical compactness and contiguity and to
adhere to boundaries of counties and other existing political
subdivisions." Vt. Const. ch. II, § 13.
¶ 3. The statutory criteria for reapportionment reflect these
requirements. In the process of reapportioning by population, 17 V.S.A. §
1903(a), statutory provisions also require that
districts shall be formed consistent with the following
policies insofar as practicable:
(1) preservation of existing political subdivision lines;
(2) recognition and maintenance of patterns of
geography, social interaction, trade, political ties and
common interests;
(3) use of compact and contiguous territory.
17 V.S.A. § 1903(b).
¶ 4. The reapportionment process for the House is initiated by
the appointment of a bipartisan legislative apportionment board (the
board). Id. § 1904. The board must prepare a tentative proposal dividing
the state into initial districts, and then notify the affected municipal
boards of civil authority for their review. Id. § 1905. After considering
recommendations from the towns, the board must forward its final plan of
initial districts to the clerk of the house. Id. §§ 1905, 1906. The
Legislature may then accept the proposal, or enact a substitute plan. Id.
§ 1906. Once initial district boundaries are drawn, those districts with
two or more members may be subdivided either by agreement of the towns in
the district or by the legislature. Id. §§ 1906a, 1906b, 1906c. The final
reapportionment plan must be composed of districts containing no more than
two members. Id. § 1906c.
¶ 5. In the present case, the board's proposed initial
redistricting plan placed the petitioning towns of Woodbury and Worcester,
along with Calais, Middlesex, and East Montpelier in the two-member
Washington-4 district, and the neighboring towns of Middletown, Elmore, and
Wolcott in the two-member Lamoille-3 district. Statewide, civil
authorities in at least forty-seven towns criticized the board's proposed
plan. Petitioners' towns did not object.
¶ 6. The board forwarded its plan, and a list of issues raised by
the dissatisfied towns, to the house government operations committee (the
committee) on August 15, 2001. Over the next five months, the committee
conducted a series of public hearings around the state and at the state
house and hosted an interactive web site that allowed citizens to draft
their own plans. The committee also held at least 23 meetings, where
members took testimony, discussed objections, prepared maps and
spreadsheets and voted on numerous redistricting options. In response
to public input and objections from various towns, the committee eventually
prepared a revised plan for initial House districts that, among other
things, moved Woodbury and Worcester, into a newly created
Lamoille-Washington-1 district along with the towns of Elmore, and
Morristown. The district forms the shape of a capital T. Elmore is
located at the top center of the T and is bounded by Morristown on the
west, Woodbury on the east, and Worcester on the south.
¶ 7. Both chambers, and their respective redistricting
committees, engaged in significant debate and multiple votes to amend the
initial plan and several times rejected proposals to remove Woodbury and
Worcester from the proposed Lamoille-Washington-1 district. After the
Senate passed a "strike all" bill substantially modifying the House
proposal and returning Woodbury and Worcester to the districts initially
proposed by the board, the chambers appointed a conference committee to
resolve their differences. The conference committee's compromise plan,
which was eventually adopted and signed by the Governor, see 2001, No. 85,
§ 1 (Adj. Sess.), placed Woodbury and Worcester in the
Lamoille-Washington-1 district.
¶ 8. Woodbury and Worcester then voted to divide
Lamoille-Washington-1 into two single-member districts. That proposal,
which would have split Morristown, was rejected by the boards of Elmore and
Morristown. The House also rejected the proposal to split the district.
The final statewide reapportionment plan subdividing the initial districts
into one- and two-member districts, left Lamoille-Washington-1 as a
two-member district composed of the towns of Woodbury, Worcester, Elmore
and Morristown. 2001, No. 151, § 53 (Adj. Sess.). This appeal followed.
¶ 9. The Supreme Court has original and exclusive jurisdiction
over any challenge to a legislative reapportionment made by five or more
citizens. 17 V.S.A. § 1909(a), (f). However, we review the Legislature's
redistricting plan with considerable deference.
Redistricting is primarily a matter for legislative
consideration and determination. Accordingly, the
redistricting plans approved by the General Assembly are
presumed to be valid, and there is a heavy burden of proof on
those who allege that a redistricting plan violates the
Constitution. Further, it is primarily the Legislature, not
this Court, that must make the necessary compromises to
effectuate state constitutional goals and statutory policies
within the limitations imposed by federal law. Accordingly,
the Legislature must resolve the tension that exists between
the one-person, one-vote requirement and state laws
concerning the maintenance of compact and contiguous
districts made up of communities with common interests. If a
plan is consistent with the fundamental constitutional
requirement that districts be drawn to afford equality of
representation, we will return it to the Legislature only
when there is no rational or legitimate basis for any
deviations from other constitutional or statutory criteria.
In re Reapportionment of Towns of Hartland, Windsor & West Windsor, 160 Vt.
9, 14-15, 624 A.2d 323, 326-327 (1993) (internal quotations and citations
omitted).
¶ 10. In reviewing the specific violations claimed by
petitioners, we must consider the redistricting plan as a whole, taking
into account the statewide implications. Id. at 15-16, 624 A.2d at 327.
To make a prima facie case, petitioners must show "that the State has
failed to meet constitutional or statutory standards or policies with
regard to a specific part of the plan." Id. Only then does the burden
shift to the State, "to show that satisfying those requirements was
impossible because of the impermissible effect it would have had on other
districts." Id.
¶ 11. Petitioners initially challenged the creation of the
Lamoille-Washington-1 district on the grounds that it: (1) violated
constitutional requirements of geographical compactness and contiguity; (2)
failed to adhere to county boundaries and other existing political
subdivisions; (3) failed to recognize and maintain patterns of geography,
social interaction, trade, political ties, and common interests; and (4)
created an extreme numerical inequality between large and small towns
within the district, aggravated the above violations, and effectively
disenfranchising petitioners' towns.
¶ 12. Pursuant to 17 V.S.A. § 1909(d), the Court appointed a
special master who took testimony and issued findings of fact regarding
each of these claims. The master found that all four towns have one or
more boundaries in common with another town in the district, and that the
T-shaped district "in fact is contiguous and relatively compact."
Petitioners do not dispute this finding.
¶ 13. Petitioners have reframed their remaining claims in light
of certain findings issued by the master. First, petitioners argue that
the plan is "per se unconstitutional" based on the master's finding that
the evidences is "extremely persuasive" that placement of petitioner's
towns in the Washington-Lamoille-1 district violates the remaining
nonnumerical constitutional and statutory requirements. Second, based on
the master's finding that the legislative record is silent as to what
nonnumerical factors the Legislature actually considered regarding the
Lamoille-Washington-1 district, or the weight given to each factor,
petitioners contend that meaningful review of the plan is impossible and
that it must, at a minimum, be remanded for reconsideration of these
factors.
¶ 14. The specific nonnumerical criteria that petitioners claim
the Lamoille-Washington-1 district violates are the constitutional
requirement that the legislature "seek . . . to adhere to boundaries of
counties and other existing political subdivisions," Vt. Const. ch. II, §
13, and the parallel statutory directive to, "insofar as practicable,"
preserve existing political subdivision lines and maintain patterns of
geography, social interaction, trade, political ties and common interests.
17 V.S.A. § 1903(b)(1)-(2).
¶ 15. The heart of petitioners' argument is that Woodbury and
Worcester are bedroom communities for Montpelier and Barre, and that their
natural social, political and economic interests lie with their fellow
Washington County towns to their south and east rather than the Lamoille
County towns of Elmore and Morristown, which are over the mountains to
their north and west. The legislature, however, is not obligated to
implement the best plan for each district. Rather it needs to devise a
plan that is in conformity with the constitutional and statutory criteria.
Hartland, 160 Vt. at 42, 624 A.2d at 342 (citing Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U.S. 735, 750-51 (1973)). Thus, in order to prevail, petitioners must
show, based on the criteria, that there was no rational or legitimate basis
for the creation of the Lamoille-Washington-1 district. Id. at 45, 624 A.2d at 327. Upon review of the record, we conclude that petitioners have
failed to satisfy this burden.
¶ 16. Petitioners complain that the plan does not adhere to
county lines and other political subdivisions. See Vt. Const. ch. II, §
13; 17 V.S.A. § 1903(b)(1). Under our prior cases, however, a district is
not invalid merely because it straddles a county line. Hartland, 160 Vt.
at 31, 624 A.2d at 336; see also In re Senate Bill 177, 132 Vt. 282, 289,
318 A.2d 157, 162 (1974) (crossing county lines does not disqualify plan
given difficulties of reaching acceptable result statewide). Overall, the
new plan places ninety-eight towns in districts that cross county lines,
which is not unusual. In fact, in this respect it is identical to the 1992
reapportionment plan we upheld in Hartland, 160 Vt. at 31, 624 A.2d at
336.
¶ 17. Additionally, the State has shown that in formulating the
current plan, the Legislature repeatedly rejected proposals that would have
divided towns in order to follow county lines, including, specifically,
proposals that would have divided Morristown in order to place Woodbury and
Worcester in a district of their choosing within Washington County. We
defer to this judgment, which is neither irrational nor illegitimate. See
In re Senate Bill 177, 132 Vt. at 287, 318 A.2d at 160 (recounting
Vermont's historical growth from a group of chartered towns to an
independent nation and then the fourteenth state, and rationalizing the
Legislature's choice to preserve town lines at expense of breaching county
lines).
¶ 18. Regarding the other set of criteria, to maintain patterns
of geography, trade, political and social ties and common interests, 17
V.S.A. § 1903(b)(2), petitioners argue that their common interests,
employment, trade and political and social interaction lie exclusively to
the east and south.(FN1) Petitioners have not, however, shown an absence of
common ties with the rest of their district. Although the master's
findings clearly indicate that petitioners' preferences and the bulk of
their interests may indeed fall outside their current district, the
findings also include substantial ties between Woodbury and Worcester, on
the one hand, and Morristown and Elmore on the other.
¶ 19. Worcester, which lies at the base of the T-shaped district,
is directly linked to Elmore and Morristown by Route 12, which bisects all
three towns. The three towns are all part of the Lamoille Regional Solid
Waste Management District and the District 5 Environmental Commission.
Although more than half of Worcester's working citizens are employed in the
Montpelier-Barre region, that is true of most outlying towns in the region,
and no proposal would have combined Worcester with either Montpelier or
Barre. When comparing Worcester residents not working in Montpelier or
Barre, the link between Worcester and Morristown is reasonable as compared
to other towns. For example, 4.1 % of Worcester residents work in East
Montpelier, 4.1 % work in Waterbury, and 2.7 % work in Morristown.
¶ 20. Woodbury, which lies on the eastern arm of the T-shaped
district, is linked to Elmore and Morristown by Routes 14 and 15. Although
travel between these towns is not direct - travelers from Worcester must
pass through Hardwick on their way to Elmore and Morrisville - the total
travel time from Woodbury on one end of the district to Morrisville on the
other end is relatively short, twenty-five to thirty minutes. Woodbury is
also part of the District 5 Environmental Commission. Some state agency
offices based in Morristown, such as the Agency of Human Resources' PATH
office and the Department of Correction's district office, serve Elmore and
Woodbury. Testimony before the master reflected that some Woodbury
residents occasionally visit the movie theater and hospital in Morristown,
and that the weekly Hardwick Gazette covers both towns. Of the Woodbury
residents not working in Montpelier or Barre, 11.4 percent work in
Hardwick, 5.9 % work in Berlin and 5.6 percent work in Morristown. Both
Woodbury and Worcester also stress their small town character and concede
that they share that trait with Elmore.
¶ 21. As we observed regarding the town of Shrewsbury's
objections in Hartland, although petitioners may have more in common with
towns outside their district, petitioner's burden of proof is to show that
there is no rational basis to join them with towns in the challenged
district. Hartland, 160 Vt. at 42, 624 A.2d at 342. In Hartland,
Shrewsbury challenged its placement in a district with Plymouth and Ludlow,
towns which were in another county and on the other side of the Green
Mountains. Other than the fact that the three towns were geographically
adjacent, linked by two different state highways, and shared a common state
recreation area and the same transportation district, there was no evidence
presented of common interests between Shrewsbury and Plymouth and Ludlow.
Id. at 41-43, 624 A.2d at 341-42. Nonetheless, we rejected Shewsbury's
claims, noting that petitioners had "not shown the absence of social,
economic, or political ties among the towns in the challenged district."
Id. at 42, 624 A.2d at 342(emphasis added). Here, there is far more
evidence of common social, economic and political ties between Woodbury and
Worcester and the other towns in their new district. These ties, together
with the other criteria - numerical equality, geographic contiguity and
compactness, and political boundaries - provide a rational and legitimate
basis for the legislature's decision.
¶ 22. Additionally, we note that Woodbury and Worcester have not
come forward with a better plan. See id. at 43, 624 A.2d at 342-43
("Petitioners . . . may cast doubt on the validity of a legislative plan by
demonstrating that the Legislature failed to adopt an alternative that
substantially improves onthat plan."). Petitioners have suggested that the
board's original plan, and their proposal to split Lamoille-Washington-1
into two single member districts, are both better options. The record does
not support petitioners' contentions. Regarding the board's plan, the
committee first proposed the Lamoille-Washington-1 district as part of its
attempt to resolve numerous other problems with the board's plan. Once
Woodbury and Worcester objected to the new district, the Legislature and
its committees considered several proposals to resolve their concerns,
including repeated attempts to revert to the board's original proposal
regarding the two towns. According to testimony of committee members, the
board rejected the attempt to revert to the board's plan because of the
so-called "ripple effect:" that is, because it would have created new
problems in as many as fifteen other districts. Similarly, other fixes
were rejected because of opposition from affected towns. For example, a
proposal to join Woodbury and Worcester with Elmore and Wolcott was
rejected because it would have forced the subdivision of Morristown. The
proposal to split Lamoille-Washington-1 into two single-member districts
was rejected for the same reason.
¶ 23. Testimony from House committee members indicates that as a
result of its revisions, the overall number of "hot spots" dropped from
forty-seven towns that objected to the board's original plan to "somewhere
in the neighborhood of 20" towns that complained about the final bill. Of
those twenty, only Woodbury and Worcester challenged the plan in court.
Given this history, even if we assume that petitioners have met their
burden of showing that the formulation of the Lamoille-Washington-1
district violated constitutional and statutory criteria, their challenge
would still likely fail. See id. at 16, 624 A.2d at 327(stating that once
a plan is shown to be in violation of the reapportionment criteria, burden
shifts to the state to show that "satisfying those requirements was
impossible because of the impermissible effect it would have had on other
districts"). Here, as explained above, the State showed that both chambers
of the Generally Assembly heard repeated objections from Woodbury and
Worcester regarding the new district and considered various plans to
resolve those concerns. In each case, the Legislature heard evidence
regarding relevant constitutional and statutory criteria, but ultimately
voted the counter proposals down because of negative effects on other
districts. Cf. id. at 27, 624 A.2d at 333-34 (remanding reapportionment
plan regarding Town of Montgomery because, after burden shifting, State
failed to show that Legislature considered any nonnumerical criteria, or
that it could not produce a plan that adhered to all criteria).
¶ 24. Petitioners' second claim is that meaningful judicial
review of the 2002 reapportionment plan is impossible since, according to
the master's findings, the legislative record is silent as to which
nonnumerical factors the Legislature actually considered regarding the
Lamoille-Washington-1 district, or the weight given to each factor.
Petitioners also make the related contention that without express
verification in the Legislative record that each criteria was considered,
remand is required. See id. at 18, 624 A.2d at 328 (holding that failure
to consider all constitutional and statutory facts requires remand to the
Legislature). Regarding the latter contention, we find no infirmity in the
process the board and the Legislature followed. As the master found, "at
almost all stages of the proceedings evidence was presented to the
committees with respect to commonality of interests or lack thereof as to
any proposed house district, and that indeed considerable evidence was
presented to the committees with respect to those factors." The
Legislature considered all criteria.
¶ 25. Thus, petitioners' only remaining complaint relates to the
master's finding that because most of the legislators' discussions took
place "in the halls," the available evidence provides "very little insight"
into the Legislature's decision making process. PC 23. Specifically,
petitioners argue that such off the record discussions prevent this Court
or the citizens of Woodbury and Worcester from reviewing the Legislature's
rationale for creating the district, and from ensuring that it did not
consider outside factors, or give improper weight to any one factor. AAB
9. While a better legislative record might be desirable, particularly for
problematic districts as here, given our conclusion that the
Lamoille-Washington-1 district meets constitutional and statutory criteria,
a remand to supplement the record would serve no purpose.
¶ 26. Moreover, we disagree with petitioner's suggestion that the
so-called "ripple effect" is an impermissible consideration, outside the
constitutional or statutory criteria. The constitution and the statutory
provisions both acknowledge that it is impossible to absolutely comply with
all numerical and nonnumerical criteria in all districts. Rather, the
requirement is that the Legislature "seek" to meet the nonnumerical
criteria, Vt. Const. ch. II, § 13, and comply with statutory policies
"insofar as practicable." 17 V.S.A. § 1903(b). Thus, there is no barrier
to consideration of the statewide ramifications, i.e. the size of the
ripple, created by each proposed change. Indeed, the Legislature must rely
on this consideration in order to select the plan that comes closest to
meeting all criteria in all districts.
¶ 27. Lastly, we reject petitioner's final contention, that the
paucity of common interests, combined with extreme intra-district
population imbalances, will effectively disenfranchise their towns. The
combined population of Woodbury, Worcester and Elmore is less than
one-third the population of Morristown.(FN2) Petitioners contend that as a
result, their smaller towns are "totally isolated without ability to
influence in any significant way their representation in the Vermont
legislature."
¶ 28. We addressed this issue in Hartland in response to a
challenge by the town of Berlin.
The residents of Berlin are not disenfranchised simply
because they make up a minority of their two?member
representative district. Even in situations involving racial
or political groups, proportional representation is not
constitutionally required. See Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109, 132 (1986) (one cannot presume that the winning
candidate will entirely ignore the voters who supported the
losing candidate; "a group's electoral power is not
unconstitutionally diminished by the simple fact of an
apportionment scheme that makes winning elections more
difficult"). Members of a group are disenfranchised only
when they are denied an opportunity to effectively influence
the election results by securing the attention of the winning
candidate.
160 Vt. at 37, 624 A.2d at 339. Petitioners have made no showing that they
have no opportunity to influence the election or secure the attention of
the winning candidate. Indeed, to the contrary, the most recent election
saw a resident of the second smallest town, Elmore, elected as one of the
district's two representatives.
¶ 29. In conclusion, we hold that petitioners, citizens of
Woodbury and Worcester, have failed to meet the heavy burden required to
challenge a legislative reapportionment plan. We reiterate our prior
holdings that this Court will retain jurisdiction of reapportionment plans
to ensure that the Legislature fully considers and meets, "insofar as
practicable" 17 V.S.A. § 1903(b), all nonnumerical criteria. See, e.g.,
Id. at 21, 624 A.2d at 330 (finding nonnumerical criteria are not
superfluous, rather they serve the important purpose of assuring more
effective representation). We are not, however, a superlegislature. As we
explained in reviewing the Legislature's decision to keep the Town of
Montgomery in its new district after remand, so long as the Legislature has
weighed the necessary criteria and its decision is not irrational or
illegitimate, we will defer to the Legislature's judgment in resolving
tensions between constitutional and statutory criteria for reapportionment.
In re Reapportionment of Town of Montgomery, 162 Vt. 617, 647 A.2d 1013,
1014 (1994) (mem.).
The petitions of the residents of the towns of Woodbury and Worcester
are denied.
BY THE COURT:
_______________________________________
John A. Dooley, Associate Justice
_______________________________________
Denise R. Johnson, Associate Justice
_______________________________________
Marilyn S. Skoglund, Associate Justice
_______________________________________
Paul L. Reiber, Associate Justice
Note: Chief Justice Amestoy sat for oral argument but did not
participate in this decision.
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Footnotes
FN1. Since Woodbury and Worcester concede that inclusion of their
towns in the same district is acceptable under the constitutional and
statutory criteria, we do not review the connections between the two towns.
FN2. Populations of the four member towns of the Lamoille-Washington-1
district are: Elmore 849, Morristown 5,139, Woodbury 809, and Worcester 902.
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