Hadley v. Junior College District of Metropolitan Kansas City/Dissent Burger

by Warren E. Burger

United States Supreme Court

397 U.S. 50

Hadley  v.  Junior College District of Metropolitan Kansas City

 Argued: Nov. 10, 1969. --- Decided: Feb 25, 1970

Mr. Chief Justice BURGER, dissenting.

I concur fully in the opinion of Mr. Justice HARLAN. I add this comment to emphasize the subjective quality of a doctrine of constitutional law that has as its primary standard 'a general rule, (that) whenever a state or local government decides to select persons by popular election * * *,' the Constitution commands that each qualified voter must be given a vote which is equally weighted with the votes cast by all other electors.

The failue to provide guidelines for determining when the Court's 'general rule' is to be applied is exacerbated when the Court implies that the stringent standards of 'mathematical exactitude' that are controlling in apportionment of federal congressional districts need not be applied to smaller specialized districts such as the junior college district in this case. This gives added relevance to Mr. Justice HARLAN'S observation that '(t)he need for more flexibility becomes greater as we proceed down the spectrum from the state legislature to the single-purpose local entity.' Ante, at 67. Yet the Court has given amost no indication of which nonpopulation interests may or may not legitimately be considered by a legislature in devising a constitutional apportionment scheme for a local, specialized unit of government.

Ultimately, only this Court can finally apply these 'general rules' but in the interim all other judges must speculate as best they can when and how to apply them. With all deference I suggest the Court's opinion today fails to give any meaningful guidelines.

Notes