California Appellate Court Rules For Legislature In Santa Clara Redistricting Case, Says Courts Must Not Engage In ‘Unwarranted Interference’ In Process

In this challenge to the 2001 reapportionment of California Assembly districts, residents and public officials objected to the redistricting of the City of Santa Clara and argued it was unconstitutional. This case concerns an appeal from a trial court ruling that upheld the right of the state Legislature to enact the reapportionment plan. (Nadler et.al., v. Schwarzenegger et.al. (2006 Daily Journal D.A.R. 3647 Cal.App. 3 Dist., March 28, 2006))

Facts

In 1991, the Assembly reapportionment divided Santa Clara at the Bayshore Freeway (Highway 101), which crosses the city in an east-west direction. Some 90 percent of Santa Clara’s residents lived south of the freeway and were placed in Assembly District 22. Those residents who lived north of the freeway were placed in Assembly District 20.

Ten years later, during the 2001 reapportionment, Santa Clara officials wanted to keep the entire city within one Assembly district and believed that could be “readily accomplished,” according to the appellate court decision. After considerable examination of census information, party registration and voting records in recent state and federal elections – as well as public hearings throughout the state by legislative election committees – the Legislature released a draft plan for Assembly reapportionment which placed Santa Clara entirely within Assembly District 22.

But the Legislature did not enact the draft plan, instead enacting a plan which placed slightly less than 80 percent of Santa Clara’s population in Assembly District 22, and the remainder in District 24. A lawsuit was filed challenging the division as unconstitutional “unless dictated by strict necessity.” The trial court ruled in favor of the Legislature because “the Legislature is entitled to judicial deference,” and said the plaintiffs “failed to establish [that] the plan is constitutionally invalid.” That decision was appealed.

Decision

Noting that the California Constitution “expressly commits the task of reapportionment to the Legislature” (Cal. Const., art XXI, section 1.), the 3rd District Court of Appeal ruled that “in performing the judicial function,” courts may not engage in “unwarranted interference” with the legislative branch of government (Schabarum, supra, 60 Cal.App.4th at p. 1213-1214). “On every occasion on which our state Supreme Court has been compelled to enter a reapportionment fray,” the court further ruled, “it has indicated that the policies of ‘judicial restraint and deference to the Legislature’ are applicable (Assembly v. Deukmejian (1982) 30 Cal. 3d 638, 639).

In addition, the Court noted, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized “that the difficulty of reapportionment requires that state legislatures be allowed the discretion necessary to balance competing interests” (Miller v. Johnson, supra, 515 U.S. at p. 915 [132 L.Ed.2d at p. 779].), and that the courts should not be “second-guessing” what is a task for the legislature.

“Unless a complaining party makes a prima facie showing of an equal protection violation,” the appellate court concluded, “a court adjudicating a constitutional challenge to a reapportionment plan must apply the standard applicable to constitutional challenges generally, i.e., deference to the Legislature’s judgment.”

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