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| Patricia Cotlow, Phillip Krass Sharon LaComb, James Stein, and
Theodore Suss, individually and on behalf of all Citizens of Minnesota similarly situated, |
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| Plaintiffs, | |
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| John Walker, Howard Miller, Don Sudor, and Nkajlo Vangh, | |
| Plaintiff-Intervenors, | |
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FINAL ORDER |
| Joan Growe, Secretary of State of Minnesota; and Patrick H.
O'Connor, Hennepin County Auditor, individually and on behalf of all Minnesota county chief election officers, |
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| Defendants, | |
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| The Seventy-seventh Minnesota State House of Representatives
and the Seventy-seventh Minnesota State Senate, |
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| Defendant-Intervenors. | |
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| On June 4, 1991, the Minnesota Supreme Court appointed the undersigned panel to hear and decide this state legislative and [2] congressional redistricting action on its merits. This charge has been met with respect to state legislative redistricting. On December 9, 1991, subject to the federal court's injunction in Emison v. Growe, No. 4-91-202 (D. Minn. Dec. 5, 1991), we issued a final and appealable partial judgment on the state legislative redistricting plan. Cotlow v, Growe, No. C8-91-985 (Minn. Sp. Redistricting Panel, Dec. 9, 1991). After the United States Supreme Court vacated the federal court's injunction, Cotlow v. Emison, 502 U.S. 1022 (Jan. 10, 1992) (No. 91-1084), we formally entered final judgment as to state legislative redistricting on January 31, 1992. | |
| With respect to congressional redistricting, this action has not yet been concluded on its merits. On September 13, 1991, we adopted final criteria for congressional plans and provided a format for submission of plans in the event the legislature failed to enact a constitutionally valid congressional apportionment plan. From mid-September to early December 1991, the panel reserved substantive consideration of alternative congressional plans until legislative and executive consideration was complete. | |
| On December 5, 1991, the federal court issued its order enjoining the parties to this action from implementing or enforcing any state court redistricting order, specifically enjoining the parties from participating in the state proceedings, and enjoining this panel from going forward on a congressional redistricting plan. Subject to the injunction, we ordered submission of proposed plans by January 17, 1992. This later date was selected to allow the legislature full opportunity to enact congressional [3] redistricting legislation and to spare the parties potential conflict with the federal panel's injunction. | |
| Although the Minnesota Legislature, on January 9, 1992, passed a congressional redistricting plan based on the 1990 federal census, the governor properly exercised his veto and the plan did not become law. See Minn. Const. art. IV, § 23 (providing governor with veto power and requiring two-thirds vote of each house to override); Duxbury v. Donovan, 272 Minn. 424, 432-33, 138 N.W.2d 692, 698 (1965). When the special session ended without enactment of a congressional plan and the injunction was vacated by the United States Supreme Court, this panel scheduled and conducted a procedural and motion hearing on February 17, 1992, to review the status of congressional redistricting and to resolve pending motions. | |
| As stated in our March 3 order, the federal panel's issuance on February 19, 1992 of a congressional redistricting plan and its corresponding injunction imposed additional legal and jurisprudential constraints on publishing a state-court congressional plan. For a number of reasons, and particularly because an appeal of the federal panel's judgment was filed immediately with the United States Supreme Court, dismissal of this action was inappropriate. | |
| On March 11, 1992, the Supreme Court granted a temporary and limited stay of the Emison court's judgment affecting state legislative redistricting. Growe v. Emison, No. A-671 (U.S. March 11, 1992). The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction on March 30, 1992 without dissolving the stay. Pending a final [4] decision on that appeal, this court's legislative redistricting plan will govern the 1992 elections. | |
| Implementation of the federal panel's congressional redistricting plan has not been similarly stayed. Pending review by the United States Supreme Court and pursuant to the federal court's February 19 judgment, the federal panel's plan will control Minnesota's 1992 congressional elections. | |
| The Supreme Court's noting probable jurisdiction over the complex jurisdictional questions that have evolved in this redistricting process puts the ultimate effectiveness of the federal panel's plan in question. Because the Supreme Court will ultimately determine this issue and has designated which plans will apply in the interim, publication of our congressional plan will not create undue confusion or exacerbate any difficulties of federal-state interaction. | |
| For these reasons and to fulfill our charge of deciding this action on the merits and to allow a complete record on review, we adopt, subject to the district court's injunction and the Supreme Court's order of March 11, 1992, a plan of congressional redistricting created by this court. | |
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| The population shifts of the past decade have created population deviations in the 1982 congressional redistricting plan that exceed 22% in district 3 and 34% in the districts' overall range, in violation of the U.S. and Minnesota Constitutions' strict population standards. The plan we adopt eliminates these unconstitutional defects. As with the proposed plans submitted to [5] the court and that created by the federal panel, the plan contains five districts of absolutely equal and "ideal" population. [Footnote 1] The three remaining districts each exceed the ideal district size by only one person. The plan thus complies with Article 1, § 2 of the United States Constitution mandating equal representation and requiring districts to be apportioned as nearly to equal as is practicable. See Wesberry v, Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 7-8 (1964). See also Minn. Const. art. IV, §§ 2, 3. | |
| Some communities and counties have to be divided to achieve near-equal apportionment. Our congressional plan substantially minimizes the number of municipal and county splits while preserving the integrity of Minneapolis and St. Paul as distinct communities. Care was taken to avoid splitting any of the larger outstate cities between two districts. Our plan splits only 10 counties and 11 cities and townships for a total of twenty-one splits, far fewer than the plans proposed by the defendant-intervenors (28 total) and plaintiff-intervenors (40) and the plan created by the federal court (33). | |
| To the extent possible, the plan segregates urban, suburban, and rural areas into discrete districts. Although not constitutionally compelled, the compactness of each district was also considered in this panel's attempt to create the most geographically and demographically consistent and convenient districts possible. See Minn. Const. art. IV, § 3. | |
| [6] As the plaintiff-intervenors' plan illustrates, greater compactness could have been achieved at the expense of splitting political subdivisions. Our plan balanced these two criteria, and, without expressly endorsing one approach to the exclusion of others, we note that, using the federal court's formula adopted from Polsby and Popper, The Third Criterion: Compactness as a Procedural Safeguard Against Gerrymandering, 9 Yale Law & Policy Review 301 (1991), our plan achieves a higher compactness percentage (.394) than either the 1982 plan (.347) or the current federal court plan (.346). | |
| The parties have neither challenged the 1982 congressional plan under the Voting Rights Act nor presented any evidence of possible violation. By maintaining two primarily urban districts, the plan adopted attempts, in compliance with the Act, to avoid any unnecessary divisions of core minority populations. | |
| Maps and population tables of the plan are attached as Exhibits A - F. Should any discrepancies exist, the census tract descriptions, which are on file, shall be deemed controlling. To insure compliance with this court's judgment determining the legislative redistricting plan of the State of Minnesota, and, if necessary, to oversee implementation of the contingent plan of congressional redistricting adopted by this court, we retain jurisdiction over this matter. | |
| By separate order, we tax costs of approximately $28,000 against Joan Growe, Secretary of State of the State of Minnesota. [7] These are the total costs expended by the state panel for the legislative and congressional redistricting. | |
| LET JUDGMENT BE ENTERED ACCORDINGLY. | |
| Dated: April 15, 1992. | BY THE COURT |
| Harriet Lansing | |
| Kenneth J. Maas | |
| William E. Walker | |
Dividing Minnesota's total census population by the number of its apportioned
congressional seats, eight, yields an ideal district size of 546,887 people,
with three people remaining.