Kingston v. Board of Supervisors
Kingston v. Board of Supervisors
Opinion of the Court
This is an appeal from an order discharging an alternative writ of mandate and denying a peremptory writ. On December 2, 1963, petitioner in the trial court, appellant here, filed his petition for a writ of mandate asking that the Board of Supervisors of El Dorado County, respondents here, be commanded to proceed forthwith to
The petition alleged that although by section 25001 et seq. of the Government Code boards of supervisors in the several counties were required from time to time to equalize such districts in respect of population, yet a great imbalance had long existed in El Dorado County, and the board had refused to comply with the law. The answer to the petition, while admitting that petitioner had requested a revision of district boundaries and had been told by the supervisors that they would not comply with this request, nevertheless denied that there was, or that there had been, a great inequality in the population of the existing districts, and denied that the board had refused or failed to redistrict in accordance with the law. The answer further alleged that, admitting some inequality existed, the same was warranted by the factors of topography, geography, cohesiveness, contiguity, integrity, compactness of territory and community of interests of the districts.
The record shows that the cause came to trial; that one Bruce Bobinson, who had acted as Planning Director of El Dorado County, had been called by the respondent board, sworn and examined and that the matter had been submitted. The record further shows that the trial judge assigned to hear the cause had filed a memorandum opinion in which it was stated:
“In the light of the testimony of Bruce Bobinson, the acting director of the planning commission of El Dorado County, at the hearing of the petition herein, to the effect that district three in the western part of the county is growing faster than any other section and that the Tahoe section is over developed, I believe the board of supervisors was justified in adopting the recommendation of the redistricting committee that no changes be made at the present time in the boundary lines of the supervisorial districts.
“Therefore the petition for writ of mandate should be dismissed and the alternative writ discharged.”
It appears to have been stipulated at the hearing that certain correspondence had been exchanged between petitioner and the board. This correspondence may be summarized as follows: On August 22, 1963, petitioner had written to the board relative to changing the boundaries of the several districts. On September 12, 1963, the board had answered, informing petitioner that a citizen’s redistrieting committee had
The correspondence referred to contained statements concerning the existing percentage of voters in each of the five districts and that this percentage was as follows: One district contained 43.14 per cent of all voters in the county, another
Findings of fact and conclusions of law were waived by the parties and the judgment recited that having heard the testimony, and having examined the evidence offered by the parties, the court adjudged and decreed that the writ of mandate be denied and the petition therefor be dismissed.
There has been neither augmentation of the record on appeal nor request therefor, and in view of legislation which has intervened between the date of the judgment, January 17, 1964, and the present time, this court is not inclined on its own motion to augment the record so as to bring before it the testimony of the witness upon whose testimony the superior court stated it had relied. Deciding the cause, therefore, upon the record presented, we find no error appearing on the face of the record, and we must presume that the oral evidence received by the trial court sustained its judgment. (White v. Jones, 136 Cal.App.2d 567, 571 [288 P.2d 913].)
Notwithstanding the marked differences in population of the several supervisorial districts in the county, this court knows that the population trends in El Dorado County are such that imbalances may possibly be corrected in the near future, and we cannot say as a matter of law that redistricting is presently required.
We hereinabove referred to the disinclination of this court to augment the record on its own motion so as to bring up the testimony referred to, due to legislative changes in the law that had intervened since the date of the decision under review. On April 27, 1964, the Governor signed Senate Bill No. 6 of the Legislature, enacting material changes in the statute law governing redistricting of supervisorial districts within counties. The legislation is now in force. Section 25001 of the Government Code, as amended, now reads as follows: “Following each decennial federal census, and using the census as a basis, the board [board of supervisors] shall adjust the boundaries of any or all of the supervisorial districts of the county so that the districts shall be as nearly equal in population as may be, but in any case so that the population of
Section 25001.1, added to the code, reads in part: “The boundaries of the supervisorial districts shall be adjusted by the board between the first regular meeting of the board held in January 1965 and April 30, 1965, and thereafter before the first day of October of the year following the year in which each decennial federal census is taken. If the board fails to adjust the boundaries between the first regular meeting of the board held in January 1965 and April 30, 1965, a supervisorial redistricting commission shall do so before the first day of July of the year 1965. If the board fails to adjust the boundaries before the first day of October following the year in which any succeeding federal census is taken, a supervisorial redistricting commission shall do so before the 31st day of December of the same year. In either case the adjustment of the district boundaries shall be immediately effective the same as if the act of the supervisorial redistricting commission were an ordinance of the board, subject, however, to the same provisions of referendum as apply to ordinances of the board.”
Section 25001.2 was added to the code, and it reads as follows : “The supervisorial redistricting commission shall be composed of the county assessor, the district attorney, and the county clerk if he is elected by the qualified electors of the county, or, if not, the county superintendent of schools if he is elected by the qualified electors of the county, or if not, the sheriff. The county clerk, superintendent of schools, or sheriff, whichever is a member of the commission, shall be chairman. ’ ’
Section 25001.4 was added to the code and reads as follows: “Population figures to be used for the adjustment of boundaries to be accomplished between the first regular meeting of the board held in January, 1965 and April 30, 1956, shall be based on the 1960 federal census, or a later census of the county taken under the provisions of section 26203, or on the total number of registered voters of the county. In a county in which the population has increased by 20 percent
This new legislation makes it mandatory that in every case the population of every supervisorial district within a county, when added to the population of any other two districts, equals at least 50 per cent of the population of the county. This requirement demonstrates that if the present apparent inequality in El Dorado County continues to exist into the near future, redistricting must be made by the board during the period intermediate its first meeting in January of 1965 and April 30, 1965. If this be not done, the matter passes to a statutorily designated redistricting commission whose conclusions will have the force and effect of an ordinance of the county. The standards set up by the new legislation are so much more definite than those previously existing that we cannot assume that the board will fail to comply. If it does, the matter passes into other hands. We think, therefore, that notwithstanding what a full record might show in the present appeal, this court should presently affirm the order appealed from. (See Henderson v. Superior Court, 61 Cal.2d 883 [37 Cal.Rptr. 438, 390 P.2d 206].)
The order is affirmed.
Pierce, P. J., concurred.
Retired Presiding Justice of the District Court of Appeal sitting under assignment by the Chairman of the Judicial Council.
Concurring Opinion
I concur in the result. Only the rub of time and new legislation, not the intrinsic or presumed correctness of the trial court judgment, justifies affirmance.
It is true, as the majority opinion points out, that petitioner has designated an appeal record consisting of little more than the judgment roll. Incorporated in the responsive pleading filéd by El Dorado County, thus included in the -judgment' roll, was a tabulation showing the following dis
Percentagewise, this distribution is approximately as follows:
In the establishment of supervisor districts population, not equality of voter registrations, is the criterion. Experience tells us, however, that registered voter statistics supply a fairly adequate measure of population distribution. (See Griffin v. Board of Supervisors, 60 Cal.2d 318, 320 [33 Cal. Rptr. 101, 384 P.2d 421],
In fairness to respondents, it should be observed that the situation in El Dorado County has been paralleled in a number of other California counties. Availability of mandamus pro
As a result of the Monterey County decisions, several superior courts within the Third Appellate District ordered county redistricting in time for the June primary elections of 1964. For all we know, other counties may have redistricted without judicial compulsion. Petitioner made his initial representations to the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors on August 22, 1963, two days after the first Griffin decision. The present action was heard by the trial court in December 1963, and judgment for the respondent was entered in January 1964. Had relief been granted, the serious denial of political equality could have been remedied in time for the primary and general elections of 1964. Denial of relief prolonged the inequity at least through the elections of 1966, possibly through the elections of 1968. Part of the board is elected in each even-numbered year and takes office the following January. (Gov. Code, §§ 24202, 25000.) If fair redistricting in El Dorado County were to take place immediately, a five-member board elected from revised districts would not be in office until January 1969. In appraising the judgment, we must view the matter from the same standpoint as did the trial court, that is, with reference to the 1964 elections.
Even on a judgment roll appeal, the opinion of the trial judge is an appropriate part of the record. (Cal. Rules of
Both before and since its 1964 amendment, Government Code section 25001 has pointed to approximate equality of population as the primary standard of county redistricting. Other factors, such as topography, cohesiveness, and community of interest were and are secondary factors. In August 1963 (several months before the El Dorado citizens’ committee filed its report and four months before the trial court hearing in this case) the State Supreme Court had said that the latter factors had only a “subsidiary effect” and could not warrant large deviations from equality of population. (Griffin v. Board of Supervisors, supra, 60 Cal.2d at p. 321.) The Supreme Court was only echoing the obvious import of the statute. Refusal to redistrict in El Dorado County rested upon an inversion of these standards. The last of these standards became the first, and the first among them became the last. The record before us, while auguring better things to come, gives no hint of massive population shifts which might have restored constitutional and statutory integrity in time for the 1964 or even the 1966 elections. There is no mention of existing topographic, cultural and governmental considerations which might arguably justify existing swings from the ideal of approximate equality. (See Reynolds v. Sims, supra, 377 U.S. at pp. 579-581 [84 S.Ct. at pp. 1390-1392, 12 L.Ed.2d at pp. 537-539] ; Griffin v. Board of Supervisors, supra, 60 Cal.2d at pp. 754-755.) Indeed, it is difficult to conceive any legitimate considerations to justify the radical deviations present in El Dorado County.
In counterbalance to the mathematical facts conceded by the county’s pleading, the oral testimony described in the record had little relevance and less weight. Consequently, we should not presume that this testimony sustains or justifies the judgment. To the contrary, where error appears on the
In the absence of changed circumstances pending appeal, it would have been appropriate to reverse the judgment and remand this proceeding to the superior court with directions to retain jurisdiction to ensure compliance with the law within a reasonable time. That action would have rested on the premise that justice delayed is better than justice denied. Circumstances have now altered. While this appeal was pending, the Legislature enacted comprehensive legislation on the subject of supervisorial districting. (Gov. Code, §§ 25001-25002 (Stats., 1st Ex. Sess. 1964, ch. 40).) Like other county boards, the supervisors of El Dorado County are under a statutory mandate to adjust district boundaries by April 30, 1965, and if they fail to do so, a redistricting commission will take over. Exercising the discretion traditional in mandamus proceedings, we may now safely say that there is no point in superimposing a judicial mandate on top of the statutory mandate. (See Henderson v. Superior Court, 61 Cal.2d 883 [37 Cal.Rptr. 438, 390 P.2d 206].) The law being fully revealed, we may for present purposes assume that the supervisors of El Dorado County will follow it.
The second Griffin case, 60 Cal.2d 751, at p. 755 [36 Cal.Rptr. 616, 388 P.2d 888], shows us that the measure may become inaccurate in the presence of a large military population. There is no evidence of a significant military population in the case at hand.
Judieial and statutory sanctions for deviations from a strict population standard must now be reappraised in the light of the Fourteenth Amendment concepts described in the so-called ‘‘ Senate reapportionment” case. (Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 [84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506, dated June 15, 1964].) These concepts demand that divergences be based upon legitimate considerations incident to the effectuation of a rational . . . [public] policy, ...” (377 U.S. at p. 579 [84 S.Ct. at p. 1391, 12 L.Ed.2d at p. 537].) It seems logical to assume that equal protection concepts governing formation of state legislative districts are, in a general way, no less applicable to county legislative districts. As noted in Blotter v. Farrell, 42 Cal.2d 804, 811 [270 P.2d 481] (paraphrasing 19 Ops. Cal. Atty. Gen. 94, 97), the problem of population equality “exists whenever divisions of territory and population are made for the purpose of electing popular representatives. ’ ’
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.