Cooper v. Power
Cooper v. Power
Opinion of the Court
Plaintiffs Cooper and Bacchus, Negro enrolled members of the Democratic Party residing in the Tenth and Eleventh Congressional Districts in Brooklyn, and Paul S. Kerrigan, a white enrolled member of the Republican Party residing in
Plaintiffs have moved for a preliminary order restraining the conduct of any election for the House from any Congressional District wholly or partly in Brooklyn and for the designation under 28 U.S.C. § 2284 of two other judges for the hearing of the case. The Attorney General of the State of New York and the Corporation Counsel of the City of New York have moved to dismiss the action essentially on the ground that it does not present a substantial federal question warranting the convening of a three judge court nor any claim upon which relief can be granted or that is within the jurisdiction of the Court. The Corporation Counsel additionally moves for a dismissal as against the Board of Elections on the ground that its relation to the matter is ministerial only and unrelated to the delineation of Congressional Districts.
Assuming that the District Court, acting alone, can act on the basis that the federal claim advanced is wholly unsubstantial, (cf. Swift & Co., Inc. v. Wickham, 1965, 382 U.S. 111, 115, 86 S.Ct. 258, 15 L.Ed.2d 194; Ex parte Poresky, 1933, 290 U.S. 30, 54 S.Ct. 3, 78 L.Ed. 152; California Water Service Co. v. City of Redding, 1938, 304 U.S. 252, 58 S.Ct. 865, 82 L.Ed. 1323), the present case is not one that can upon the face of the complaint be pronounced insubstantial. Wright v. Rockefeller, 1964, 376 U.S. 52, 84 S.Ct. 603, 11 L.Ed.2d 512, involving cognate issues in a different perspective, is not dispositive; the Court accepted the factual finding that the apportionment Act had not been shown to be the product of a state contrivance to segregate on the basis of race or place of origin. Similarly, in Honeywood v. Rockefeller, E.D.N.Y.1963, 214 F.Supp. 897, aff’d 1964, 376 U.S. 222, 84 S.Ct. 708, 11 L.Ed.2d 656; the circumstances were found to negate “the inference of racial discrimination.” Mann v. Davis, E.D.Va.1965, 245 F.Supp. 241, aff’d sub nom. Burnette v. Davis, 1965, 382 U.S. 42, 86 S.Ct. 181, 15 L.Ed. 2d 35, declining to find discrimination in the adding of predominantly white Henrico County to the City of Richmond for at-large voting, although it reduced the Negro population percentage from 42% to 29% of the whole district, equated the complaint with a plea for racial representation, which the Court viewed as not within the protection against calculated exclusion from the franchise based on race, as in Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 1960, 364 U.S. 339, 81 S.Ct. 125, 5 L.Ed.
It is concluded that the .complaint presents a case requiring notification to the Chief Judge of this Circuit under 28 U.S.C. § 2284(1). Action on the motions is held in abeyance pending the formation of a district court of three judges under Section 2284.
APPENDIX A
1960 Population Distributions
Residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant in District
District Total Negroes and Puerto Ricans Total % Negroes and Puerto Ricans
10th 424,417
11th 403,628 132,390 59,984 15 50,035
12th 469,908
13th 454,285
14th 465,889 154,615 61,579 13 36,376
15th 349,850** 21,796 29,130 8 13,031
16th 352,024*
The 10th district included 70,891 Queens residents; the 16th included 221,941 Richmond residents.
The 12th district is the most populous in the state, the 15th, the least populous.
Note: The 13th and 16th Districts do not run as far north as Bed-ford-Stuyvesant.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Andrew COOPER v. James M. POWER, Thomas Mallee, Maurice J. O'Rourke, and J. J. Duberstein, Commissioners of Election constituting the Board of Elections of the City of New York
- Status
- Published