CASES ADJUDGED

IN THE

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

AT

OCTOBER TERM, 1932.

WOOD, SECRETARY OF STATE OF MISSISSIPPI, ET AL. v. BROOM.

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF MISSISSIPPI.

No. 424. Argued October 13, 1932.-Decided October 18, 1932. 1. The provisions of the Reapportionment Act of August 8, 1911, requiring that congressional election districts be of contiguous and compact territory and, as nearly as practicable, of equal populations, related only to the districts to be formed under that Act, and were not reënacted in the Reapportionment Act of June 18, 1929. P. 8.

2. Where a bill sought to compel state election officials to conform to an Act of Congress which the court found to be no longer in force, held that questions whether, if the Act were effective, the controversy would be justiciable and the plaintiff entitled to equitable relief, need not be considered. Id.

1 F. Supp. 134, reversed.

APPEAL from a decree of the District Court of three judges, which, on final hearing on bill and answer, permanently enjoined officers of the State of Mississippi from conducting an election of representatives in Congress, in pursuance of an Act of the legislature, which the decree declared to be invalid and unconstitutional.

1

Argument for Appellants.

287 U.S.

Messrs. J. A. Lauderdale and Wm. H. Watkins, Assistant Attorneys General of Mississippi, with whom Mr. Greek L. Rice, Attorney General, was on the brief, for appellants.

There is no equity on the face of the bill, because plaintiff had a plain, speedy, complete and adequate remedy at law, and because there is no probability of a multiplicity of suits.

There is no equity jurisdiction. The amount in controversy does not exceed $3,000.00. A federal court of equity has no jurisdiction to prevent the deprivation of a political right. Ex parte Sawyer, 124 U. S. 200; Cleveland Cliff Iron Co. v. Kinney, 262 Fed. 980; Angelus v. Sullivan, 246 Fed. 54, citing many other cases; Taylor v. Kerchevak, 82 Fed. 497; Anthony v. Burrow, 129 Fed. 783; Ohio v. Hildebrandt, 231 U. S. 565; 9 R. C. L. 987, § 10; 10 R. C. L. 342, § 92; 14 R. C. L. 375, § 77.

Sub-section 15 of § 24, Judicial Code, gives the federal courts jurisdiction to try the title to certain offices. However, members of Congress are especially excepted therefrom and the denial of the right to vote must be on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. This section gives the court jurisdiction where certain political rights are involved. To give jurisdiction therein is to exclude jurisdiction in any other matters.

Under the facts stated in the bill, plaintiff is not entitled to have his name placed on the ballot as a candidate for Congress from the State at large.

The decree of this Court would be inefficacious. Sec. 4, Art. 1, of the Constitution and the Act of Congress of 1911 are directory and not mandatory.

Congress, being the sole judge thereof, has construed the statute as not being mandatory but directory, and as an administrative matter, exclusively for the States.

1

Argument for Appellee.

An elector of a congressional district is not entitled under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution to equality in representation with other districts throughout the State.

Since the appellee has brought his suit before a threejudge district court of the United States, the jurisdiction. must rest upon the unconstitutionality of a state statute and not the alleged violation by the state statute of a federal statute.

There is complete compliance with the Fourteenth Amendment where there exists no inequality as to residents of the separate districts.

Messrs. Hugh. V. Wall and Cleon K. Calvert, with whom Messrs. J. H. Price, J. O. S. Sanders, and S. B. Laub were on the briefs, for appellee.

One who is deprived of the right of equal suffrage in the choice of federal officers, when that right has been granted by a State, is deprived of a vested right under the Constitution of the United States and of one which equity, as administered in the federal courts, will protect. Cooley, Const. L., p. 248; Gougar v. Timberlake, 148 Ind. 41; Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651; Wiley v. Sinkler, 179 U. S. 58.

A qualified voter in a State, who is denied the right of equal representation by a state congressional redistricting act, may complain against the Act in equity in a federal court in his own name and person. Smiley v. Holm, 285 U.S. 355.

The Act of Congress of August 8, 1911 is a valid exercise of congressional power and is still in force.

The right to make reasonable qualifications for party membership is a political matter with which equity has naught to do. But the right to vote is a legal right that equity will protect.

Messrs. John R. Saunders, Attorney General, Edwin H. Gibson and Collins Denny, Jr., Assistant Attorneys General, and Albert V. Bryan, by leave of Court, filed a brief on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia, as amicus curiae. In this it was argued that the provisions of the Act of 1911 as to the compactness, etc., of congressional election districts, and their equality in population, were no longer in force. The brief pointed out that those provisions, and like provisions in earlier Acts, had been persistently violated by the States, and contended that the subject was really one for the States to deal with free from any control by the federal courts.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE HUGHES delivered the opinion of the Court.

Under the reapportionment pursuant to the Act of June 18, 1929 (c. 28, 46 Stat. 21, 26, 27), Mississippi is entitled to seven representatives in Congress, instead of eight as theretofore. The Legislature of Mississippi, by an act known as House Bill No. 197, Regular Session 1932, divided the State into seven congressional districts. The complainant, alleging that he was a citizen of Mississippi, a qualified elector under its laws, and also qualified to be a candidate for election as representative in Congress, brought this suit to have the redistricting act of 1932 declared invalid and to restrain the defendants, state officers, from taking proceedings for an election under its provisions. The alleged grounds of invalidity were that the act violated Art. I, § 4, and the Fourteenth Amendment, of the Constitution of the United States, and § 3 of the Act of Congress of August 8, 1911 (c. 5, 37 Stat. 13). Defendants moved to dismiss the bill (1) for want of equity, (2) for lack of equitable jurisdiction to grant the relief asked, (3) because on the facts alleged the complainant was not entitled to have his name placed upon