Request By:
Mrs. Paul Westpheling
The Hickman Courier
P.O. Box 70
Hickman, Kentucky 42050
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You wrote about problems relating to reapportionment of the county into magisterial districts, which is dealt with in KRS 67.045.
First, you ask what can be done when the county judge/executive will not initiate reapportionment. At minimum, reapportionment must take place within six months following the census report to the states (decennial census). KRS 67.045(2). At any time there is a substantial disparity in population of the magisterial districts, reapportionment 1 is necessary under the one man, one vote Supreme Court cases. Where the county judge fails or refuses to initiate reapportionment when required by law, a taxpayer's class action mandamus suit can be brought in circuit court requiring the county judge/executive to act. Young v. Jefferson County Election Commission, 304 Ky. 81, 200 S.W.2d 111 (1947), holding that either mandamus or mandatory injunction will lie to compel a public officer to perform a duty imposed on him by law.
You ask whether precinct lines are now a factor. You have in mind KRS 25.700 which provided in part that "no boundary of a justice's district shall cross the boundary line of an election precinct. " That section was repealed, however, by Acts 1976 (Ex. Sess.) Ch. 14, § 491, effective January 2, 1978. KRS 67.045(5) does provide that precinct lines shall be redrawn when necessary in accordance with the provisions of KRS 117.055, the statute dealing with division of the county into election precincts. The latter statute, in effect, prohibits a County Board of Elections from altering a precinct line so that it in any way bisects or crosses a magisterial district line. In other words, precinct boundaries must be contained within the magisterial district boundaries. Here is the simple point: The reaportionment of magisterial boundaries is one thing. It must be based upon arriving at the drawing of district boundary lines so that the population of each district shall be as nearly equal as is reasonably possible. That reapportionment procedure is not required to take note of any precinct lines, as such. This constitutional principle must first be satisfied. Then, after reapportionment involving changes from the prior reapportionment, it is the responsibility of the County Board of Elections to so draw or redraw precinct boundary lines so that no precinct line bisects or crosses a magisterial line, as last established under reapportionment. Thus the county judge/executive cannot rely on the impact of reapportionment on precinct lines. The precinct lines are irrelevant as concerns reapportionment, itself.
You ask if the taxpayers should have to wait, concerning reapportionment, until after the federal census reports to the states. Only the courts could determine that. It would probably depend upon how long the county judge/executive would have to wait for the federal census. If another reapportionment would soon have to follow a court ordered reapportionment, the courts might hold that it would not require the doing of a useless thing. In Kentucky Title Co. v. Hail, 219 Ky. 256, 292 S.W. 817 (1927), the court pointed up the ancient maxim that "The law will not force anyone to do a vain and useless thing."
You have a disparity of population: District 4 has 2357 people and District 3 has 242 citizens. This is sufficient disparity to warrant reapportionment, as mentioned above, in answer to that question.
You ask whether land acreage is a factor in reapportionment. The answer is "no".
Footnotes
Footnotes
1 See Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 12 L. Ed. 2d 506, 84 S. Ct. 1362 (1964); and Avery v. Midland County, 390 U.S. 474, 20 L. Ed. 2d 45, 88 S. Ct. 1114 (1968).