Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15/Dissent Stewart

Mr. Justice STEWART, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK, and Mr. Justice HARLAN join, dissenting.

In Lassiter v. Northampton County Election Bd., 360 U.S. 45, 79 S.Ct. 985, 3 L.Ed.2d 1072 this Court upheld against constitutional attack a literacy requirement, applicable to voters in all state and federal elections, imposed by the State of North Carolina. Writing for a unanimous Court, Mr. Justice Douglas said:

'The States have long been held to have broad powers to     determine the conditions under which the right of suffrage      may be exercised, Pope v. Williams, 193 U.S. 621, 663, 24 S.Ct. 573, 576, 48 L.Ed. 817;     Mason v. Missouri, 179 U.S. 328, 335, 21 S.Ct. 125, 128, 45     L.Ed. 214, absent of course the discrimination which the     Constitution condemns.' 360 U.S., at 50-51, 79 S.Ct., at 989.

Believing that the appellant in this case is not the victim of any 'discrimination which the Constitution condemns,' I would affirm the judgment of the District Court.

The issue before us may be briefly summarized. New York has provided that in certain areas of the State local authority over public schools shall reside in 'Union Free School Districts,' such as the District involved here. In such areas, the qualified voters of the i strict annually elect members of a Board of Education and determine by vote the basic fiscal policy of the school system: they adopt a budget and in effect decide the amount of school taxes that shall be imposed upon the taxable real property of the District. State and federal grants provide some additional funds for the operation of the school system, but the only method by which the District itself may raise its own revenue is through such property taxes.

Three classes of persons are qualified under New York law to vote in these school elections: (1) parents or guardians of children attending public schools within the District; (2) persons who own taxable real property within the District, and their spouses; and (3) persons who lease taxable real property within the District, and their spouses. The appellant, a bachelor who lives with his parents and who neither owns nor leases any real property within the District, falls within none of those classes, and consequently is disqualified from voting despite the fact that he meets the general age and residence requirements imposed by state law. The question presented is whether, by virtue of that disqualification the appellant is denied the equal protection of the laws.

Although at times variously phrased, the traditional test of a statute's validity under the Equal Protection Clause is a familiar one: a legislative classification is invalid only 'if it rest(s) on grounds wholly irrelevant to achievement of the regulation's objectives.' Kotch v. Board of River Port Pilot Comm'rs, 330 U.S. 552, 556, 67 S.Ct. 910, 912, 91 L.Ed. 1093. It was under just such a test that the literacy requirement involved in Lassiter was upheld. The premise of our decision in that case was that a State may constitutionally impose upon its citizens voting requirements reasonably 'designed to promote intelligent use of the ballot.' 360 U.S., at 51, 79 S.Ct., at 990. A similar premise underlies the proposition, consistently endorsed by this Court, that a State may exclude nonresidents from participation in its elections. Such residence requirements, designed to help ensure that voters have a substantial stake in the outcome of elections and an opportunity to become familiar with the candidates and issues voted upon, are entirely permissible exercises of state authority. Indeed, the appellant explicitly concedes, as he must, the validity of voting requirements relating to residence, literacy, and age. Yet he argues-and the Court accepts the argument-that the voting qualifications involved here somehow have a different constitutional status. I am unable to see the distinction.

Clearly a State may reasonably assume that its residents have a greater stake in the outcome of elections held within it boundaries than do other persons. Likewise, it is entirely rational for a state legislature to suppose that residents, being generally better informed regarding state affairs than are nonresidents, will be more likely than nonresidents to vote responsibly. And the same may be said of legislative assumptions regarding the electoral competence of adults and literate persons on the one hand, and of minors and illiterates on the other. It is clear, of course, that lines thus drawn can not infallibly perform their intended legislative function. Just as '(i) lliterate people may be intelligent voters,' nonresidents or minors might also in some instances be interested, informed, and intelligent participants in the electoral process. Persons who commute across a state line to work may well have a great stake in the affairs of the State in which they are employed; some college students under 21 may be both better informed and more passionately interested in political affairs than many adults. But such discrepancies are the inevitable concomitant of the line drawing that is essential to law making. So long as the classification is rationally related to a permissible legislative end, therefore-as are residence, literacy, and age requirements imposed with respect to voting there is no denial of equal protection.

Thus judged, the statutory classification involved here seems to me clearly to be valid. New York has made the judgment that local educational policy is best left to those persons who have certain direct and definable interests in that policy: those who are either immediately involved as parents of school children or who, as owners or lessees of taxable property are burdened with the local cost of funding school district operations. True, persons outside those classes may be genuinely interested in the conduct of a school district's business-just as commuters from New Jersey may be genuinely interested in the outcome of a New York City election. But unless this Court is to claim a monopoly of wisdom regarding the sound operation of school systems in the 50 States, I see no way to justify the conclusion that the legislative classification involved here is not rationally related to a legitimate legislative purpose. 'There is no group more interested in the operation and management of the public schools than the taxpayers who support them and the parents whose children attend them.' Doremus v. Board of Educ., 342 U.S. 429, 435, 72 S.Ct. 394, 398, 96 L.Ed. 475 (Douglas, J., dissenting).

With good reason, the Court does not really argue the contrary. Instead, it strikes down New York's statute by asserting that the traditional equal protection standard is inapt in this case, and that a considerably stricter standard-under which classifications relating to 'the franchise' are to be subjected to 'exacting judicial scrutiny'-should be applied. But the asserted justification for applying such a standard cannot withstand analysis.

The Court is quite explicit in explaining why it believes this statute should be given 'close scrutiny':

'The presumption of constitutionality and the approval given     'rational' classifications in other types of enactments are      based on an assumption that the institutions of state      government are structured so as to represent fairly all the      people. However, when the challenge to the statute is in     effect a challenge of this basic assumption, the assumption      can no longer serve as the basis for presuming      constitutionality.' (Footnote omitted.)

I am at a loss to understand how such reasoning is at all relevant to the present case. The voting qualifications at issue have been promulgated, not by Union Free School District No. 15, but by the New York State Legislatr e, and the appellant is of course fully able to participate in the election of representatives in that body. There is simply no claim whatever here that the state government is not 'structured so as to represent fairly all the people,' including the appellant.

Nor is there any other jurisdiction for imposing the Court's 'exacting' equal protection test. This case does not involve racial classifications, which in light of the genesis of the Fourteenth Amendment have traditionally been viewed as inherently 'suspect.' And this statute is not one that impinges upon a constitutionally protected right, and that consequently can be justified only by a 'compelling' state interest. For 'the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one * *  * .' Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, 178, 22 L.Ed. 627.

In any event, it seems to me that under any equal protection standard, short of a doctrinaire insistence that universal suffrage is somehow mandated by the Constitution, the appellant's claim must be rejected. First of all, it must be emphasized despite the Court's undifferentiated references to what it terms 'the franchise'-that we are dealing here, not with a general election, but with a limited, special-purpose election. The appellant is eligible to vote in all state, local, and federal elections in which general governmental policy is determined. He is fully able, therefore, to participate not only in the processes by which the requirements for school district voting may be changed, but also in those by which the levels of state and federal financial assistance to the District are determined. He clearly is not locked into any self-perpetuating status of exclusion from the electoral process.

Secondly, the appellant is of course limited to asserting his own rights, not the purported rights of hypothetical childless clergymen or parents of preschool children, who neither own nor rent taxable property. The appellant's status is merely that of a citizen who says he is interested in the affairs of his local public schools. If the Constitution requires that he must be given a decision-making role in the governance of those affairs, then it seems to me that any individual who seeks such a role must be given it. For as I have suggested, there is no persuasive reason for distinguishing constitutionally between the voter qualifications New York has required for its Union Free School District elections and qualifications based on factors such as age, residence, or literacy.

Today's decision can only be viewed as irreconcilable with the established principle that '(t)he States have * *  * broad powers to determine the conditions under which the right of suffrage may be exercised *  *  * .' Since I think that principle is entirely sound, I respectfully dissent from the Court's judgment and opinion.