Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1893 — GERRYMANDER AGAIN. [ARTICLE]

GERRYMANDER AGAIN.

A New Apportionment Made Imperative.by Supreme Court Rehearing’ Denied in the Henry County Case—Two Opinions Judge Mc~Ta.be Dissents. By the action of the Supreme Court in its decision Friday in which opinions are •’rendered by 1 Chief - Justice Coffey and judge Howard, the apportionment (gerrymander) case, Benjamin S. Parker vs. State ex rel. Simon T. Powell, is at an end. The petition for a rehearing, filed by Attorney-General Smith and Morgan Chandler, is rejected. It will be remembered that the Attorney-General was invited or ordered to appear on behalf of the people of the State, they having an interest in the matter, and that Senator Chandler was permitted to intervene, because as a Senator elected under the apportionment act of 1885 he had an interest in the litigation. The case was decided by the old Supreme Court, and the parties to the record waived the right to petition for a rehearing-within the sixty days allowed, 'and the opinion was then, during the life of the old court, certified to the lower court hs the final judgment in the case. It now becomes the duty of the Legislature to reapportion the State for legislaThe decision of th# Henry Circuit Court was that the present opportionment of Senatorial representatives i» in conflict with the Constitution and invalid. The Supreme Court decided that the act of 1891 was invalid by reason es unconstftutionailty, and that the act of 1879, under which the plaintiff asked relief in the ease, was also invalid for the same reason. These acts being 'invalid, and the last possible step in the courts having been taken, it remains for the Legislature to make a new apportionment.