Royer v. Board of Election Supervisors for Cecil County

Henderson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal is from an order dismissing a petition for appeal under Code (1957), Art. 33, sec. 46, cf. Code (1962 Supp.), Art. 33, sec. 46 (e), praying an order requiring the Board of Election Supervisors of Cecil County to register the petitioners as qualified voters in Cecil County. The salient facts are stipulated. The petitioners are civilian employees of the United States Government at the Perry Point Veterans’ Hospital, located within the geographical limits of Cecil County, and reside and work there, having no other residence in the County.

Dr. Royer has two children attending the public schools in Cecil County and he has resided at Perry Point for the past five years. Dr. Williams has two children attending the public schools of Cecil County, and she has resided at Perry Point for eleven years. The tract known as Perry Point, consisting of about five hundred acres of land, was purchased by the United States Government in 1918 and used to manufacture chemicals for war purposes. A manufacturing plant was erected thereon and a number of workers’ houses and facilities.

It now contains, in addition, hospitals for the care and treatment of disabled veterans, operated by the Veterans’ Administration. The tract was purchased in strict accordance with the provisions of the Federal Constitution, for the purposes mentioned in Article I, sec. 8, clause 17, and with the consent of the State of Maryland. Exclusive jurisdiction was ceded by the State, in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 743 of the Acts of 1906, now codified as Code (1957), Art. 96, secs. 31, 36 and 37. The only reservation by the State was the right to serve civil and criminal process upon persons found there.

The State expressly agreed that the land ceded should be exempt “from all State, county and municipal taxation, assessment, or other charges which may be levied or imposed under the authority of this State.” ⁵⁶³ The Congress of the United States has since enacted various statutes waiving or receding to the States jurisdiction in certain particulars. The “Buck Act,” in 1947, now codified as 4 U.S.C.A., secs. 104-106 , provides in substance that the States may collect from persons residing on Federal reservations (a) income taxes, (b) sales and use taxes, (c) motor vehicle and heating fuel taxes. By 40 U.S.C.A., sec. 290 , civilian residents on Federal reservations are made subject to state Workmen’s Compensation Laws, and by 26 U.S.C.A., 3305, to Unemployment Compensation Laws of the States. The petitioners pay State income, sales and use taxes, the fuel tax, and motor vehicle registration and operator’s license fees.

The appellants contend, (1) that they are residents of this State within the meaning of Article I, sec. 1, of the Maryland Constitution, and (2) that the refusal of the Board to register them as voters deprives them of rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, and particularly the equal protection clause. The provision of the Maryland Constitution, cited above, confers the right to vote upon every citizen of the United States, of the age of 21 years or upwards, “who has been a resident of the State for one year, and of the Legislative District of Baltimore city, or of the county, in which he may offer to vote, for six months next preceding the election * * * in the ward or election district, in which he resides * * The appellants concede that until a few years ago courts throughout the nation have generally held that where the United States Government has obtained title to, and exclusive jurisdiction over, land within the territorial boundaries of a state, the residents of the ceded area were no longer residents of the state. This Court has ruled upon precisely this point in Lowe v. Lowe, 150 Md. 592 (1926), where the territory involved was the same as in the instant case. The holding was that a resident of Perry Point had not acquired a residence for the purpose of filing suit for divorce.

Chief Judge Bond, joined by Judge Urner, dissented on the ground of necessity and because he thought it unlikely that the Found ⁵⁶⁴ ing Fathers should have contemplated the creation of a legal no-man’s-land where residents of Federal enclaves would have no court to adjudicate questions of domestic relations. The Maryland Legislature promptly afforded relief in this field to persons residing on Federal reservations. See Code (1957), Art. 16, sec. 23. (Ch. 225, Acts of 1927).

It subsequently opened the State courts to such residents in adoption proceedings. See Code (1957), Art. 16, sec. 69. It also opened its schools to children residing on Federal reservations, presumably receiving negotiated payments therefor under 20 U.S.C.A., sec. 236 , et seq. However, the Maryland Legislature took no such action in regard to voting rights.

In fact, we are informed by the appellees that a bill to confer such rights upon all residents of Federal reservations in Maryland was introduced in the 1962 session but failed of passage. In the Lowe case