In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Nos. 98-2785, 98-2811, 98-2899, 98-3004,

98-3051, 98-3075, 99-2007, 99-2008,

00-1503, 00-1515/1

Ron Harper, Kevin Perkins, William Elliot,

and Robert McCoy,

Plaintiffs-Appellees, Cross-Appellants,

v.

City of Chicago Heights and the Chicago Heights

Election Commission,

Defendants-Appellants, Cross-Appellees,

Ron Harper, Kevin Perkins, William Elliot,

and Robert McCoy,

Plaintiffs-Appellees, Cross-Appellants,

v.

Chicago Heights Park District,

Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee,

and

David Orr, Cook County Clerk,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeals from the United States District Court 

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

Nos. 87 C 5112 & 88 C 9800--David H. Coar, Judge.

Argued April 6, 1999--Decided July 27, 2000

 Before Kanne, Diane P. Wood, and Evans, Circuit

Judges.

 Diane P. Wood, Circuit Judge. The wheels of

justice have turned slowly in this voting rights

case, which began more than a decade ago and

continues to accrete new appeals almost by the

month. The finding of a violation of Section 2 of

the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. sec.
1971 et seq., has long since been established.

Part of the case before us concerns the remedy

for that violation. The district court issued an

opinion on May 28, 1998, in which it ordered the

implementation of a new election method that

relies on cumulative voting. The rest of the many

appeals consolidated with the case, up to and

including those filed in the early spring of the

year 2000, concern attorneys’ fees. With respect

to the remedy, we have reluctantly concluded that

the district court moved too quickly in its

understandable desire to put this case to rest.

We therefore must reverse and remand. This in

turn leads us to affirm in part and reverse in

part the district court’s grant of attorneys’

fees and expenses.

I

 The facts and procedural history of this case

are set forth in detail in previous opinions. See

Harper v. City of Chicago Heights, 824 F. Supp.

786 (N.D. Ill. 1993); Perkins v. City of Chicago

Heights, 47 F.3d 212 (7th Cir. 1995); Harper v.

City of Chicago Heights, 1997 WL 102543 (N.D.

Ill. March 5, 1997). To summarize, in 1987 Ron

Harper, Kevin Perkins, William Elliot, and Robert

McCoy ("the Class") filed a class action against

the City of Chicago Heights ("the City"),

alleging that the at-large election method used

to elect representatives to the City Council

diluted the voting strength of African-Americans

in violation of Section 2. In 1988, the Class

filed an almost identical suit against the

Chicago Heights Park District ("the Park

District") aimed at changing the at-large

election method used to select the Park District

Board. (Although the Chicago Heights Election

Commission and the Clerk of Cook County were also

named as nominal defendants, these cases have

been defended by the City and the Park District.)

The district court ultimately consolidated the

claims and certified the Class.

 The Class wanted the court to order the

replacement of the at-large voting systems with

single-member districts and to award it

attorneys’ fees and costs. In February 1989, all

parties moved for summary judgment. District

Judge Nordberg denied the defendants’ motion and

granted in part and denied in part the Class’s

motion. He held that the Class had proven the

three "Gingles" factors, see Thornburg v.

Gingles, 478 U.S. 30 (1986), that are threshold

requirements to a Section 2 vote dilution

claim./2 See Harper, 824 F. Supp. at 792-93.

However, he concluded that genuine issues of

material fact remained with regard to the second

step to proving a vote dilution claim, the socalled "Senate Report Factors," see S. Rep. No.
417, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. 2, 28-29 (1982)./3 The

cases were then reassigned to District Judge Will

for trial.

 Judge Will conducted pretrial mediation, and a

consent decree resulted. The decree abandoned the

at-large election method and created a new system

of government for both the City and the Park

District. The new plan called for six singlemember districts for the election of six City

Council members and six park board commissioners,

with a mayor and a park board president elected

at large. Three of the districts would be

majority white, two would be majority AfricanAmerican, and one would have a majority

population of African-American and Hispanic

residents of voting age. The consent decree plan

was based on the "strong mayor" form of

government authorized by the Illinois Municipal

Code, and it replaced a "commission" form of

government. (The Code allows Illinois cities to

select among several acceptable forms of

government. The "aldermanic" form is the basic

form, see 65 ILCS 5/3.1, but cities may expand

upon the aldermanic form by adopting the

"commission," see 65 ILCS 5/4 et seq.,

"managerial," see 65 ILCS 5/5 et seq., or "strong

mayor," see 65 ILCS 5/6 et seq., forms. Cities

may normally adopt, alter, or repeal a form of

government only through a referendum. Ill. Const.

art. VII, sec. 6(f).)

 In a development that would later prove

problematic, the consent decree plan departed

from the statutory "strong mayor" form in several

respects. First, instead of five wards with two

aldermen each, the decree called for six wards

with one alderman each. Moreover, the mayor was

authorized to appoint a city clerk and treasurer

(persons usually elected at large), as well as

administrative assistants and a budget and

finance director (positions usually reserved for

cities larger than Chicago Heights). The consent

decree plan also modified the statutorily defined

form of government for Illinois Park Districts.

See 70 ILCS 1205/1-1 et seq. Rather than five

commissioners elected at large, the decree called

for six commissioners, one to be elected from

each ward. 

 Judge Will approved the consent decree over the

objections of Kevin Perkins and Robert McCoy

("the Individual Plaintiffs"), who had by this

time split from their fellow class

representatives. Perkins and McCoy thus appealed

from the order entering the consent decree (with

Harper, Elliott, the City, the Park District, and

certain nominal defendants listed as appellees).

See Perkins, 47 F.3d 212. This court found merit

in their challenge and held that the district
court should not have approved a consent decree

that overrides state law without making "properly

supported findings that such a remedy is

necessary to rectify a violation of federal law."

Id. at 216 (emphasis removed). Absent a finding

of a violation of federal law, a municipality may

modify a statutorily prescribed form of

government only through a referendum. We vacated

the entire decree and remanded for further

proceedings.

 By the time the decision in Perkins was handed

down (February 7, 1995), the City’s 1995 general

election was approaching. Judge Will ordered that

the election should take place as scheduled, but

in recognition of this court’s concerns, he also

directed that the consent decree should be

submitted for voter approval through a

referendum. At the same time, he noted that the

Park District had passed a resolution adopting

the new form of governance specified in the

decree and thus that no further action was

necessary legally to establish the new Park

District structure. On November 7, 1995, Chicago

Heights held a referendum and the voters approved

the new form of city government--which was

modeled on and identical to the form adopted in

the earlier consent decree. Judge Will passed

away shortly thereafter, and these cases, still

on remand to the district court, were reassigned

to District Judge Coar.

 Following this court’s instructions on remand,

Judge Coar first reiterated that the old, atlarge election method violated Section 2, and he

made particularized findings to support this

determination. See Harper, 1997 WL 102543, at

*12. He noted that Judge Nordberg had found the

Gingles factors satisfied; he then considered

evidence and found that the Senate Report Factors

also pointed to a Section 2 violation.

Importantly, neither the City nor the Park

District have challenged this finding of

liability in the present appeal. Next, Judge Coar

considered the appropriateness of the remedy

adopted first in the consent decree and later

through referendum. (We refer in this opinion to

the remedy Judge Coar evaluated for the City as

the "referendum system," and to the remedy

applicable to the Park District as the

"resolution system," to reflect the fact that the

systems under which both entities had operated at

the outset of this litigation had been replaced

by remedial measures.) Expressing concern that

the referendum system preserved rather than

remedied the effects of the former unlawful

at-large laws, he ordered the parties to "propose

new governmental structures and voting maps

designed to remedy the underlying Voting Rights

Act violations." Judge Coar allowed the City, the
Park District, and the Class to rely on the

referendum system for their proposals.

 As requested, the parties submitted their

proposals. The City, the Park District, and the

Class reaffirmed their support for the referendum

system, disagreeing only on where the lines

dividing the six districts should be drawn.

Perkins and McCoy objected to the solution

adopted by consent and later by referendum,

arguing that the six-member structure negates the

power of the minority representatives because (1)

in practice tie votes have frequently resulted,

with the mayor (who is still elected at large)

usually breaking the tie by voting with the white

aldermen; and (2) the mayor may exercise veto

power, which can be overridden only by a 3/5

majority of the council (i.e. four of the six

aldermen). According to Perkins and McCoy, "the

mayor now acts as a seventh alderman--indeed, a

super alderman, who has the power to appoint two

important City positions and who is not elected

from a single-member district, but rather, is

elected at-large." 

 Perkins and McCoy proposed an "aldermanic" form

of government with seven single-member districts

and a mayor, city clerk, and treasurer elected at

large. For reasons that are unclear, their plan

too departed somewhat from the statutory

aldermanic form, which calls for seven wards with

two aldermen each for cities whose population is

between 20,000 and 50,000. See 65 ILCS 5/3.1-20-

10 & 5/3.1-20-15. Under the aldermanic form of

government, the mayor votes in only two

circumstances: to break a tie (a situation that

simple mathematics indicates is less likely to

occur with an odd number of aldermen), or where

a super-majority is required by law. Perkins and

McCoy proposed that lines be drawn to create

three majority-white districts, two majorityblack districts, one majority-Hispanic district,

and one district in which no single group would

be in the majority. For the Park District,

Perkins and McCoy proposed a seven-member board

(whose members would be elected from the seven

districts), which would in turn elect a president

from within its ranks. 

 After reviewing the proposals before him, Judge

Coar rejected the referendum system because it

still did not remedy the original Section 2

violation. See McCoy v. Chicago Heights, 6 F.

Supp.2d 973, 981 (N.D. Ill. 1998). Noting that

"the parties do not explain how a government

structure where the tie-breaking vote is elected

at-large remedies a voting rights violation

predicated on the fact that the at-large system

enhanced discrimination against AfricanAmericans," id. at 980, Judge Coar found his
concerns justified by the experience under that

system that was accruing, which showed that where

a tie has resulted in the city council, the mayor

has voted with the white aldermen. (With an even

number of aldermen, moreover, ties were not

uncommon.) Judge Coar also noted that the mayor’s

authority was further enhanced by allowing him to

appoint the city clerk and treasurer, as well as

administrative assistants and directors. Id. None

of those powers would have belonged to him under

the statutory "strong mayor" government. Finally,

Judge Coar criticized the use of an at-large

method to elect the Park District board

president. Id. Illinois law provides that the

board president may be elected by the board

members, but Judge Coar believed that the use of

an at-large election is particularly problematic

in a seven-member board structure where the

president has the power to cast tie-breaking

votes. Id.

 Although Judge Coar suggested that the Perkins

and McCoy proposal was legally adequate, id. at

981, he did not embrace it without qualification.

He was concerned that a plan that requires the

drawing of district lines would be the frequent

subject of constitutional attack, recognizing

that his task was to steer between the Scylla of

racially based district lines, e.g., Abrams v.

Johnson, 521 U.S. 74 (1997), Bush v. Vera, 517

U.S. 952 (1996), and Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U.S. 899

(1996), and the Charybdis of ineffectual Section

2 remedies. Noting the support for cumulative

voting expressed by Justices Scalia and Thomas in

Justice Thomas’s concurring opinion in Holder v.

Hall, 512 U.S. 874, 912 (1994), Judge Coar

decided to try that approach. Accordingly,

instead of dividing the City into seven

districts, the court’s order requires the

establishment of an at-large system that uses

cumulative voting. This came as a surprise to the

parties, who had not proposed any such structure,

but the court cited to literature indicating that

cumulative voting has the benefits of remedying

the vote dilution problem while avoiding the

constitutional challenges that afflict the

drawing of district lines. 6 F. Supp.2d at 982-

83. Judge Coar found this benefit significant

given the line of Supreme Court decisions just

mentioned, and also given the practical fact that

any districting plan he approved would have to be

redrawn following the 2000 census.

II

 The City, the Park District, and the Class

attack the district court’s holding on several

fronts. First, they argue that the court erred

when it found that the referendum system did not

remedy the Section 2 violation. Because the
modified "strong mayor" plan adopted by the

voters in the referendum is a legally adequate

remedy, they maintain, the district court was

required to accept it. They also suggest that the

referendum results can be set aside only if they

would independently violate Section 2, and that

we should not be worrying about their capacity to

cure the earlier Section 2 violation. Second,

they argue that even if the referendum plan is an

inadequate remedy, the district court’s

cumulative voting plan is not an acceptable

alternative. Finally, the City and the Park

District argue that all previous grants of

attorneys’s fees must be revisited. We address

these contentions in turn.

A.

 Standing behind the district court’s judgment is

the earlier finding--unchallenged, as we said--

that the at-large system violated Section 2 of

the Voting Rights Act. We think it was correct

for the court to ask whether the replacement

system eventually approved through referendum

would remedy the violation; there was no need for

the court to view it as if it had emerged from

thin air. See Harvell v. Blythville Sch. Dist.

#5, 71 F.3d 1382, 1386 (8th Cir. 1995); Jenkins

v. Red Clay Consolidated Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ.,

4 F.3d 1103, 1115-16 (3d Cir. 1992). When a

Section 2 violation has been found, the district

court "must, wherever practicable, afford the

jurisdiction an opportunity to remedy the

violation first, . . . with deference afforded

the jurisdiction’s plan if it provides a full,

legally acceptable remedy. . . . But if the

jurisdiction fails to remedy completely the

violation or if a proposed remedial plan itself

constitutes a sec. 2 violation, the court must

itself take measures to remedy the violation."

Dickinson v. Indiana State Election Bd., 933 F.2d

497, 501 n.5 (7th Cir. 1991) (citation and

quotations omitted). We review the district

court’s factual findings regarding a Section 2

violation for clear error and its legal

conclusions de novo. Gingles, 478 U.S. at 79. See

also Cousin v. Sundquist, 145 F.3d 818, 822-23

(6th Cir. 1998), cert. denied 525 U.S. 1138

(1999). 

 The district court recognized that courts have

relied upon the three factors set forth in

Gingles, followed by the nine "Senate Report

Factors," in order to decide whether or not a

violation of Section 2 exists. See, e.g., Jenkins

v. Manning, 116 F.3d 685, 690-92 (3d Cir. 1997);

Dillard v. Crenshaw County, Ala., 831 F.2d 246

(11th Cir. 1987). We have no reason here to

question that framework. Using it, Judges

Nordberg and Will evaluated the original plan
proposed to remedy the violation, but Judge Coar

did not perform a similarly detailed evaluation

of the referendum plan, largely because no one

gave him the information he would have needed to

do so. See 6 F. Supp.2d at 978. Instead, he

decided that the findings that made the original

system infirm were equally applicable to the

referendum system. He noted that the problem with

the old system was its use of at-large elections,

which, given the local political environment, put

the positions to be filled beyond the reach of

minority voters. Under the plan adopted by the

referendum, only the tie-breaker is elected at

large, but taken as a whole this had the same

diluting effect as the original at-large system.

It was also significant that, because the voters

had adopted the plan by referendum, the City had

been operating under the plan for some time. This

gave the court concrete evidence of the plan’s

effect in reality. That evidence showed that the

at-large mayor voted with the white aldermen in

the cases where a city council vote resulted in

a tie. The court did not make any separate

findings about the operation of the plan in Park

District elections or governance.

 The evidence of the mayor’s pattern of voting

in tie-breaking situations, taken with the

likelihood of ties on an even-numbered council,

is enough to support the district court’s

conclusion that the referendum system did not

adequately address the acknowledged problem in

the City elections. It is true, as the City

points out, that the Supreme Court has held that

at-large procedures are not unconstitutional per

se. See Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U.S. 613, 617

(1982); see also United States v. Dallas County

Comm., 850 F.2d 1433, 1438 (11th Cir. 1988)

("[A]t-large procedures that are discriminatory

in the context of one election scheme are not

necessarily discriminatory under another

scheme.") (citation and quotations omitted).

Nonetheless, we are beyond that point here, given

the state of this litigation. Appellate review

might have been somewhat easier if the district

court had discussed each of the Gingles and

Senate Report Factors in its evaluation of the

limited use of at-large procedures found in the

referendum system, but the critical question in

the end is whether the court’s finding of fact

that the newly enacted system would still

discriminate against minority voters was clearly

erroneous. The court pointed to the evidence that

led it to conclude that vote dilution would still

rise to the level of a Section 2 violation. Not

everyone would agree, but we find the court’s

conclusion to be within the range of permissible

inferences from this evidence, and hence not

clearly erroneous. We therefore affirm the

district court’s rejection of the referendum
system insofar as it is applied to the City.

 With regard to the Park District, the absence

of evidence of continuing discrimination is

significantly more troubling. The Park District

argues that the resolution system (derived like

the referendum system from the consent decree)

has solved its Section 2 violation: the board

president regularly votes with a bloc consisting

of two African-American board members, one

Hispanic, and one white; further, capital

improvement expenditures in African-American and

Hispanic districts have increased substantially,

suggesting that their residents’ concerns are

being addressed. Neither the district court’s

opinion nor the McCoy and Perkins brief addresses

these contentions. Because the burden of proving

a Section 2 violation lies with the minority

group contesting the current system, see Gingles,

478 U.S. at 50-51, this lack of rebuttal evidence

dooms the challenge to the use of the plan in the

Park District. We reverse the district court’s

determination that the plan, as applied to the

Park District, is not a legally adequate remedy.

B.

 The question of the appropriateness of the

court’s chosen remedy is also a knotty one. On

this point, our review is for abuse of

discretion. See Connor v. Finch, 431 U.S. 407,

415 (1977) (appellate review of a district

court’s choice of remedy in a voting rights case

is for abuse of discretion). Even though this

gives great leeway to the judge who is closest to

the problems, we are compelled to find here that

the remedy for the City crafted by the court

cannot stand at this time. 

 The district court’s plan suffers from the same

procedural flaw as did the consent decree when it

was first presented to this court: the court’s

plan modifies the election methods set forth in

the Illinois Municipal Code without either going

through the statutorily required procedures for

making such changes to electoral methods or

making a judicial finding that it was necessary

to make these changes in order to comply with

federal law. As this court explained in Perkins,

after a finding of a Voting Rights Act violation,

the parties were free to adopt and the district

court to approve

one of the alternative forms of government

provided by Illinois law. However, the parties

cannot modify the chosen form simply at-will. .

. . Any modifications which must be accomplished

through a referendum cannot be made by the

consent decree unless the court finds that the

statutory provisions would violate federal law
and that such changes are necessary to ensure

compliance with federal law. 

47 F.3d at 217.

 The procedural holding in Perkins, while

addressed to a slightly different problem, is

equally applicable here, though we note that

nothing in our earlier opinion disapproved of

cumulative voting in the abstract. The Illinois

Municipal Code makes available to cities a

variety of election methods. The district court

should either have selected one of these methods

or found that the Illinois options violate

federal law. Instead, as it had done before, it

opted for a hybrid system without submitting that

plan to the voters, as Illinois law would

require, and without explaining why one of the

State’s authorized systems would not do the job.

Although the Municipal Code allows for cumulative

voting, it specifies that a city is to be divided

into districts (not less than two and not more

than six) and that each district is entitled to

three aldermen. 65 ILCS 5/3.1-15-30 & 5/3.1-15-

35. Without a finding that the Code’s cumulative

voting method violates federal law, the district

court modified the plan to call for the city-wide

election of seven council members.

 The district court’s plan also suffers from a

failure to respect the City’s preference for

single-member districts. The Supreme Court has

held that in fashioning an electoral system to

remedy a voting rights violation, courts "should

follow the policies and preferences of the State,

as expressed in statutory and constitutional

provisions or in the . . . plans proposed by the

state legislature, whenever adherence to state

policy does not detract from the Federal

Constitution." White v. Weiser, 412 U.S. 783, 795

(1973). Accordingly, when a legislative body

fails to offer an acceptable remedy, "the court,

in exercising its discretion to fashion a remedy

that complies with sec. 2, must to the greatest

extent possible give effect to the legislative

policy judgments underlying the current electoral

scheme or the legally unacceptable remedy offered

by the legislative body." Cane v. Worcester

County, Md., 35 F.3d 921, 928 (4th Cir. 1994).

 Here, the City has demonstrated a clear

preference for single-member districts. It

proposed a remedial plan that relies on singlemember districts and, in doing so, made a policy

judgment about which electoral schemes are best

suited for the locality. We should defer to the

City’s plan to the extent possible as long as it

does not violate federal law. See Cane, 35 F.3d

at 927. Although the district court found that

the referendum system was inadequate, it did not
find that any use of single-member districts

violates federal law.

 The United States, appearing as amicus curiae,

defends the district court’s plan on the ground

that, under Illinois law, cumulative voting is an

accepted electoral practice. Thus, the United

States argues, while the district court’s plan

may have violated the City’s preference for

single-member districts, the State has no such

preference. We find this distinction

unconvincing. First, the United States overstates

the popularity of cumulative voting in Illinois:

although cumulative voting is lawful under the

Municipal Code, the use of single-member

districts is an equally acceptable electoral

practice. Moreover, although Weiser talks of

deference to "state policy," a state plan was

under attack in Weiser, and its holding is not so

limited. The City proposed and must function

under the remedial plan and accordingly its

judgments are entitled to deference.

 It is somewhat troubling that the City has not

articulated why it prefers single-member

districts over cumulative voting, but this is not

an ironclad requirement for public bodies as long

as the entity’s actual preference can

legitimately be inferred from facts on the

record. It is obviously true that deference to

legislative policy judgments is predicated on the

legislature actually having made a policy

judgment rather than an arbitrary choice. But we

are satisfied that the City did so. Prior to the

district court’s order, the parties had never

thought of cumulative voting. In the absence of

a finding that cumulative voting is the only

legally viable remedy, the City should have an

opportunity to consider the merits and

deficiencies of cumulative voting before that

system is imposed upon it. We emphasize that our

decision should not be understood as a

condemnation of cumulative voting. Cumulative

voting is, as the Illinois Municipal Code makes

clear, a lawful election method that may be

implemented under circumstances demonstrating

suitable deference to the legislative body. It

also has the virtues the district court

identified: 

[R]ather than using race as a proxy for voting

preference, such a system allows voters to draw

their own jurisdictional boundaries, decide which

local governments were most important to them,

and allocate their votes accordingly. . . . All

minority groups may potentially benefit from such

a system--not just racial minorities. . . .

Indeed, cumulative voting does not

compartmentalize voters according to their race. 
6 F. Supp.2d at 982-83 (quotations and internal

citations omitted).

 Because we reject the district court’s remedy

on other grounds, we need not address the City’s

contention that the decision to increase the

number of City Council members from six to seven

violates the rule of Holder v. Hall, supra, which

holds that the size of a governing body is not

subject to a Section 2 vote dilution claim. 

III

 The remaining issues pertain to the district

court’s orders awarding attorneys’ fees and

expenses pursuant to Section 14(e) of the Voting

Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. sec. 1973(1)(e), and the

Civil Rights Attorney’s Fee Award Act, 42 U.S.C.

sec. 1988. The first award of attorneys’ fees

covers the period of time between the beginning

of the suit and the entry of the consent decree.

On December 15, 1994, Judge Will entered an order

that awarded Class Counsel $337,777.98, with

$297,930.65 attributable to the City and

$39,847.33 to the Park District. This award

included a 10% enhancement "to reflect the

excellent results achieved." Although this court

vacated the December 15 award along with the

consent decree, on November 28, 1995, after the

referendum, Judge Will re-entered the fee award.

The Park District paid its portion. The City

initially appealed, but then reconsidered and

asked us to dismiss the appeal. We granted the

motion to dismiss, so there is currently no

dispute as to the fees awarded by Judge Will.

 Pending, however, are challenges to Judge Coar’s

order awarding fees and expenses. On March 26,

1999, Judge Coar awarded Class Counsel $55,665 to

cover fees and expenses incurred after the entry

of the consent decree. (On April 21, 1999, Judge

Coar amended the order, increasing Class

Counsel’s award to $65,547.50.) Also on March 26,

Judge Coar awarded Perkins and McCoy’s attorneys

$192,803.75; the City is responsible for

$100,868.12 and the Park District for $91,935.63.

Then on February 9, 2000, the court awarded fees

in the amount of $11,065 to the attorneys

representing Perkins and McCoy, for work done

prosecuting their fee petition. The award does

not specify how the fee award breaks down between

the City and the Park District. 

 Both the City and the Park District filed

appeals from all these orders; this court has

consolidated the appeals that reached us after

oral argument in this case with the original

appeals. Although the City initially challenged

Judge Coar’s awards of attorneys’ fees to the

plaintiffs’ counsel, it later asked that that
appeal be dismissed. We granted the motion. Thus,

remaining before us are the City’s and the Park

District’s appeals of Judge Coar’s March 26,

1999, fee award, which also provided the basis

for the February 9, 2000, award of attorneys’

fees to Perkins and McCoy. 

 First, the status of Perkins and McCoy as

"prevailing parties" is at issue. The defendants

then challenge the reasonableness of the fees

awarded.

 Section 1988 states that in a civil rights

action, "the court, in its discretion, may allow

a prevailing party, other than the United States,

a reasonable attorney’s fee as part of its

costs." Because Perkins and McCoy’s status as a

prevailing party involves elements of legal

analysis, our review is de novo. See Jaffee v.

Redmond, 142 F.3d 409, 412-13 (7th Cir. 1998).

The Supreme Court has stated that the statutory

threshold for obtaining attorneys’ fees under

Section 1988 is "generous." Hensley v. Eckerhart,

461 U.S. 424, 433 (1983). To determine if a party

is "prevailing," courts ask whether:

the plaintiff has succeeded on any significant

issue in litigation which achieved some of the

benefit the parties sought in bringing suit. . .

. The touchstone of the prevailing party inquiry

must be the material alteration of the legal

relationship of the parties in a manner which

Congress sought to promote in the fee statute.

Texas Teachers Ass’n v. Garland Independent Sch.

Dist., 489 U.S. 782, 791-93 (1989) (citation and

quotations omitted). Once a plaintiff qualifies

for a fee award by meeting this threshold, "the

degree of the plaintiff’s overall success goes to

the reasonableness of the award . . ., not to the

availability of a fee award vel non." Id. at 793.

 Perkins and McCoy are prevailing parties insofar

as they succeeded in their goal of having vacated

what they regarded as an ineffectual consent

decree. That this court did not vacate the decree

based upon the precise arguments they raised, as

the Park District points out, does not matter.

They convinced this court that the decree was

improperly entered, thereby succeeding on a

"significant issue in [the] litigation." Texas

Teachers, 489 U.S. at 791. Recognizing this, the

City chose not to appeal Perkins and McCoy’s

prevailing party status so long as the

substantive aspects of this case are upheld on

appeal. (Because we are reversing some aspects of

Judge Coar’s decision, we note that the City has

reserved its right to object to Perkins and

McCoy’s status in later proceedings.) The Park
District also argues that it should not be liable

for any of the fees incurred by Perkins and

McCoy, because they did not appeal the portions

of the consent decree that applied to the Park

District. See Perkins, 47 F.3d at 217. But the

six-district structure also affected the Park

District, and the final judgment of this court

vacated the entire decree, not just parts of it.

 These facts also persuade us that the Park

District is being too particular when it asserts

that Perkins and McCoy’s earlier appeal was not

directed against it, and that it therefore should

not be responsible for paying fees associated

with that appeal. It is true that most of the

appeal related to the City, but not all of it

did. Judge Coar correctly recognized this on

remand, when he reconsidered both the provisions

applicable to the City and those applicable to

the Park District. The greater problem for

Perkins and McCoy is that we have now rejected

their challenge to the Park District resolution

that implements the earlier consent decree. The

fees to which they are entitled from the Park

District must therefore be reconsidered. The

district court on remand should take into account

both whatever contributions they made to the

liability findings against the Park District, and

their lack of success in changing the remedy for

the Park District. 

 Finally, both the City and the Park District

challenge the reasonableness of the district

court’s fee award to Perkins and McCoy. They

allege that (1) counsel for Perkins and McCoy

failed to support their claimed hourly rates with

sufficient evidence that the rates are

reasonable; (2) counsel for Perkins and McCoy

used reconstructed time records rather than

records made at the time the services were

rendered; and (3) counsel for Perkins and McCoy

relied on "cluster billing," i.e. grouping

several different activities into one

description, thus making it impossible to

determine whether the individual activities were

a reasonable expenditure of time. The defendants

maintain that these failings made it impossible

for the district court to determine the

reasonable value of the services provided. The

City also raises a number of challenges to

individual entries in the fee petitions. For

example, it argues that one of the attorneys for

Perkins and McCoy spent an unreasonable amount of

time meeting with his clients. 

 We find no abuse of discretion in the court’s

decision to accept the proposed hourly rates. The

reasonable hourly rate (or "market rate") for

lodestar purposes is "the rate that lawyers of

similar ability and experience in their community

normally charge their paying clients for the type
of work in question." Spegon v. Catholic Bishop

of Chicago, 175 F.3d 544, 555 (7th Cir. 1999)

(quotations and citations omitted). The attorneys

for Perkins and McCoy supported their proposed

hourly rates with their own affidavits confirming

the reasonableness of these rates as well as

affidavits from attorneys practicing in the

field. While an attorney’s self-serving affidavit

alone cannot establish the market rate for that

attorney’s services, such affidavits in

conjunction with other evidence of the rates

charged by comparable lawyers is sufficient to

satisfy the plaintiffs’ burden. Id.

 As to the reasonableness of the hours

expended, when a fee petition is vague or

inadequately documented, a district court may

either strike the problematic entries or (in

recognition of the impracticalities of requiring

courts to do an item-by-item accounting) reduce

the proposed fee by a reasonable percentage. See

Ohio-Sealy Mattress Mfg. Co. v. Sealy Inc., 776

F.2d 646, 651, 657-58 (7th Cir. 1985); see also

Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433 (1983)

(if plaintiff fails to document hours adequately,

court may reduce award accordingly). Whichever

option the district court chooses, it is required

to "provide a concise but clear explanation of

its reasons for the fee award" that is sufficient

to permit appellate review. Ohio-Sealy Mattress,

776 F.2d at 658, quoting Hensley, 461 U.S. at

437. 

 Perkins and McCoy acknowledge that their bills

were compiled in part from contemporaneous time

records and in part reconstructed. This use of

reconstructed records does not doom their

petition, as there is no per se rule requiring

the submission of contemporaneous time records in

the Northern District of Illinois. However, Judge

Coar, who concluded that their time records

"appear to be contemporaneous," did not address

the reliance on reconstructed records. As it is

within a district court’s power to reduce a fee

award because the petition was not supported by

contemporaneous time records, see, e.g., Shakman

v. Democratic Organization of Cook County, 634 F.

Supp. 895, 899 (N.D. Ill. 1986); Rybicki v. State

Bd. of Elections of State of Illinois, 584 F.

Supp. 849, 861 (N.D. Ill. 1984), we reverse and

remand for reconsideration of this issue.

 For the reasons discussed above, we AFFIRM the

district court’s holding that the current

election method violates Section 2 of the Voting

Rights Act as applied to the City; however, we

REVERSE the district court’s remedy and REMAND to

the court to craft a suitable remedy. We REVERSE

the district court’s holding that the current

election method violates Section 2 as applied to
the Park District. We VACATE in part and AFFIRM in

part the March 26, 1999, order and the February

9, 2000, order granting attorneys’ fees and

expenses. Specifically, we AFFIRM the district

court’s award of attorneys’ fees to Perkins and

McCoy from the City and VACATE and REMAND for

calculation of the precise amount of fees. We

VACATE and REMAND the award of fees to Perkins and

McCoy from the Park District; should the district

court determine on remand that Perkins and McCoy

are entitled to fees for their suit brought

against the Park District, it should reconsider

the amount, taking into account this opinion.

Finally, we do not disturb the award of fees to

plaintiffs’ counsel--the Park District did not

appeal that award and we dismissed the City’s

appeal of that award on the City’s motion. All

parties shall bear their own costs attributable

to this appeal.

/1 There was also one other appeal initially brought

by the Chicago Heights Park District (98-2798);

this appeal was dismissed on the Park District’s

motion before briefing and oral argument.

/2 Those three factors are the preconditions the

Supreme Court set out in Gingles for the

successful maintenance of a vote dilution claim

under the Voting Rights Act. The minority group

must be able to demonstrate (1) that the group is

sufficiently large and geographically compact to

constitute a majority in a single-member

district, (2) that the group is politically

cohesive, and (3) that the white majority votes

sufficiently as a bloc to enable it, in the

absence of special circumstances, usually to

defeat the minority’s preferred candidate. 478

U.S. at 50-51.

/3 The Report lists the following factors:

(1) the extent of any history of official

discrimination in the state or political

subdivision that touched the right of the members

of the minority group to register, to vote, or

otherwise to participate in the democratic

process;

(2) the extent to which voting in the elections

of the state or political subdivision is racially

polarized;

(3) the extent to which the state or political

subdivision has used unusually large election

districts, majority vote requirements, antisingle shot provisions, or other voting practices

or procedures that may enhance the opportunity

for discrimination against the minority group;
(4) if there is a candidate slating process,

whether the members of the minority group have

been denied access to that process; 

(5) the extent to which members of the minority

group in the state or political subdivision bear

the effects of discrimination in such areas as

education, employment and health, which hinder

their ability to participate effectively in the

political process;

(6) whether political campaigns have been

characterized by overt or subtle racial appeals;

(7) the extent to which members of the minority

group have been elected to public office in the

jurisdiction;

[(8)] whether there is a significant lack of

responsiveness on the part of elected officials

to the particularized needs of the members of the

minority group; and 

[(9)] whether the policy underlying the state or

political subdivision’s use of such voting

qualification, prerequisite to voting, or

standard, practice, or procedure is tenuous.

Sen. Judiciary Comm. Rept. at 28-29.