*This decision was originally issued on April 3, 2000. It is now beingissued to incorporate Judge Jones’ separate concurring opinion.1RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATIONPursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206ELECTRONIC CITATION: 2000 FED App. 0134P (6th Cir.)File Name: 00a0134p.06UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALSFOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT_________________RURALWESTTENNESSEEAFRICANAMERICAN-AFFAIRSCOUNCIL,et al. (98-6718),PHILLIPR.LANGSDON, et al.(98-6778),Plaintiffs-Appellees,v.DONSUNDQUIST, Governor ofthe State of Tennessee, et al.,Defendants-Appellants.;>1Nos. 98-6718/6778Appeal from the United States District Courtfor the Western District of Tennessee at Memphis.Nos. 92-02407; 92-02415—Jerome Turner, District Judge.Argued: March 16, 2000Decided and Filed: April 3, 2000*Before: JONES, BATCHELDER, and CLAY, CircuitJudges.2Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.Nos. 98-6718/6778_________________COUNSELARGUED:Michael W. Catalano, OFFICE OF THEATTORNEY GENERAL, Nashville, Tennessee, forAppellants. Laughlin McDonald, AMERICAN CIVILLIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION, Atlanta, Georgia, JohnL. Ryder, APPERSON, CRUMP & MAXWELL, Memphis,Tennessee, for Appellees.ON BRIEF:Michael W.Catalano, Paul G. Summers, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEYGENERAL, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellants. LaughlinMcDonald, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNIONFOUNDATION, Atlanta, Georgia, John L. Ryder,APPERSON, CRUMP & MAXWELL, Memphis, Tennessee,John R. Walker, BAKER, DONELSON, BEARMAN &CALDWELL, Memphis, Tennessee, Richard H. Dinkins,DODSON, PARKER, DINKINS & BEHM, Nashville,Tennessee, for Appellees.BATCHELDER J., delivered the opinion of the court, inwhich CLAY, J., joined. JONES, J. (pp. 18-23), issued aseparate concurring opinion._________________OPINION_________________BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge. Don Sundquist, Governorof the State of Tennessee, and other state officials appeal froma district court order finding that a districting plan for theTennessee House of Representatives unlawfully dilutesAfrican-American voting strength in violation of § 2 of theVoting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973, and enjoining furtheruse of that plan. The State further requests a stay of thedistrict court’s order for elections scheduled to begin inAugust of 2000. For the reasons set forth below, we affirmthe order of the district court, and deny the motion for a stayas moot.Nos. 98-6718/6778Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.23long as it grants equal opportunity to some other set ofminority voters. This conclusion is contrary to the SupremeCourt’s interpretation of § 2, which clearly provides that astatemay notremedy vote dilution in one area by legalcompliance in another.22Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.Nos. 98-6718/6778(W.D. Tenn. 1998). While one might expect a political groupto wield significant influence in a district in which itcomprises at least one-quarter of the voting age population,the realities of white bloc voting command that we apply amore flexible standard in assessing the extent to whichpurported influence districts provide minorities with an equalopportunity to elect representatives of choice.Notwithstanding a minority population that may evenapproach upwards of 40% in a district, when, as here, 90% ofwhites coalesce along racial lines to defeat the blackcommunity’s preferred candidate of choice, the ability ofblacks to “influence” elections in these circumstances isspecious. The bright-line 25% rule obscures the realities ofwhite bloc voting, and implies black “influence” that may notin fact exist. Accordingly, I would expressly reject the 25%rule, and adopt a more flexible, case-by-case standard thattakes white bloc voting into account.Second, the majority concludes that “neither overproportionality in one area of the State nor substantialproportionality in the State as a wholeshould ordinarily beusedto offset a problem of vote dilution in one discrete areaof the State.”Anteat 14 (emphasis added). For thisconclusion, the majority relies upon the Supreme Court’sholdings inShaw v. Hunt, 517 U.S. 899 (1996) andJohnsonv. DeGrandy, 512 U.S. 997 (1994), which collectivelyprovide that a state may not remedy vote dilution in one areaof a state by compliance with § 2 in another area. Indeed, asthe majority acknowledges, theDeGrandycourt scathinglycritiqued the premise that “the rights of some minority votersunder § 2 may be traded off against the rights of othermembers of the same minority class,” 512 U.S. at 1019, andtheShawcourt plainly ruled that “the vote-dilution injuriessuffered by . . . persons [in one area of the State] are notremedied by creating a safe majority-black district somewhereelse in the State.” 517 U.S. at 917. Inexplicably, the majorityreads ambiguity into these conclusions, and thereby leaves thedoor open to the notion that a state may dilute the vote ofminority voters in ways that would otherwise violate § 2, asNos. 98-6718/6778Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.3IIn April of 1992, the Tennessee General Assembly enactedlegislation reapportioning the State’s single-member House ofRepresentatives and Senate districts. Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 3-1-102 & 103 (1992) (repealed 1994). Prior to the 1992primaries, the Rural West Tennessee African-AmericanAffairs Council (“RWTAAC”) and certain registered votersin Tennessee filed suit charging that both the Senate Plan andthe House Plan violated § 2 of the Voting Rights Act and theThirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to theUnited States Constitution. Phillip R. Langsdon and otherregistered voters in Tennessee filed suit challenging thevalidity of the House Plan on the grounds that it violated § 2of Voting Rights Act and the “one person, one vote” doctrineof the Fourteenth Amendment; the plaintiffs also challengedthe House Plan on other grounds subsequently dismissed.A three-judge panel of the district court convened andordered the two cases consolidated. On September 15, 1993,the panel held that the House Plan was unconstitutionalbecause it violated the one person, one vote doctrine of theEqual Protection Clause.RWTAAC v. McWherter, 836 F.Supp. 447, 452 (W.D. Tenn. 1993). The court ordered thedefendants to prepare and submit a constitutionalapportionment plan by January 25, 1994.Id.The Stateappealed to the United States Supreme Court.On November 4, 1993, the district court ruled that theSenate Plan violated § 2 of the Voting Rights Act byaffording African-American voters in west Tennessee lessopportunity than other members of the electorate toparticipate in the political process and to elect representativesof their choice.RWTAAC v. McWherter, 836 F. Supp. 453,466 (W.D. Tenn. 1993) (“RWTAAC I”). The State appealed,and the Supreme Court vacated the panel’s order andremanded for further consideration in light ofJohnson v.DeGrandy, 512 U.S. 997 (1994).RWTAAC v. McWherter,512 U.S. 1249 (1994). On remand, the district court reversed4Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.Nos. 98-6718/6778its decision inRWTAAC Iand held that the Senate Planconformed to the Voting Rights Act.RWTAAC v.McWherter, 877 F. Supp. 1096, 1098 (W.D. Tenn. 1995)(“RWTAAC II”). The plaintiffs appealed.While the appeals in the Senate and House Plan cases werepending, the Tennessee General Assembly adopted a newHouse Plan and submitted it to the district court. Tenn. CodeAnn. § 3-1-103 (1994). The court found that the new Plancomplied with the Equal Protection Clause’s one person, onevote requirement. It delayed consideration of the otherchallenges to the House Plan until the Supreme Court ruledon the appeals pending in the Senate case.The Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiffs’claims as to the Senate Plan on October 4, 1995.RWTAAC v.Sundquist, 516 U.S. 801 (1995). RWTAAC then amended itscomplaint to challenge the House Plan on the sole ground thatit violated § 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Because theamended complaint contained no constitutional claims, thethree-judge court disbanded itself. After a trial on the meritsof the plaintiffs’ consolidated claim of vote dilution, theHonorable Jerome Turner, on November 6, 1998, declared the1994 House Plan to be violative of the Voting Rights Act andenjoined the defendants from using it in future elections.RWTAAC v. Sundquist, 29 F. Supp. 2d 448, 450 (W.D. Tenn.1998). The state defendants bring this timely appeal.II"A district court's factual findings regarding Section 2violations and the determination of whether vote dilution hasoccurred are ordinarily reviewed for clear error."Cousin v.McWherter, 46 F.3d 568, 574 (6th Cir. 1995) (citing Fed. R.Civ. P. 52(a) andThornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 79(1986)). However, "Rule 52(a) does not inhibit an appellatecourt's power to correct errors of law, including those thatmay infect a so-called mixed finding of law and fact, or afinding of fact that is predicated on a misunderstanding of theNos. 98-6718/6778Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.21least of all a rule interpreting a statute designed to implementthe Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to theConstitution.”NAACP v. City of Niagra Falls, 65 F.3d 1002,1016 (2d Cir. 1995). Indeed, the district court properlyevaluated the success of the black community’s preferredcandidate in white-white elections because of our refusal toconclude that racial representationper seis the lynchpin of adilution determination.See Cousin, 145 F.3d at 825. Notonly is such an abstracted presumption abhorrent to thecolorblind goals of the Equal Protection Clause,see, e.g.,Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900, 911-12 (1995), but it directlyconflicts with § 2's dictate that nothing in the Voting RightsAct shall be construed to require proportional representation.See42 U.S.C. § 1973(b).By granting greater weight to black-white elections whenwhite bloc voting is targeted against black candidates, we donot disrespect this principle. We merely recognize theestablished realities of white bloc voting in rural westTennessee, and conclude uncontroversially that blacks do notenjoy an equal opportunity “to participate in the politicalprocess and to elect representatives of their choice” when theycan elect only those candidates sanctioned by the whitemajority.II.I also write separately to express disagreement with boththe district court’s definition of “influence” districts for thepurposes of the “totality of the circumstances” analysis, andthe majority’s implicit recognition that, under certainunspecified circumstances, a state may remedy vote dilutionin one area of a state by compliance with § 2 in another.First, the district court erred in adopting theRWTAAC IIcourt’s bright-line definition of “influence” districts as anydistrict where a minority group comprises between 25% and55% of the district.Rural West Tennessee African AmericanAffairs Council, Inc. v. Sundquist, 29 F.Supp.2d 448, 46120Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.Nos. 98-6718/6778candidates of their race at the polls.Cf. Shaw v. Reno, 509U.S. 630, 647 (1993) (asserting that intentionally-createdmajority-minority districts may “reinforce[] the perceptionthat members of the same racial group . . . think alike, sharethe same political interests, and will prefer the samecandidates at the polls”). In this case, the record shows that60% of whites vote against the black community’s preferredcandidate in white-white elections, yet almost 90% of whitesvote for the white candidate in black-white elections. Therecord therefore reveals almost total white bloc voting whena politically cohesive group of blacks attempts to elect amember of their racial group. These facts depict theundisputed racial realities of politics in rural west Tennessee,and we cannot wish away these hard political facts in hopesof achieving a colorblind ideal that, as of yet, does notcomport with empirical reality.Moreover, absent compelling evidence that a whitecandidate in a white-white election is genuinely the blackcommunity’s preferred candidate, courts must assess blackwhite elections to determine whether a politically cohesiveminority group actually has a viable candidate of choice, ormerely an opportunity to mitigate the impact of whiteelectoral hegemony.See Cousin, 145 F.3d at 825 (providingthat white-white elections are relevant when “one of thecandidates [is] strongly preferred by black voters” or “[w]hereblack voters have a genuine candidate of choice”) (citationomitted);cf. Citizens for a Better Gretna v. Gretna,834 F.2d496, 503 (5th Cir. 1987) (concluding that a candidate’s raceis most relevant when the election “offers voters the choice ofsupporting a viable minority candidate”).Recognizing the relevance of a candidate’s race when therecord shows minority political cohesion and especially strongwhite cohesion in elections involving black candidates doesnot preempt the possibility that a white candidate may be theblack community’s genuine and actual candidate of choice.As the Second Circuit rightly concluded, “[n]o legal ruleshould presuppose the inevitability of electoral apartheid –Nos. 98-6718/6778Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.5governing rule of law."Gingles, 478 U.S. at 79 (internalquotation marks omitted).ASection 2 of the Voting Rights Act provides:(a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting orstandard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed orapplied by any State or political subdivision in a mannerwhich results in a denial or abridgement of the right ofany citizen of the United States to vote on account ofrace or color, or in contravention of the guarantees setforth in section 1973b(f)(2) of this title, as provided insubsection (b) of this section.(b) A violation of subsection (a) of this section isestablished if, based on the totality of circumstances, it isshown that the political processes leading to nominationor election in the State or political subdivision are notequally open to participation by members of a class ofcitizens protected by subsection (a) of this section in thatits members have less opportunity than other members ofthe electorate to participate in the political process and toelect representatives of their choice. The extent to whichmembers of a protected class have been elected to officein the State or political subdivision is one circumstancewhich may be considered:Provided, That nothing in thissection establishes a right to have members of a protectedclass elected in numbers equal to their proportion in thepopulation.42 U.S.C. § 1973.Before considering whether the House Plan dilutes minorityvoting strength in rural west Tennessee and thus deniesmembers of the minority group a fair opportunity to electrepresentatives of their choice, we must determine whetherthe plaintiffs have met the three preconditions announced bythe Supreme Court inThornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. at 50-6Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.Nos. 98-6718/677851. The plaintiffs must demonstrate that 1) the minoritygroup is sufficiently large and geographically compact toconstitute a majority in a single-member district; 2) theminority group is politically cohesive; and 3) the whitemajority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it usually todefeat the minority’s preferred candidate.Id.The partiesagree that the first twoGinglespreconditions have beensatisfied. They clash on the question whether whites vote asa bloc usually to defeat the candidates of choice of AfricanAmerican voters, contesting most hotly the weight to be givento particular sets of election data.BChapter 536 of the Public Acts of 1994 provides a threepart reapportionment plan for Tennessee’s ninety-nine housedistricts. Plan A, at issue in this case, creates twelvemajority-African-American districts. None of these districts,however, lies in the area that plaintiffs describe as rural westTennessee, which includes Madison, Haywood, Hardeman,Tipton, Fayette, and Lauderdale counties. Chapter 536provides that should a court find that Plan A unlawfullydilutes minority voting strength, Plan B, which createsthirteen majority-African-American house districts, includingone in rural west Tennessee, will take effect. Plan C, whichwould have reinstated the 1992 house redistricting plan hadthe State prevailed on its claim that the 1992 plan compliedwith the Equal Protection Clause, is moot.See Millsaps v.Langsdon, 510 U.S. 1160 (1994) (affirming the districtcourt’s ruling that the 1992 house redistricting plan violatedthe “one person, one vote” doctrine).At trial, both parties presented expert testimony regardingvoter behavior in rural west Tennessee. Plaintiffs’ expert, Dr.Steven Cole, analyzed eleven legislative elections which hadboth black and white candidates from 1974 to 1996 usingbivariate ecological regression analysis, and found that theblack preferred candidates lost nine times (82%). Averageblack cohesion was 67%, and average white cohesion wasNos. 98-6718/6778Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.19white candidates than those involving only white candidates.Anteat 9. The majority is wise to reach these conclusions,because “[w]hen white bloc voting is ‘targeted’ against blackcandidates, black voters are denied an opportunity enjoyed bywhite voters, namely, the opportunity to elect a candidate oftheir own race.”Clarke, 40 F.3d at 812. Certainly, whenwhite voters have the opportunity to elect preferred candidatesof all races, yet black voters may only elect white candidates,black voters patently do not enjoy an opportunity to “elect[their] candidate of choice on an equal basis with othervoters.”Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U.S. 146, 153 (1993).This conclusion does not blur the reality that § 2 isultimately concerned with “whether minority-preferredcandidates, whatever their race, usually lose” because ofwhite bloc voting.Cousin v. Sundquist, 145 F.3d 818, 825(6th Cir. 1998). It merely recognizes that when a court hasfound both that a minority group politically coalesces alongracial lines, and that whites politically coalesce along raciallines in elections involving a member of that minority group,it defies logic for a court to attempt to assess equal access ina colorblind fashion. In these circumstances, a court is facedwith race-conscious political action among both the whitemajority and the black minority, and the Voting Rights Actclearly protects the racial minority from the political tyrannyof the racial majority.See42 U.S.C. § 1973(b). If a court,however, fails to apply a race-conscious standard thataccounts for acute white bloc voting in black-white elections,it may allow less dramatic polarization in white-whiteelections to obscure the reality of black political exclusion inblack-black elections. It is syllogistic that a court cannotdiscern color-conscious discrimination through colorblindlenses.The VRA’s command that we inquire into a candidate’srace when faced with black political cohesion and intensewhite bloc voting stems from findings pertaining to theempirical realities of race-conscious political action, not racialpresumptions that blacks, or whites, will only prefer18Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.Nos. 98-6718/6778_____________________CONCURRENCE_____________________NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge, concurring.Although I fully concur in the result reached by the majorityand in much of its well-reasoned analysis, I write separatelyto make three points. In concluding that the district court didnot err in finding that whites vote as a bloc usually to defeatthe preferred candidate of blacks in rural west Tennessee, themajority acknowledges that “the Voting Rights Act’sguarantee of equal opportunity is not met when ‘candidatesfavored by blacks can win, but only if the candidates arewhite.’”Anteat 9 (quotingSmith v. Clinton, 687 F.Supp.1310, 1318 (E.D. Ark. 1988) (three judge panel)). It is on thispresupposition that the majority rests its conclusion that, inthis case, black-white elections are more probative of votedilution than white-white elections. I agree with this holding;however, I think it is necessary to explicate further why itmatters under the Voting Rights Act (“VRA”) when aminority group’s only electable candidates of choice arewhite. I also write separately to note my differences with thedistrict court’s definition of “influence” districts, and themajority’s conclusion that, in certain unspecifiedcircumstances, compliance with § 2 in one area of a state mayoffset vote dilution in another area.I.I am of the view that it is wise to explain more fully thesubstantive and jurisprudential support animating our holdingthat equal opportunity in voting is not achieved when aminority group may elect representatives of choice when theyare white, but are unsuccessful in electing members of theirown group.See id.;see also Clarke v. City of Cincinnati, 40F.3d 807, 812 (6th Cir. 1994). Based primarily on thispredicate, the majority concludes that the district court did noterr in granting more weight to elections involving black andNos. 98-6718/6778Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.789%. An analysis of homogenous white precincts forlegislative contests from 1994 to 1996 showed that on average80% of whites voted for the white candidates over the blackcandidates. There were no homogenous black precincts.Based on this evidence, Dr. Cole concluded that white voterstend to vote as a bloc so as usually to defeat the candidate ofchoice of African-American voters.The State’s experts, Dr. William Lyons and Dr. MichaelGant, analyzed ten black-white legislative contests in ruralwest Tennessee from 1986 to 1996, and found that theminority—preferred candidates had been defeated nine times(90%). Average black cohesion was 64%, and average whitecohesion was 86%. Because black voter turnout was roughlyequal to white voter turnout in black-white elections and inelections that had only white candidates, Drs. Lyons and Gantalso analyzed eleven white-white legislative contests from1986 to 1996. Adding the results to those from the blackwhite contests, Drs. Lyons and Gant found that the preferredcandidate of black voters was defeated eleven out of twentyone times (52.38%).While Drs. Lyons and Gant acknowledged that theminority-preferred candidate usually lost, and hence that theresults of state legislative contests in rural west Tennesseewere indicative of minority vote dilution, they noted that adifference in one election would change this outcome. Theytherefore examined twenty-four black-white and twenty-sixwhite-white countywide elections from 1986 to 1996. In theblack-white contests, they found that the black-preferredcandidate was defeated thirteen times (54%). For white-whitecountywide elections, the black-preferred candidate lost sixtimes (23%). Combining all the countywide contest from1986 to 1996, the black-preferred candidate lost eighteen outof fifty times (36%). Noting that if all of the countywideelections were combined with all of the legislative elections,the results showed that the black-preferred candidate lost onlytwenty-nine of seventy-one elections (41%), the defense8Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.Nos. 98-6718/6778experts concluded that election results in rural west Tennesseewere not, in general, indicative of minority vote dilution.After hearing this testimony, the district court held that theplaintiffs had made a showing sufficient to satisfy the thirdGinglesprecondition. The district court placed primaryemphasis on the results of the black-white contests and, dueto the significant number of legislative elections analyzed,determined that the results from the countywide contests werenot particularly useful or necessary. In light of its limitedprobativeness, the district court concluded, the white-whiteand countywide evidence was insufficient to overcome thefact that a white voting bloc defeats the minority-preferredcandidate at least 82% of the time in interracial legislativeelections in rural west Tennessee.On appeal, the State argues that the district court erred. TheState contends, in essence, that the district court was obligedto give equal and controlling weight to white-white and nonlegislative contests in its analysis under the thirdGinglesfactor.CThis court has made clear that white-white elections arerelevant in the analysis of a voting dilution claim. InCousinv. Sundquist, we considered a § 2 challenge to the at-largemethod of electing judges utilized by Hamilton County,Tennessee.Cousin, 145 F.3d 818, 820 (6th Cir. 1998). Theplaintiffs’ expert used average cohesion figures from blackwhite elections in connection with voter turnout informationto determine that, in order to succeed in a Hamilton Countyelection, a hypothetical black candidate would need a numberof white crossover votes exceeding the average crossoversuggested by the cohesion figures.Id.at 824. Thedefendants’ expert, by contrast, used both black-white andwhite-white election results, identified the minority’spreferred candidate in each, and determined that the whitemajority did not regularly vote in such a way as to depriveNos. 98-6718/6778Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.17elections in the six county area are racially polarized, and noAfrican-American has ever won one. These circumstancessimply overwhelm those factors that might favor the State ofTennessee (such as a lack of suspect electoral practices,responsive (albeit mainly white) state legislators, and thepossibility that minority voters in minority-African-Americandistricts will be able to influence electoral outcomes). Thedistrict court therefore properly held that the plaintiffs hadproved a § 2 violation. The remedy that the plaintiffs seek forthis violation, creation of one majority-African-Americanhouse district in rural west Tennessee through implementationof Plan B of Chapter 536, will take place as a matter of statelaw.IVThe late Judge Turner ably considered a complex body ofstatistical and anecdotal evidence to determine that Plan A ofChapter 536 unlawfully dilutes African-American votingstrength in rural west Tennessee. His order enjoining use ofthe House Plan in future elections is hereby affirmed. Thedefendants’ motion for a stay pending appeal is denied asmoot.16Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.Nos. 98-6718/6778selected because to do so would require us to trade the § 2rights of individual African-Americans in rural westTennessee against those of African-American groupselsewhere in the State.The State complains that by allowing the plaintiffs to definethe frame of reference for their § 2 claim, we will enablefuture litigants to carve up successively smaller areas of theState until they are able to maximize the number of majorityminority legislative districts—a result not countenanced bythe Voting Rights Act.See De Grandy, 512 U.S. at 1017(“Failure to maximize cannot be the measure of § 2.”). As thedistrict court pointed out, however, theGinglespreconditionsoperate to prevent just the sort of limitlessly small “reversegerrymander” whose specter the State raises here.See, e.g.,Campos v. City of Houston, 113 F.3d 544, 547-48 (5th Cir.1997) (holding that minority group was not sufficiently largeand geographically compact to sustain a § 2 claim). In thisregard, we note that the region selected by the plaintiffs in thiscase is a sensible one—indeed, more sensible than the sevencounty area including Shelby County urged by the State.While Shelby County is the southernmost and westernmostcounty in the State, and, like the six neighboring counties ofrural west Tennessee, has a large African-Americanpopulation, the seven counties do not form a coherentdemographic unit. The African-American population inShelby County is concentrated in inner-city Memphis, and islargely set off from rural west Tennessee by a “buffer zone”of white suburbs. As a result, the African-Americanpopulations in these two areas are not likely to be particularlycohesive. For this reason, the district court properly restrictedthe geographic scope of relevant statistical data to the sixcounties of rural west Tennessee.Having correctly defined its frame of reference, the districtcourt made no clear error in weighing the totality of thecircumstances. Rural west Tennessee has an AfricanAmerican voting age population of 31%, but none of its fivehouse districts is majority-African-American. LegislativeNos. 98-6718/6778Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.9black voters in Hamilton County of the opportunity to electtheir candidate of choice.Id.In preferring the methodologyof the defense expert, we noted: “The proper inquiry is notwhether white candidates do or do not usually defeat blackcandidates, but whether minority-preferred candidates,whatever their race, usually lose.”Id.at 825.While the plain import ofCousinis that courts are notforeclosed from considering electoral races involving onlywhite candidates, that case does not suggest (as the Stateseems to argue) that white-white contests are necessarilyentitled to the same weight as those involving a minoritycandidate. As Judge Richard Arnold has pithily stated, theVoting Rights Act’s guarantee of equal opportunity is not metwhen “[c]andidates favored by blacks can win, but only if thecandidates are white.”Smith v. Clinton, 687 F. Supp. 1310,1318 (E.D. Ark. 1988) (three judge panel). This court, alongwith others, has accordingly held that a candidate’s race canbe relevant to a § 2 inquiry under certain circumstances.SeeClarke v. City of Cincinnati, 40 F.3d 807, 812 (6th Cir. 1994);see also, e.g., Nipper v. Smith, 39 F.3d 1494, 1540 (11th Cir.1994) (en banc) (holding that white-white elections may beconsidered, but are less probative than those involving blackcandidates). One such circumstance occurs when white blocvoting is “targeted” against black candidates.Clarke, 40 F.3dat 812.In this case, there is marked evidence of targeting; theexperts for both the plaintiffs and the defendants agreed thatwhite voter cohesion in rural west Tennessee increases from59% in white-white elections to 86% in black-white elections.Perhaps not unrelatedly, no African-American candidate hasever won an interracial legislative contest in the six-countyarea, despite many candidacies. In view of such evidence thata white voting bloc coalesces to frustrate African-Americancandidacies, the district court properly considered the race ofcandidates in its § 2 analysis, and accorded greater weight tothe results of black-white elections.10Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.Nos. 98-6718/6778Similarly, the district court was correct to discount theresults of countywide contests. The parties stipulated thatlegislative elections were the most legally relevant, and therulings of our sister circuits support the parties’ appraisal.See, e.g.,Citizens for a Better Gretna v. City of Gretna, 834F.2d 496, 502 (5th Cir. 1987) (suggesting that exogenouselections alone cannot prove racially polarized voting, but canbe considered as “additional evidence”). At trial, data werepresented from twenty-one legislative elections over a periodof ten years—a substantial body of evidence.See Jenkins v.Red Clay Consol. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 4 F.3d 1103, 1130(3d Cir. 1993) (holding that seven elections over a period often years was a suitable sample such that the court coulddiscern the presence of a pattern of white bloc voting usuallydefeating the minority voters’ candidate of choice). The Statenevertheless advocates the inclusion of the countywideelections on the ground that a different outcome in one of theeleven legislative elections in which the preferred candidateof African-Americans was defeated would alter the minorityvote dilution determination. But the record contains noinformation that would allow us to evaluate the claimedmarginal character of the statistics derived from the legislativecontests. More importantly, the State’s claim rests on theassumption that black-white and white-white legislativeelections should be given equal weight. As we have pointedout, however, that assumption is not valid in this case.In sum, we find no clear error in the district court’sdetermination that the plaintiffs have satisfied the thirdGinglesprecondition. The data from the legislative electionswere sufficiently robust for the district court to discernwhether there existed a pattern of white bloc voting. Whenthe black-white legislative elections are afforded greaterweight, the data show that the white majority votessufficiently as a bloc to enable it usually to defeat theminority’s preferred candidate in rural west Tennessee.Nos. 98-6718/6778Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.15Critiquing this “safe harbor” argument, the Supreme Courtremarked on the State’s “unexplored premise of highlysuspect validity:”that in any given voting jurisdiction (or portion of thatjurisdiction under consideration), the rights of someminority voters under § 2 may be traded off against therights of other members of the same minority class.Under the State’s view, the most blatant racialgerrymandering in half of a county’s single-memberdistricts would be irrelevant under § 2 if offset bypolitical gerrymandering in the other half, so long asproportionality was the bottom line.Id.at 1019. Similarly, inShaw, the Court considered NorthCarolina’s argument that a bizarrely shaped majority-blackcongressional district was a narrowly tailored remedy for a § 2violation elsewhere in the State.Shaw, 517 U.S. at 916-17.Finding this position “singularly unpersuasive,” the Courtstated:If a § 2 violation is proved for a particular area, it flowsfrom the fact that individuals in this area “have lessopportunity than other members of the electorate toparticipate in the political process and to electrepresentatives of their choice.” 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b).The vote-dilution injuries suffered by these persons arenot remedied by creating a safe majority-black districtsomewhere else in the State . . . .. . . To accept that the district may be placed anywhereimplies that the claim, and hence the coordinate right toan undiluted vote (to cast a ballot equal among voters),belongs to the minority as a group and not to itsindividual members. It does not.Id.at 917. Taken together, the admonitions ofDe GrandyandShawdissuade us from accepting the Tennessee’sinvitation to append Shelby County, or the State as whole, tothe geographical frame of reference that the plaintiffs have14Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.Nos. 98-6718/67781The State also challenges the district court’s finding regarding thehistory of official discrimination in voting in western Tennessee. Wehave carefully considered this question, and find no error in the districtcourt’s determination.conducting the proportionality analysis.1The State arguesthat the court should have considered proportionality in theentire state or, in the alternative, in an area that includesShelby County along with the six counties of rural westTennessee. On a statewide basis, there are twelve majorityblack house districts out of a total of ninety-nine, which, theState contends, is substantially proportional to Tennessee’sblack voting age population of 14.4%. In the seven-countyarea that includes Shelby County, the black voting agepopulation is 37.9%; since 42.85% of the house districts aremajority black in that seven-county area, the State says,blacks are in fact overrepresented.BInJohnson v. De Grandy, the Supreme Court explicitly leftopen the question of the proper frame of reference foranalyzing § 2 claims.De Grandy, 512 U.S. at 1022 (“[W]ehave no occasion to decide which frame of reference shouldhave been used if the parties had not apparently agreed in theDistrict Court on the appropriate geographical scope foranalyzing the alleged § 2 violation and devising its remedy.”).Nevertheless, the reasoning in that case, and inShaw v. Hunt,517 U.S. 899, 917 (1996), persuades us that neither overproportionality in one area of the State nor substantialproportionality in the State as a whole should ordinarily beused to offset a problem of vote dilution in one discrete areaof the State.InDe Grandy, the State of Florida argued that, as a matterof law, no dilution occurs whenever the percentage of singlemember districts in which minority voters form an effectivemajority mirrors the minority voters’ percentage of therelevant population.De Grandy, 512 U.S. at 1017.Nos. 98-6718/6778Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.11IIIHaving determined that the plaintiffs have met the threeGinglespreconditions, we turn to the question whether, giventhe "totality of the circumstances," the House Plan has in fact"diluted" African-American electoral strength and thus deniedAfrican-Americans in rural west Tennessee a fair opportunityto elect representatives of their choice.SeeClarke,40 F.3dat 811. The Senate Report which accompanied the 1982amendments to the Voting Rights Act specifies factors whichtypically may be relevant to a § 2 claim: the history ofvoting-related discrimination in the State or politicalsubdivision; the extent to which voting in the elections of theState or political subdivision is racially polarized; the extentto which the State or political subdivision has used votingpractices or procedures that tend to enhance the opportunityfor discrimination against the minority group, such asunusually large election districts, majority vote requirements,and prohibitions against bullet voting; the exclusion ofmembers of the minority group from candidate slatingprocesses; the extent to which minority group members bearthe effects of past discrimination in areas such as education,employment, and health, which hinder their ability toparticipate effectively in the political process; the use of overtor subtle racial appeals in political campaigns; and the extentto which members of the minority group have been elected topublic office in the jurisdiction.Gingles, 478 U.S. at 44-45(citing S. Rep. No. 97-417, at 28-29 (1982)). The Reportnotes also that there may be probative value to evidencedemonstrating that elected officials are unresponsive to theparticularized needs of the members of the minority groupand that the policy underlying the State's or the politicalsubdivision's use of the contested practice or structure istenuous.Id.at 45.The Supreme Court has recently highlighted a newelement—proportionality—to be weighed in the totality of thecircumstances. InJohnson v. De Grandy, a case involving achallenge to Florida’s legislative reapportionment plan, the12Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.Nos. 98-6718/6778Court concluded that § 2 relief should not be granted because,notwithstanding the presence of continued discrimination andracial bloc voting, minority voters were able to form effectivevoting majorities in a number of legislative districts that wereroughly proportional to their respective shares in the votingage population.De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997, 1024 (1994). TheCourt emphasized, however, that proportionality is not a “safeharbor :” “the degree of probative value assigned toproportionality may vary with other facts. No single statisticprovides courts with a shortcut to determine whether a set ofsingle-member districts unlawfully dilute minority votingstrength.”Id.at 1020-21.AThe district court found that the totality of thecircumstances indicated that the House Plan unlawfullydilutes minority voting strength in rural west Tennessee.Beginning with the two factors that the Supreme Court hasdeclared are the most important in balancing the totality of thecircumstances,see Gingles, 478 U.S. at 48 n.15, the courtfound that no African-American had been elected to the statelegislature from the six-county area, and that the experts at thetrial agreed that voting in the area is racially polarized. Thecourt next took judicial notice of findings from the SenatePlan cases,RWTAAC I&II, regarding the history and effectof discrimination in voting in western Tennessee. The courtin the Senate Plan cases had recounted the entire history ofofficial discrimination from the pre-Civil War era, a timeframe whose use we disapproved of in theCousincase, 145F.2d at 832, but went on to cite two cases from the 1980swhich indicate that voting rights violations by public officialsin rural west Tennessee are ongoing.See Taylor v. HaywoodCounty, 544 F. Supp. 1122, 1131 (W.D. Tenn. 1982) (holdingthat change to an at-large election scheme was a result ofpurposeful intention to dilute black voting strength);Bills v.Alexander, No. 83-12220 (W.D. Tenn. 1983) (approvingsettlement setting up a new system to ensure the opportunityof black citizens to participate meaningfully in the politicalNos. 98-6718/6778Rural West Tennessee, et al.v. Sundquist, et al.13process). The court concluded that as a result of thoseongoing violations, African-Americans had suffereddisadvantages in such areas as education, employment, andhealth.The district court further found that the Tennessee House ofRepresentatives was responsive to the needs of black votersin the rural western part of the state, a factor upon which thiscourt has laid heavy emphasis in the past.See Cousin, 145F.3d at 833. The district court questioned the state policy ofmaintaining municipal boundaries wherever possible inconfiguring the legislative districts, since the plan itselffractured certain cities. Under the heading of “miscellaneous”factors, the court concluded that there was no evidence ofsuspect electoral practices, racial appeals in politicalcampaigns, or a slating process or other mechanism used toprevent minority candidacies.Turning to the question of proportionality, the district courtnoted that blacks make up 31.01% of the voting agepopulation of the six counties comprising rural westernTennessee, but that none of the five house districts coveringthat area contains a majority of black voters. The courtacknowledged that in four of the five districts minoritymembers make up 25-55% of the population and hence couldmeaningfully affect election outcomes in those four districts,but concluded that in the absence of a single majority blackdistrict, this fact had little probative significance. Balancingthe lack of proportionality with the other factors from theSenate Report, the court concluded that black voters in ruralwest Tennessee do not have equal opportunity in the politicalprocess.The State’s primary quarrel with this determinationconcerns the geographical area on which the court focused in