Source: http://openjurist.org/515/us/737
Timestamp: 2017-02-27 11:44:18
Document Index: 391305931

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 4', '§ 1973', '§ 5', '§ 1973', '§ 2284', '§ 1253', '§ 2', '§ 1973']

515 US 737 United States v. Hays Louisiana | OpenJurist
515 U.S. 737 - United States v. Hays Louisiana Homethe United States Reports515 U.S.
515 US 737 United States v. Hays Louisiana 515 U.S. 737115 S.Ct. 2431132 L.Ed.2d 635
UNITED STATES, Appellant,v.Ray HAYS et al. LOUISIANA, et al., Appellants, v. Ray HAYS et al.
* Louisiana has been covered by § 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 438, as amended, 84 Stat. 315, 42 U.S.C. § 1973b(b) (VRA), since November 1, 1964, see 28 CFR pt. 51, App. The effect of such coverage is set forth in VRA § 5, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c: whenever a covered jurisdiction "shall enact or seek to administer any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting different from that in force or effect on November 1, 1964," it must first either obtain a declaratory judgment from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia that the change "does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color," or receive "preclearance" from the Attorney General to the same effect. Any redistricting plan in Louisiana is subject to these requirements.
Accordingly, in 1991, Louisiana submitted to the Attorney General for preclearance a districting plan for its Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE). Louisiana's BESE districts historically have paralleled its congressional districts, so the submitted plan contained one majority-minority district (that is, a district "in which a majority of the population is a member of a specific minority group," Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 1149, 1151, 122 L.Ed.2d 500 (1993)) out of eight, as did Louisiana's congressional districting plan then in force.* The Attorney General refused to preclear the plan, claiming that Louisiana had failed to demonstrate that its decision not to create a second majority-minority district was free of racially discriminatory purpose. See Defense Exh. 17 in No. 92-1522 (WD La.) (letter from U.S. Dept. of Justice, Assistant Attorney General John Dunne, to Louisiana Assistant Attorney General Angie R. LaPlace, Oct. 1, 1991). The Attorney General subsequently precleared a revised BESE plan, which contained two majority-minority districts. See Brief for Appellants State of Louisiana et al. 3, n. 2.
As a result of the 1990 census, Louisiana's congressional delegation was reduced from eight to seven representatives, requiring Louisiana to redraw its district boundaries. Perhaps in part because of its recent experience with the BESE districts, the Louisiana Legislature set out to create a districting plan containing two majority-minority districts. See, e.g., Tr. 11 (Aug. 19, 1993). Act 42 of the 1992 Regular Session, passed in May 1992, was such a plan. One of Act 42's majority-minority districts, District 2, was located in the New Orleans area and resembled the majority-minority district in the previous district map. The other, District 4, was "[a] Z-shaped creature" that "zigzag[ged] through all or part of 28 parishes and five of Louisiana's largest cities." Congressional Quarterly, Congressional Districts in the 1990s, at 323 (1993). A map of Louisiana's congressional districts under Act 42 is attached as Appendix A. The Attorney General precleared Act 42.
Appellees Hays, Adams, Singleton, and Stokley are residents of Lincoln Parish, which is located in the north-central part of Louisiana. According to the complaint, all but Singleton reside in that part of Lincoln Parish that was contained in the majority-minority District 4 of Act 42. See Pet. for Permanent Injunction and Declaratory Judgment in No. CV 92-1522 (WD La.), p. 4. In August 1992, appellees filed suit in state court, challenging Act 42 under the state and federal Constitutions, as well as the VRA. The State removed the case to the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, and, as required by the VRA, a three-judge court convened to hear the case pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2284. After a two-day trial, the District Court denied appellees' request for a preliminary injunction, denied the state and federal constitutional claims, and took the VRA claims under advisement. While the case was pending, this Court decided Shaw v. Reno, whereupon the District Court revoked its prior rulings and held another two-day hearing. Focusing almost exclusively on the oddly-shaped District 4, the District Court decided that Act 42 violated the Constitution, and enjoined its enforcement. See Hays v. Louisiana, 839 F.Supp. 1188 (WD La.1993) (Hays I ).
Louisiana, and the United States as defendant-intervenor, appealed directly to this Court, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1253. While the appeal was pending, the Louisiana Legislature repealed Act 42 and enacted a new districting plan, Act 1 of the 1994 Second Extraordinary Session. The Attorney General precleared Act 1. We then vacated the District Court's judgment and remanded the case "for further consideration in light of Act 1." 512 U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 2731, 129 L.Ed.2d 853 (1994). A map of Act 1 is attached as Appendix B.
The District Court concluded that appellees had standing to challenge Act 42, see Hays I, 839 F.Supp., at 1192, but did not reconsider standing when faced with Act 1. The question of standing is not subject to waiver, however: "we are required to address the issue even if the courts below have not passed on it, and even if the parties fail to raise the issue before us. The federal courts are under an independent obligation to examine their own jurisdiction, and standing 'is perhaps the most important of [the jurisdictional] doctrines.' " FW/PBS, Inc. v. Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 230-231, 110 S.Ct. 596, 607-608, 107 L.Ed.2d 603 (1990) (citations omitted).
It is by now well settled that "the irreducible constitu- tional minimum of standing contains three elements. First, the plaintiff must have suffered an 'injury in fact'—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical. Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of. . . . Third, it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision." Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-561, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 2136, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992) (footnote, citations, and internal quotation marks omitted); see also, e.g., Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 3324, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984); Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 472, 102 S.Ct. 752, 758, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982). In light of these principles, we have repeatedly refused to recognize a generalized grievance against allegedly illegal governmental conduct as sufficient for standing to invoke the federal judicial power. See, e.g., Valley Forge Christian College, supra; Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War, 418 U.S. 208, 94 S.Ct. 2925, 41 L.Ed.2d 706 (1974); United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. 166, 94 S.Ct. 2940, 41 L.Ed.2d 678 (1974); Ex parte Levitt, 302 U.S. 633, 58 S.Ct. 1, 82 L.Ed. 493 (1937) (per curiam). We have also made clear that "it is the burden of the 'party who seeks the exercise of jurisdiction in his favor,' McNutt v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 298 U.S. 178, 189, 56 S.Ct. 780, 785, 80 L.Ed. 1135 (1936), 'clearly to allege facts demonstrating that he is a proper party to invoke judicial resolution of the dispute.' Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 518, [95 S.Ct. 2197, 2215, 45 L.Ed.2d 343] (1975)." FW/PBS, supra, at 231, 110 S.Ct., at 607-608. And when a case has proceeded to final judgment after a trial, as this case has, "those facts (if controverted) must be 'supported adequately by the evidence adduced at trial' " to avoid dismissal on standing grounds. Lujan, supra, at 561, 112 S.Ct., at 2137 (quoting Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 115, n. 31, 99 S.Ct. 1601, 1616, n. 31, 60 L.Ed.2d 66 (1979)).
We discussed the harms caused by racial classifications in Shaw. We noted that, in general, "[t]hey threaten to stigmatize individuals by reason of their membership in a racial group and to incite racial hostility." 509 U.S., at ----, 113 S.Ct., at 2824. We also noted "representational harms" the particular type of racial classification at issue in Shaw may cause: "When a district obviously is created solely to effectuate the perceived common interests of one racial group, elected officials are more likely to believe that their primary obligation is to represent only the members of that group, rather than their constituency as a whole." Id., at ----, 113 S.Ct., at 2827. Accordingly, we held that "redistricting legislation that is so bizarre on its face that it is 'unexplainable on grounds other than race' demands the same close scrutiny that we give other state laws that classify citizens by race." Id., at ----, 113 S.Ct., at 2825 (citation omitted). Any citizen able to demonstrate that he or she, personally, has been injured by that kind of racial classification has standing to challenge the classification in federal court.
In this case, appellees have not produced evidence sufficient to carry the burden our standing doctrine imposes upon them. Even assuming (without deciding) that Act 1 causes injury sufficient to invoke strict scrutiny under Shaw, appellees have pointed to no evidence tending to show that they have suffered that injury, and our review of the record has revealed none. Neither Act 1 itself, see App. to Juris. Statement for Louisiana et al. 111-120; Appendix B, infra, nor any other evidence in the record indicates that appellees, or any other residents of Lincoln Parish, have been subjected to racially discriminatory treatment. The record does contain evidence tending to show that the legislature was aware of the racial composition of District 5, and of Lincoln Parish. We recognized in Shaw, however, that "the legislature always is aware of race when it draws district lines, just as it is aware of age, economic status, religious and political persuasion, and a variety of other demographic actors. That sort of race consciousness does not lead inevitably to impermissible race discrimination." 509 U.S., at ----, 113 S.Ct., at 2826. It follows that proof of "[t]hat sort of race consciousness" in the redistricting process is inadequate to establish injury in fact. Ibid.
Appellees insist that they challenged Act 1 in its entirety, not District 4 in isolation. Tr. of Oral Arg. 36. That is true. It is also irrelevant. The fact that Act 1 affects all Louisiana voters by classifying each of them as a member of a particular congressional district does not mean—even if Act 1 inflicts race-based injury on some Louisiana voters—that every Louisiana voter has standing to challenge Act 1 as a racial classification. Only those citizens able to allege injury "as a direct result of having personally been denied equal treatment," Allen, 468 U.S., at 755, 104 S.Ct., at 3327 (emphasis added), may bring such a challenge, and citizens who do so carry the burden of proving their standing, as well as their case on the merits.
Appellees' reliance on Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 111 S.Ct. 1364, 113 L.Ed.2d 411 (1991), is unavailing. Powers held that "[a]n individual juror does not have a right to sit on any particular petit jury, but he or she does possess the right not to be excluded from one on account of race." Id., at 409, 111 S.Ct., at 1370. But of course, where an individual juror is excluded from a jury because of race, that juror has personally suffered the race-based harm recognized in Powers, and it is the fact of personal injury that appellees have failed to establish here. Thus, appellees' argument that "they do have a right not to be placed into or excluded from a district because of the color of their skin," Brief for Appellees 16, cannot help them, because they have not established that they have suffered such treatment in this case.
The majority apparently would find standing under Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 2816, 125 L.Ed.2d 511 (1993), for plaintiffs of all races who resided in an electoral district in which "the legislature[ ] reli[ed] on racial criteria" to classify all voters, ante, at ____, and who could show that they were " 'placed into or excluded from a district because of the color of their skin.' " Ante, at ____ (citing Brief for Appellees 16). The majority fails to explain coherently how a State discriminates invidiously by deliberately joining members of different races in the same district; why such placement amounts to an injury to members of any race; and, assuming it does, to whom.
Between Reconstruction and the early 1980s, all of Louisiana's congressional districts contained a majority of white citizens, and it had not elected any black congressional representatives. In 1983, a three-judge court invalidated Louisiana's 1982 districting plan, on the ground that it diluted minority voting strength in the New Orleans area in violation of VRA § 2, 42 U.S.C. § 1973, and ordered the legislature to draw up a new plan. See Major v. Treen, 574 F.Supp. 325 (ED La.1983). The new plan contained a majority-black district in the New Orleans area; in 1990, that district elected Louisiana's first black representative since Reconstruction. See Congressional Quarterly, Congressional Districts in the 1990s, pp. 319-320 (1993).