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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 5', '§ 1973', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 1973', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5']

US Supreme Court Decisions - On-Line> Volume 479 > CITY OF PLEASANT GROVE V. UNITED STATES, 479 U. S. 462 (1987)
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2. There is no merit to appellant's contention that the District Court erred in concluding that appellant had not carried its burden of showing that the annexations were untainted by a racially discriminatory purpose. In arriving at its decision, the District Court relied on a variety of evidence, principally its finding that the refusal to annex the Highlands chanrobles.com-red
WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BRENNAN, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, STEVENS, and SCALIA, JJ., joined. POWELL, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C.J.,and O'CONNOR, J., joined, post, 479 U. S. 472. chanrobles.com-red
Appellant, Pleasant Grove, a city in Alabama that until recently had an all-white population, is covered by § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 439, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c, and accordingly must seek preclearance before instituting any change in a standard, practice, or procedure affecting voting. [Footnote 1] Appellant unsuccessfully sought preclearance by the Attorney General for the annexation of two parcels of land, one vacant and the other inhabited by a few whites. Appellant also failed to convince a three-judge District Court that the annexations did not have the purpose of abridging or denying the right to vote on account of race. We noted probable jurisdiction, 476 U.S. 1113 (1986), and now affirm. chanrobles.com-red
The two annexations at issue in this case are the Glasgow Addition, a 40-acre parcel added in 1969, App. 7, and the Western Addition, a 450-acre area added in 1979. The Glasgow Addition was added at the request of its inhabitants, an extended white family who wished their children to attend appellant's newly formed, all-white school district, rather than the recently desegregated Jefferson County system. [Footnote 3] chanrobles.com-red
Appellant sought preclearance for the annexation of the Western Addition, but the Attorney General objected because he found the refusal to annex the Highlands indicative of an intent to annex only white areas. [Footnote 5] The city then filed this declaratory action in the District Court for the District chanrobles.com-red
First. An annexation of inhabited land constitutes a change in voting practice or procedure subject to preclearance under § 5. City of Richmond v. United States, 422 U. S. 358, 422 U. S. 368 (1975); Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U. S. 379, 400 U. S. 388 (1971). Even the annexation of vacant land on which residential development is anticipated must be precleared before those moving into the area may vote in the annexing jurisdiction. In City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156 (1980), this Court affirmed the denial of preclearance to 13 annexations, 9 of which were vacant land. See id. at 446 U. S. 194, 446 U. S. 196 (POWELL, J., dissenting); City of Rome, Ga. v. United States, 472 F.Supp. 221, 246 (DC 1979). This holding is consistent with the well established teaching of 393 U. S. 567, and to reach "any state enactment which alter[s] the election law of a covered State in even a minor way," id. at 393 U. S. 566. Allowing a State to circumvent the preclearance requirement for annexations by annexing vacant land intended for white developments would disserve Congress' intent to reach "the subtle, as well as the obvious, state regulations which have the effect of denying citizens their right to vote because of their race." Id. at 393 U. S. 565. Moreover, the Attorney General, whose interpretation of the Voting Rights Act is entitled to considerable deference, see, e.g., United States v. Sheffield Board of Comm'rs, 435 U. S. 110, 435 U. S. 131 (1978), has consistently interpreted § 5 to reach the annexation of vacant land intended for residential development. [Footnote 8] Finally, Congress was aware of the Attorney General's view in this regard, and implicitly approved it when it reenacted the Voting Rights Act in 1982. [Footnote 9] Cf. [email protected] at 435 U. S. 131-135. chanrobles.com-red
The city does not claim that either of the two annexations was not a change in voting practices subject to preclearance under § 5, even though the Western Addition was at the time uninhabited. [Footnote 10] Neither does it disagree that it must prove that the two annexations had neither the discriminatory purpose nor effect prohibited by § 5 of the Act. Its challenge is to the District Court's conclusion that the city had not carried its burden of showing that the annexations were untainted by a racially discriminatory purpose. In arriving at this judgment, the District Court relied on a variety of evidence, principally its finding that the refusal to annex the Highlands while annexing other areas was racially motivated. These findings, both as to the purpose of not annexing the Highlands and with respect to the weight of the evidence regarding the purpose of the two annexations at issue, are findings of fact that we must accept unless clearly erroneous. The city has not convinced us that they are. chanrobles.com-red
Appellant also relies on the fact that there were no black voters in Pleasant Grove at the time the relevant annexation decisions were made, so that the annexations did not reduce the proportion of black voters or deny existing black voters chanrobles.com-red
It is quite plausible to see appellant's annexation of the Glasgow and Western Additions as motivated, in part, by the impermissible purpose of minimizing future black voting chanrobles.com-red
The Court today affirms the decision of the District Court, holding that a city can act with a purpose to "den[y] or abridg[e]" black voting rights, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c, even when the city's actions can have no present effect on the voting rights of any black individual and any future effect on black voting rights is purely speculative. Because the Court's finding of a violation of the Voting Rights Act is inconsistent with the language and purpose of the Act, I dissent. chanrobles.com-red
Lockhart v. United States, 460 U. S. 125, 460 U. S. 134 (1983) (quoting Beer v. United States, supra, at 141). An annexation can have such a retrogressive effect on the voting rights of blacks by "dilut[ing] the weight of the votes of the voters to whom the franchise was limited before the annexation." Perkins v. Matthews, supra, at 400 U. S. 388. But the Court's inquiry has not terminated with a finding that a chanrobles.com-red
The Court today affirms a finding that, in annexing the two parcels of land at issue, the city had the purpose, prohibited by the Voting Rights Act, "of denying or abridging the right chanrobles.com-red
The Court attempts to avoid this conclusion by finding that a retrogression in voting rights, for the purpose of ascertaining discriminatory motivation, can be gauged by the effect of the annexation on some hypothetical future black municipal chanrobles.com-red
voters. According to this speculative reasoning, if one assumes that some hypothetical black voters will move into Pleasant Grove in the future, and if one further assumes that the racial composition of the Glasgow Addition will remain unchanged, the hypothetical black voters will find their voting strength diluted from what it would have been absent the annexation. [Footnote 2/1] But such speculation in finding a discriminatory purpose on the part of a state actor is illogical and unprecedented. Although we have stated that § 5 reaches changes with the "potential for racial discrimination in voting," Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U.S. at 400 U. S. 389, the "potential" refers to present and concrete effects, not effects based only on speculation as to what might happen at some time in the future. Under § 5, the Court consistently has looked to the effect of a voting change on the present minority residents of the relevant political subdivision. See City of Richmond v. United States, supra, at 422 U. S. 378 (the relevant comparison in assessing whether "the post-annexation electoral system fairly recognizes the minority's political potential" is between "the relative political strength of the minority race in the enlarged city as compared with what it was before the annexation"). [Footnote 2/2] Where an annexation's effect on voting rights is chanrobles.com-red
The Court again relies on future hypothetical black voters to find that the city acted with a "purpose of denying the vote on the grounds of race or color." City of Richmond v. United States, 422 U.S. at 422 U. S. 378. Under the same reasoning employed to invalidate the annexation of the Glasgow Addition, the Court relies on its speculation that, if the Western Addition became populated with whites and if black voters moved into the city at some time in the future, their vote would be less effective than it would have been had the annexation not occurred. But the Court's theory is even more speculative when applied to the annexation of the vacant Western Addition. There is no way for the city to ensure that black individuals do not move into the Western Addition. The Fourteenth Amendment and various civil rights laws prohibit racially discriminatory state action, and fair chanrobles.com-red
The Court seeks support for its finding that the city acted with discriminatory motivation in the fact that it has declined in the past to annex three predominantly black communities. [Footnote 2/4] In his dissent from the decision of the District Court, Judge MacKinnon persuasively pointed out that the city's economic justification for its annexation policy is plausible. 623 F.Supp. 782, 793-795 (DC 1985). Even if one agreed with the District Court's view that the economic justification was flawed, this would not support the conclusion that the city acted in this case with a discriminatory motivation prohibited by the Voting Rights Act. The Government concedes that a failure to annex is not a voting procedure "change" covered by § 5. See Brief for United States 21, n. 12. Nothing in the legislative history of § 5 or in any decision chanrobles.com-red
As Judge MacKinnon noted in his dissent from the District Court's opinion: "There may, in fact, be actionable constitutional violations occurring in the City." 568 F.Supp. at 1462. But the possible existence of discriminatory intent and conduct unrelated to voting does not justify finding the city liable under the Voting Rights Act. We normally presume that state actors respect the guarantees of the Constitution, and we require an individual who alleges otherwise to prove the existence of purposeful discrimination. See Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 429 U. S. 265 (1977); Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 426 U. S. 240 (1976). The Voting Rights Act shifts the burden of proof to the state actor to prove the absence of discriminatory purpose. This Court upheld this unusual intrusion by the Act on state sovereignty specifically because its procedures were rationally related to the Fifteenth Amendment's guarantee respecting the right to vote. South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 383 U. S. 325, 383 U. S. 337 (1966). This shift in the burden of proof is justified only when the challenged conduct relates to voting. Here, the Court finds the city's conduct in fact related to voting when such a relationship cannot rationally exist. chanrobles.com-red