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

BARTLETT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF NORTH CAROLINA STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS, ET AL. v. STRICKLAND ET AL. | FindLaw
BARTLETT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF NORTH CAROLINA STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS, ET AL. v. STRICKLAND ET AL.
BARTLETT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF NORTH CAROLINA STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS, ET AL. v. STRICKLAND ET AL., (2009)
Argued: October 14, 2008 Decided: March 9, 2009
Despite the North Carolina Constitution's "Whole County Provision" prohibiting the General Assembly from dividing counties when drawing its own legislative districts, in 1991 the legislature drew House District 18 to include portions of four counties, including Pender County, for the asserted purpose of satisfying §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. At that time, District 18 was a geographically compact majority-minority district. By the time the district was to be redrawn in 2003, the African-American voting-age population in District 18 had fallen below 50 percent. Rather than redrawing the district to keep Pender County whole, the legislators split portions of it and another county. District 18's African-American voting-age population is now 39.36 percent. Keeping Pender County whole would have resulted in an African-American voting-age population of 35.33 percent. The legislators' rationale was that splitting Pender County gave African-American voters the potential to join with majority voters to elect the minority group's candidate of choice, while leaving Pender County whole would have violated §2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Pender County and others filed suit, alleging that the redistricting plan violated the Whole County Provision. The state-official defendants answered that dividing Pender County was required by §2. The trial court first considered whether the defendants had established the three threshold requirements for §2 liability under Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 51, only the first of which is relevant here: whether the minority group "is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district." The court concluded that although African-Americans were not a majority of District 18's voting-age population, the district was a "de facto" majority-minority district because African-Americans could get enough support from crossover majority voters to elect their preferred candidate. The court ultimately determined, based on the totality of the circumstances, that §2 required that Pender County be split, and it sustained District 18's lines on that rationale. The State Supreme Court reversed, holding that a minority group must constitute a numerical majority of the voting-age population in an area before §2 requires the creation of a legislative district to prevent dilution of that group's votes. Because African-Americans did not have such a numerical majority in District 18, the court ordered the legislature to redraw the district. Held: The judgment is affirmed.
361 N. C. 491, 649 S. E. 2d 364, affirmed. Justice Kennedy, joined by The Chief Justice and Justice Alito, concluded that §2 does not require state officials to draw election-district lines to allow a racial minority that would make up less than 50 percent of the voting-age population in the redrawn district to join with crossover voters to elect the minority's candidate of choice. Pp. 5-21.
1. As amended in 1982, §2 provides that a violation "is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the [election] processes ... in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a [protected] class [who] have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice." 42 U. S. C. §1973(b). Construing the amended §2 in Gingles, supra, at 50-51, the Court identified three "necessary preconditions" for a claim that the use of multimember districts constituted actionable vote dilution. It later held that those requirements apply equally in §2 cases involving single-member districts. Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25, 40-41. Only when a party has established the requirements does a court proceed to analyze whether a §2 violation has occurred based on the totality of the circumstances. See, e.g., Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U. S. 997, 1013. Pp. 5-7.
2. Only when a geographically compact group of minority voters could form a majority in a single-member district has the first Gingles requirement been met. Pp. 7-21.
(a) A party asserting §2 liability must show by a preponderance of the evidence that the minority population in the potential election district is greater than 50 percent. The Court has held both that §2 can require the creation of a "majority-minority" district, in which a minority group composes a numerical, working majority of the voting-age population, see, e.g., Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U. S. 146, 154-155, and that §2 does not require the creation of an "influence" district, in which a minority group can influence the outcome of an election even if its preferred candidate cannot be elected, see League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 548 U. S. 399, ___ (LULAC). This case involves an intermediate, "crossover" district, in which the minority makes up less than a majority of the voting-age population, but is large enough to elect the candidate of its choice with help from majority voters who cross over to support the minority's preferred candidate. Petitioners' theory that such districts satisfy the first Gingles requirement is contrary to §2, which requires a showing that minorities "have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to ... elect representatives of their choice," 42 U. S. C. §1973(b). Because they form only 39 percent of District 18's voting-age population, African-Americans standing alone have no better or worse opportunity to elect a candidate than any other group with the same relative voting strength. Recognizing a §2 claim where minority voters cannot elect their candidate of choice based on their own votes and without assistance from others would grant special protection to their right to form political coalitions that is not authorized by the section. Nor does the reasoning of this Court's cases support petitioners' claims. In Voinovich, for example, the Court stated that the first Gingles requirement "would have to be modified or eliminated" to allow crossover-district claims. 507 U. S., at 158. Indeed, mandatory recognition of such claims would create serious tension with the third Gingles requirement, that the majority votes as a bloc to defeat minority-preferred candidates, see 478 U. S., at 50-51, and would call into question the entire Gingles framework. On the other hand, the Court finds support for the clear line drawn by the majority-minority requirement in the need for workable standards and sound judicial and legislative administration. By contrast, if §2 required crossover districts, determining whether a §2 claim would lie would require courts to make complex political predictions and tie them to race-based assumptions. Heightening these concerns is the fact that because §2 applies nationwide to every jurisdiction required to draw election-district lines under state or local law, crossover-district claims would require courts to make predictive political judgments not only about familiar, two-party contests in large districts but also about regional and local elections. Unlike any of the standards proposed to allow crossover claims, the majority-minority rule relies on an objective, numerical test: Do minorities make up more than 50 percent of the voting-age population in the relevant geographic area? Given §2's text, the Court's cases interpreting that provision, and the many difficulties in assessing §2 claims without the restraint and guidance provided by the majority-minority rule, all of the federal courts of appeals that have interpreted the first Gingles factor have required a majority-minority standard. The Court declines to depart from that uniform interpretation, which has stood for more than 20 years. Because this case does not involve allegations of intentional and wrongful conduct, the Court need not consider whether intentional discrimination affects the Gingles analysis. Pp. 7-15. (b) Arguing for a less restrictive interpretation, petitioners point to §2's guarantee that political processes be "equally open to participation" to protect minority voters' "opportunity ... to elect representatives of their choice," 42 U. S. C. §1973(b), and assert that such "opportunit[ies]" occur in crossover districts and require protection. But petitioners emphasize the word "opportunity" at the expense of the word "equally." The statute does not protect any possible opportunity through which minority voters could work with other constituencies to elect their candidate of choice. Section 2 does not guarantee minority voters an electoral advantage. Minority groups in crossover districts have the same opportunity to elect their candidate as any other political group with the same relative voting strength. The majority-minority rule, furthermore, is not at odds with §2's totality-of-the-circumstances test. See, e.g., Growe, supra, at 40. Any doubt as to whether §2 calls for this rule is resolved by applying the canon of constitutional avoidance to steer clear of serious constitutional concerns under the Equal Protection Clause. See Clark v. Martinez, 543 U. S. 371, 381-382. Such concerns would be raised if §2 were interpreted to require crossover districts throughout the Nation, thereby "unnecessarily infus[ing] race into virtually every redistricting." LULAC, supra, at 446. Pp. 16-18. (c) This holding does not consider the permissibility of crossover districts as a matter of legislative choice or discretion. Section 2 allows States to choose their own method of complying with the Voting Rights Act, which may include drawing crossover districts. See Georgia v. Ashcroft, 539 U. S. 461, 480-482. Moreover, the holding should not be interpreted to entrench majority-minority districts by statutory command, for that, too, could pose constitutional concerns. See, e.g., Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900. Such districts are only required if all three Gingles factors are met and if §2 applies based on the totality of the circumstances. A claim similar to petitioners' assertion that the majority-minority rule is inconsistent with §5 was rejected in LULAC, supra, at ___. Pp. 19-21.
Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia, adhered to his view in Holder v. Hall, 512 U. S. 874, 891, 893 (opinion concurring in judgment), that the text of §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 does not authorize any vote dilution claim, regardless of the size of the minority population in a given district. The Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, framework for analyzing such claims has no basis in §2's text and "has produced ... a disastrous misadventure in judicial policymaking," Holder, supra, at 893. P. 1.
GARY BARTLETT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THENORTH CAROLINA STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS,et al., PETITIONERS v. DWIGHTSTRICKLAND et al.
This case requires us to interpret §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 437, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §1973 (2000 ed.). The question is whether the statute can be invoked to require state officials to draw election-district lines to allow a racial minority to join with other voters to elect the minority's candidate of choice, even where the racial minority is less than 50 percent of the voting-age population in the district to be drawn. To use election-law terminology: In a district that is not a majority-minority district, if a racial minority could elect its candidate of choice with support from crossover majority voters, can §2 require the district to be drawn to accommodate this potential?
It is common ground that state election-law requirements like the Whole County Provision may be superseded by federal law--for instance, the one-person, one-vote principle of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. See Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 (1964). Here the question is whether §2 of the Voting Rights Act requires district lines to be drawn that otherwise would violate the Whole County Provision. That, in turn, depends on how the statute is interpreted.
We begin with the election district. The North Carolina House of Representatives is the larger of the two chambers in the State's General Assembly. District 18 of that body lies in the southeastern part of North Carolina. Starting in 1991, the General Assembly drew District 18 to include portions of four counties, including Pender County, in order to create a district with a majority African-American voting-age population and to satisfy the Voting Rights Act. Following the 2000 census, the North Carolina Supreme Court, to comply with the Whole County Provision, rejected the General Assembly's first two statewide redistricting plans. See Stephenson v. Bartlett, 355 N. C. 354, 375, 562 S. E. 2d 377, 392, stay denied, 535 U. S. 1301 (2002) (Rehnquist, C. J., in chambers); Stephenson v. Bartlett, 357 N. C. 301, 314, 582 S. E. 2d 247, 254 (2003).
District 18 in its present form emerged from the General Assembly's third redistricting attempt, in 2003. By that time the African-American voting-age population had fallen below 50 percent in the district as then drawn, and the General Assembly no longer could draw a geographically compact majority-minority district. Rather than draw District 18 to keep Pender County whole, however, the General Assembly drew it by splitting portions of Pender and New Hanover counties. District 18 has an African-American voting-age population of 39.36 percent. App. 139. Had it left Pender County whole, the General Assembly could have drawn District 18 with an African-American voting-age population of 35.33 percent. Id., at 73. The General Assembly's reason for splitting Pender County was to give African-American voters the potential to join with majority voters to elect the minority group's candidate of its choice. Ibid. Failure to do so, state officials now submit, would have diluted the minority group's voting strength in violation of §2. In May 2004, Pender County and the five members of its Board of Commissioners filed the instant suit in North Carolina state court against the Governor of North Carolina, the Director of the State Board of Elections, and other state officials. The plaintiffs alleged that the 2003 plan violated the Whole County Provision by splitting Pender County into two House districts. App. 5-14. The state-official defendants answered that dividing Pender County was required by §2. Id., at 25. As the trial court recognized, the procedural posture of this case differs from most §2 cases. Here the defendants raise §2 as a defense. As a result, the trial court stated, they are "in the unusual position" of bearing the burden of proving that a §2 violation would have occurred absent splitting Pender County to draw District 18. App. to Pet. for Cert. 90a. The trial court first considered whether the defendant state officials had established the three threshold requirements for §2 liability under Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 50-51 (1986)--namely, (1) that the minority group "is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district," (2) that the minority group is "politically cohesive," and (3) "that the white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it ... usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate." As to the first Gingles requirement, the trial court concluded that, although African-Americans were not a majority of the voting-age population in District 18, the district was a "de facto" majority-minority district because African-Americans could get enough support from crossover majority voters to elect the African-Americans' preferred candidate. The court ruled that African-Americans in District 18 were politically cohesive, thus satisfying the second requirement. And later, the plaintiffs stipulated that the third Gingles requirement was met. App. to Pet. for Cert. at 102a-103a, 130a. The court then determined, based on the totality of the circumstances, that §2 required the General Assembly to split Pender County. The court sustained the lines for District 18 on that rationale. Id., at 116a-118a.
Three of the Pender County Commissioners appealed the trial court's ruling that the defendants had established the first Gingles requirement. The Supreme Court of North Carolina reversed. It held that a "minority group must constitute a numerical majority of the voting population in the area under consideration before Section 2 ... requires the creation of a legislative district to prevent dilution of the votes of that minority group." 361 N. C., at 502, 649 S. E. 2d, at 371. On that premise the State Supreme Court determined District 18 was not mandated by §2 because African-Americans do not "constitute a numerical majority of citizens of voting age." Id., at 507, 649 S. E. 2d, at 374. It ordered the General Assembly to redraw District 18. Id., at 510, 649 S. E. 2d, at 376.
Passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was an important step in the struggle to end discriminatory treatment of minorities who seek to exercise one of the most fundamental rights of our citizens: the right to vote. Though the Act as a whole was the subject of debate and controversy, §2 prompted little criticism. The likely explanation for its general acceptance is that, as first enacted, §2 tracked, in part, the text of the Fifteenth Amendment. It prohibited practices "imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color." 79 Stat. 437; cf. U. S. Const., Amdt. 15 ("The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude"); see also S. Rep. No. 162, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 3, pp. 19-20 (1965). In Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, 60-61 (1980), this Court held that §2, as it then read, "no more than elaborates upon ... the Fifteenth Amendment" and was "intended to have an effect no different from that of the Fifteenth Amendment itself."
In 1982, after the Mobile ruling, Congress amended §2, giving the statute its current form. The original Act had employed an intent requirement, prohibiting only those practices "imposed or applied ... to deny or abridge" the right to vote. 79 Stat. 437. The amended version of §2 requires consideration of effects, as it prohibits practices "imposed or applied ... in a manner which results in a denial or abridgment" of the right to vote. 96 Stat. 134, 42 U. S. C. §1973(a) (2000 ed.). The 1982 amendments also added a subsection, §2(b), providing a test for determining whether a §2 violation has occurred. The relevant text of the statute now states:
"(a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color [or membership in a language minority group], as provided in subsection (b) of this section.
"(b) A violation of subsection (a) of this section is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) of this section in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice." 42 U. S. C. §1973.
This Court first construed the amended version of §2 in Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30 (1986). In Gingles, the plaintiffs were African-American residents of North Carolina who alleged that multimember districts diluted minority voting strength by submerging black voters into the white majority, denying them an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice. The Court identified three "necessary preconditions" for a claim that the use of multimember districts constituted actionable vote dilution under §2: (1) The minority group must be "sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district," (2) the minority group must be "politically cohesive," and (3) the majority must vote "sufficiently as a bloc to enable it ... usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate." Id., at 50-51.
The Court later held tha