Source: http://openjurist.org/507/us/146
Timestamp: 2016-02-05 22:19:45
Document Index: 223502254

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

507 US 146 Voinovich v. Quilter | OpenJurist
507 U.S. 146 - Voinovich v. Quilter Homethe United States Reports507 U.S.
Appellees Barney Quilter and Thomas Ferguson, the two Democratic members of the Board who voted against the plan, and various Democratic electors and legislators filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio seeking the plan's invalidation. They alleged that the plan violated § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1973, and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. 794 F.Supp., at 695-696. According to appellees, the plan "packed" black voters by creating districts in which they would constitute a disproportionately large majority. This, appellees contended, minimized the total number of districts in which black voters could select their candidate of choice. In appellees' view, the plan should have created a larger number of "influence" districts—districts in which black voters would not constitute a majority but in which they could, with the help of a predictable number of cross-over votes from white voters, elect their candidates of choice. See App. to Juris. Statement 141a-142a. Appellants, by contrast, argued that the plan actually enhanced the strength of black voters by providing "safe" minority-dominated districts. The plan, they pointed out, compared favorably with the 1981 apportionment and had the backing of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Ohio Conference of Branches (Ohio NAACP). 794 F.Supp., at 706.
A three-judge District Court heard the case and held for appellees. Relying on various statements Tilling had made in the course of the reapportionment hearings, the court found that the board had created minority-dominated districts "whenever possible." Id., at 698. The District Court rejected appellants' contention that § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1973, requires that such districts be created wherever possible. Id., at 699. It further held that § 2 actually prohibits the "wholesale creation of majority-minority districts" unless necessary to " 'remedy' " a § 2 violation. Id., at 701. The District Court therefore ordered the board to draft a new plan or demonstrate that it was remedying a § 2 violation. Id., at 702.
Congress enacted § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. § 1973, to help effectuate the Fifteenth Amendment's guarantee that no citizen's right to vote shall "be denied or abridged . . . on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," U.S. Const., Amdt. 15. See NAACP v. New York, 413 U.S. 345, 350, 93 S.Ct. 2591, 2595, 37 L.Ed.2d 648 (1973). Section 2(a) of the Act prohibits the imposition of any electoral practice or procedure that "results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen . . . to vote on account of race or color." Section 2(b), in relevant part, specifies that § 2(a) is violated if:
Section 2 thus prohibits any practice or procedure that, "interact[ing] with social and historical conditions," impairs the ability of a protected class to elect its candidate of choice on an equal basis with other voters. Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 47, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 2764, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986).
This case focuses not on the fragmentation of a minority group among various districts but on the concentration of minority voters within a district. How such concentration or "packing" may dilute minority voting strength is not difficult to conceptualize. A minority group, for example, might have sufficient numbers to constitute a majority in three districts. So apportioned, the group inevitably will elect three candidates of its choice, assuming the group is sufficiently cohesive. But if the group is packed into two districts in which it constitutes a super-majority, it will be assured only two candidates. As a result, we have recognized that "[d]ilution of racial minority group voting strength may be caused" either "by the dispersal of blacks into districts in which they constitute an ineffective minority of voters or from the concentration of blacks into districts where they constitute an excessive majority." Id., at 46, n. 11, 106 S.Ct. at 2764, n. 11.
The District Court, however, initially thought it unnecessary to determine the effect of creating majority-black districts under the totality of the circumstances. In fact, the court did not believe it necessary to find vote dilution at all. It instead held that § 2 prohibits the creation of majority-minority districts unless such districts are necessary to remedy a statutory violation. 794 F.Supp., at 701. We disagree. Section 2 contains no per se prohibitions against particular types of districts: It says nothing about majority-minority districts, districts dominated by certain political parties, or even districts based entirely on partisan political concerns. Instead, § 2 focuses exclusively on the consequences of apportionment. Only if the apportionment scheme has the effect of denying a protected class the equal opportunity to elect its candidate of choice does it violate § 2; where such an effect has not been demonstrated, § 2 simply does not speak to the matter. See 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b). Indeed, in Gingles we expressly so held: "[E]lectoral devices . . . may not be considered per se violative of § 2. Plaintiffs must demonstrate that, under the totality of the circumstances, the devices result in unequal access to the electoral process." 478 U.S., at 46, 106 S.Ct., at 2764. As a result, the District Court was required to determine the consequences of Ohio's apportionment plan before ruling on its validity; the failure to do so was error.
The District Court's decision was flawed for another reason as well. By requiring appellants to justify the creation of majority-minority districts, the District Court placed the burden of justifying apportionment on the State. Section 2, however, places at least the initial burden of proving an apportionment's invalidity squarely on the plaintiff's shoulders. Section 2(b) specifies that § 2(a) is violated if "it is shown " that a state practice has the effect of denying a protected group equal access to the electoral process. 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b) (emphasis added). The burden of "show[ing]" the prohibited effect, of course, is on the plaintiff; surely Congress could not have intended the State to prove the invalidity of its own apportionment scheme. See Gingles, 478 U.S., at 46, 106 S.Ct., at 2764 (plaintiffs must demonstrate that the device results in unequal access to the electoral process); id., at 49 n. 15, 106 S.Ct. at 2766 n. 15 (plaintiffs must "prove their claim before they may be awarded relief"). The District Court relieved appellees of that burden in this case solely because the State had created majority-minority districts. Because that departure from the statutorily required allocation of burdens finds no support in the statute, it was error for the District Court to impose it.
Appellees' complaint does not allege that the State's conscious use of race in redistricting violates the Equal Protection Clause; the District Court below did not address the issue; and neither party raises it here. Accordingly, we express no view on how such a claim might be evaluated. We hold only that, under § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1973, plaintiffs can prevail on a dilution claim only if they show that, under the totality of the circumstances, the State's apportionment scheme has the effect of diminishing or abridging the voting strength of the protected class.
Had the District Court employed the Gingles test in this case, it would have rejected appellees' § 2 claim. Of course, the Gingles factors cannot be applied mechanically and without regard to the nature of the claim. For example, the first Gingles precondition, the requirement that the group be sufficiently large to constitute a majority in a single district, would have to be modified or eliminated when analyzing the influence-dilution claim we assume arguendo to be actionable today. Supra, at ----. The complaint in such a case is not that black voters have been deprived of the ability to constitute a majority, but of the possibility of being a sufficiently large minority to elect their candidate of choice with the assistance of cross-over votes from the white majority. See supra, at ----. We need not decide how Gingles' first factor might apply here, however, because appellees have failed to demonstrate Gingles' third precondition—sufficient white majority bloc voting to frustrate the election of the minority group's candidate of choice. The District Court specifically found that Ohio does not suffer from "racially polarized voting." 794 F.Supp., at 700-701. Accord, App. to Juris. Statement 132a-134a, and n. 2, 139a-140a. Even appellees agree. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 25. Here, as in Gingles, "in the absence of significant white bloc voting it cannot be said that the ability of minority voters to elect their chosen representatives is inferior to that of white voters." Gingles, 478 U.S., at 49, n. 15, 106 S.Ct., at 2766, n. 15. The District Court's finding of a § 2 violation, therefore, must be reversed.
"[M]inor deviations from mathematical equality among state legislative districts are insufficient to make out a prima facie case of invidious discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment so as to require justification by the State. Our decisions have established, as a general matter, that an apportionment plan with a maximum population deviation under 10% falls within this category of minor deviations. A plan with larger disparities in population, however, creates a prima facie case of discrimination and therefore must be justified by the State." Brown v. Thomson, 462 U.S. 835, 842-843, 103 S.Ct. 2690, 2696, 77 L.Ed.2d 214 (1983) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
Here, the District Court found that the maximum total deviation from ideal district size exceeded 10%. App. to Juris. Statement 148a. As a result, appellees established a prima facie case of discrimination, and appellants were required to justify the deviation. Appellants attempted to do just that, arguing that the deviation resulted from the State's constitutional policy in favor of preserving county boundaries. See Ohio Const., Arts. VII-XI. The District Court therefore was required to decide whether the "plan 'may reasonably be said to advance [the] rational state policy' " of preserving county boundaries "and, if so, 'whether the population disparities among the districts that have resulted from the pursuit of th[e] plan exceed constitutional limits.' " Brown, supra, at 843, 103 S.Ct., at 2696 (quoting Mahan v. Howell, 410 U.S. 315, 328, 93 S.Ct. 979, 986, 35 L.Ed.2d 320 (1973)). Rather than undertaking that inquiry, the District Court simply held that total deviations in excess of 10% cannot be justified by a policy of preserving the boundaries of political subdivisions. Our case law is directly to the contrary. See Mahan v. Howell, supra (upholding total deviation of over 16% where justified by the rational objective of preserving the integrity of political subdivision lines); see also Brown v. Thomson, supra. On remand, the District Court should consider whether the deviations from the ideal district size are justified using the analysis employed in Brown, supra, 462 U.S., at 843-846, 103 S.Ct., at 2696-2697, and Mahan, supra, 410 U.S., at 325-330, 93 S.Ct., at 985-987.