Opinion ID: 770944
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Gingles One and Two: Compactness and Political Cohesiveness

Text: 21 As an alternative to the legislative boundaries drawn by the State for HDs 73, 74, 85 and 86, plaintiffs offered the Blackfeet-Flathead Plan. That plan would create a new majority-Indian House District by enlarging HD 73. See Appendix II (House District 1 and 2 for Flathead, Lake, Glacier and Pondera Counties appearing in Appellee's Supplemental Excerpts of Record [at 11]). It would also create a new majority-Indian Senate District by reconfiguring the existing HD 85, already a majority-Indian district, and combining it with enlarged HD 73. 6 22 Under the Blackfeet-Flathead Plan, the Indian voting age population of HD 73 would increase from 28% under the 1992 redistricting plan to 53% under the proposed plan. The Indian voting age population in HD 85 would decline from 66% to 57%. American Indians would represent 55% of the voting age population in the proposed combined Senate District. 23 The district court found that the population of American Indians residing on the Blackfeet and Flathead Indian Reservations is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in an additional single member House District and an additional single member Senate District. The district court also found that the proposed House and Senate Districts in the Blackfeet-Flathead Plan are reasonably compact and regular, and that their shape is not materially different from that of other districts adopted by the 1992 Commission. The parties do not dispute these findings. 24 The State does claim, however, that the majority-Indian districts proposed by plaintiffs would be insufficient to confer effective voting power. The evidence proffered by the State does not support its claim, however, even were we to conclude that Gingles required such a finding. See Gingles, 478 U.S. at 50 (requiring only a majority in a single-member district.). Badillo v. City of Stockton, 956 F.2d 884, 890-91 (9th Cir. 1992), on which the State relies, does not address this factor. The district court's finding was not clearly erroneous. The first factor of the Gingles analysis is therefore satisfied. See Gingles, 478 U.S. at 50. 25 The second Gingles factor is also satisfied. American Indian voters are politically cohesive if they have expressed clear political preferences that are distinct from those of the majority. Gomez v. City of Watsonville, 863 F.2d 1407, 1415 (9th Cir. 1988); see also Gingles, 478 U.S. at 51. The State's expert, Dr. Jeffrey Zax, presented evidence that showed American Indians were politically cohesive in more than 70% of the general elections, retention elections and ballot issue elections that he examined in the eight House Districts. Plaintiffs' expert, Dr. Joe Floyd, presented evidence that American Indians were politically cohesive in more than 80% of the elections that he examined in which a white candidate opposed an American Indian candidate for a position in State, federal or county government. 7 The district court had no need to inquire more deeply into these statistical findings. The parties stipulated that American Indian voters were politically cohesive in all eight districts challenged at trial. The parties do not challenge this stipulation as it applies to the four districts challenged on appeal.