Opinion ID: 145566
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Bartlett v. Strickland

Text: Did the Supreme Court's decision in Bartlett modify what constitutes an effective majority for purposes of § 2? I conclude that it does. The case arose in a somewhat unusual posture in which the State of North Carolina invoked § 2 as a defense to a new district that it created. Bartlett, 129 S.Ct. at 1239. According to the State, § 2 required [it] to draw the district in question in a particular way, despite a provision of the North Carolina Constitution that prohibited the state legislature from dividing counties when drawing legislative districts for the State House and Senate. Id. The Court granted certiorari to determine whether [§ 2] 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? Id. at 1238. Ultimately, the Court held that such crossover districts do not satisfy the Gingles requirement that the minority population be large enough and yet sufficiently geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district. Id. at 1243. In reaching this holding, the Court began its analysis by noting that the case turn[ed] on whether the first Gingles requirement can be satisfied when the minority group makes up less than 50 percent of the voting-age population in the potential election district. Id. at 1241. The dispositive question was [w]hat size minority group is sufficient to satisfy the first Gingles requirement? Id. at 1242. The Court observed that [a]t the outset the answer might not appear difficult to reach, for the Gingles Court said the minority group must demonstrate that it is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district. 478 U.S., at 50, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 92 L.Ed.2d 25. This would seem to end the matter, as it indicates the minority group must demonstrate it can constitute a majority. But in Gingles and again in Growe [v. Emison, 507 U.S. 25, 113 S.Ct. 1075, 122 L.Ed.2d 388 (1993),] the Court reserved what it considered to be a separate questionwhether, when a plaintiff alleges that a voting practice or procedure impairs a minority's ability to influence, rather than alter, election results, a showing of geographical compactness of a minority group not sufficiently large to constitute a majority will suffice. Growe, supra, at 41, n. 5, 507 U.S. 25, 113 S.Ct. 1075, 122 L.Ed.2d 388; see also Gingles, supra, at 46-47, n. 12, 478 U.S. 30, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 92 L.Ed.2d 25. The Court has since applied the Gingles requirements in § 2 cases but has declined to decide the minimum size minority group necessary to satisfy the first requirement. See Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U.S. 146, 154, 113 S.Ct. 1149, 122 L.Ed.2d 500 (1993); [ Johnson v.] De Grandy, [512 U.S. 997, 1009, 114 S.Ct. 2647, 129 L.Ed.2d 775 (1994)]; League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 548 U.S. 399, 443, 126 S.Ct. 2594, 165 L.Ed.2d 609 (2006) (opinion of KENNEDY, J.) ( LULAC ). We must consider the minimum-size question in this case. Id. (emphasis added). In rejecting the State's argument that § 2 required the creation of crossover districts, the Court explained that permitting such claims would require us to revise and reformulate the Gingles threshold inquiry that has been the baseline of our § 2 jurisprudence. Mandatory recognition of claims in which success for a minority depends upon crossover majority voters would create serious tension with the third Gingles requirement that the majority votes as a bloc to defeat minority-preferred candidates. It is difficult to see how the majority-bloc-voting requirement could be met in a district where, by definition, white voters join in sufficient numbers with minority voters to elect the minority's preferred candidate. Id. at 1244. The Court f[ou]nd support for the majority-minority requirement in the need for workable standards and sound judicial and legislative administration because such a rule draws clear lines for courts and legislatures alike. Id. Unlike any of the standards proposed to allow crossover-district 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?  Id. at 1245 (emphasis added). According to the Court, such a rule gives courts and officials charged with redistricting straightforward guidance as to what § 2 requires. Id. Where an election district could be drawn in which minority voters form a majority but such a district is not drawn, or where a majority-minority district is cracked by assigning some voters elsewhere, thenassuming the other Gingles factors are also satisfieddenial of the opportunity to elect a candidate of choice is a present and discernible wrong that is not subject to the high degree of speculation and prediction attendant upon the analysis of crossover claims. Not an arbitrary invention, the majority-minority rule has its foundation in principles of democratic governance. The special significance, in the democratic process, of a majority means it is a special wrong when a minority group has 50 percent or more of the voting population and could constitute a compact voting majority but, despite racially polarized bloc voting, that group is not put into a district. Id. (emphasis added). Thus, the Court determined that it remain[ed] the rule... that 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.  Id. at 1246 (emphasis added). The majority-minority rule ... is not at odds with § 2's totality-of-the-circumstances test because the Gingles requirements are preconditions, consistent with the text and purpose of § 2, to help courts determine which claims could meet the totality-of-the-circumstances standard for a § 2 violation. Id. at 1247. According to the Court,  De Grandy confirmed `the error of treating the three Gingles conditions as exhausting the inquiry required by § 2.' Id. (quoting De Grandy, 512 U.S. at 1013, 114 S.Ct. 2647).