Opinion ID: 1059272
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: House Districts 92 and 95

Text: The City of Hampton is divided into three electoral districts: House Districts 91, 92, and 95. In District 92 and District 95, the Hampton precincts are joined with Newport News precincts. Hampton precincts are combined with the City of Poquoson and York County in District 91. Because Hampton's population of 146,437 could support two house electoral districts, [8] the trial court concluded that Hampton was needlessly divided into three districts against all traditional race-neutral principles. . . . The trial court's conclusion was based on the following findings. The boundary between House District 91 and House District 92 separated whites from African Americans, placing the African Americans in the majority minority District 92. This boundary included three split precincts which the court determined followed the pattern of placing African Americans in the majority minority district. [9] The trial court also found that minority candidates were unopposed or won election in House District 92 with over 70% of the votes with a BVAP of 59.3%. The remaining African-American precincts in Hampton were placed in House District 95 along with heavily African-American precincts from Newport News. The western border of House District 95 abuts a majority white district, House District 94, and the adjoining white precincts were placed in District 94 and the African-American precincts in District 95. As in District 92, the trial court found that the minority candidate was elected by landslide votes with a BVAP of 59%. [10] The defendants' evidence showed that Hampton had been split into more than two districts prior to the enactment of SB 1: former House Districts 91, 92, and 95. Both former Districts 92 and 95 were approximately 15% below the target population, and former District 91 was 8.5% below that target. The underpopulation was addressed by adding the rest of the City of Poquoson and part of York County to these districts. While the area encompassed by House District 91 only retained 57% of the previous district, House Districts 95 and 92 retained 93.5% and 95.2%, respectively, of their core. The defendants' evidence also showed that the voting behavior of the districts correlated highly with race. The majority of the Democratic voters were retained in House Districts 92 and 95. The Hampton precincts included in the white majority District 91 were less Democratic than the neighboring Hampton precincts retained in the majority minority District 92. The evidence also showed that the split of the Magruder precinct between House District 91 and 92 placed more African Americans in the majority minority House District 92 than in the majority white House District 91. This record establishes that the division of Hampton into 3 districts was not a new legislative decision, but followed a three-way division that existed for at least a decade. The evidence shows that, the redistricting principles of population equality, partisan voting behavior, and avoiding retrogression all played a part in designing these two districts. As we have said before, the complainants bear a heavy burden in successfully challenging the constitutionality of these legislative acts. We find that this record does not support the trial court's conclusion that race was the predominant factor in designing House Districts 92 and 95.