Opinion ID: 1059272
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: House Districts 69, 70, 71, 77, 80, 89, and 90

Text: The trial court also concluded that the majority minority House Districts 69, 70, 71, 77, 80, 89, and 90 violated Article I, § 11. The only evidence cited in support of this conclusion was election results for these districts showing that, with the exception of seven races, minority candidates received 74% or more of the votes in each election. The BVAP in these districts ranged from 53% to 64%, and, therefore, the court concluded that the districts were packed, meaning that they were not narrowly tailored to meet the requirements of federal law. As stated above, whether districts were narrowly tailored to comply with federal requirements is a consideration not raised until the requisite finding of racial predominance is first made. The trial court did not reference any specific evidence or make any specific findings for any of these districts to support a conclusion that race was the predominant factor in creating each district. It did, however, cite patterns it found in the creation of the districts that illustrated the subordination of the traditional redistricting principles to race. These patterns included excessive splitting of jurisdictional lines, general disregard for keeping regions intact, abandoning the constitutional requirements of compactness and contiguity, and an inordinate use of split precincts in majority minority districts. The trial court, however, did not identify any particular district in which these patterns occurred. We have already made clear that, in the absence of specific evidence in a specific district, such pattern evidence alone cannot sustain the trial court's finding of racial discrimination. We also note that the trial court's own holdings in this case belie its conclusion that matters of contiguity and compactness have been generally disregarded in creating the majority minority districts. Of the 23 House and Senate districts challenged under Article II, 6, the trial court found only six to be non-compact or non-contiguous. These numbers do not support a conclusion that these constitutional requirements were generally disregarded. Finally, the trial court cited the high percentage of split precincts in majority minority districts as evidence of race-based district line drawing. Specifically, the court found that the inclusion of 77% of the 61 precincts split statewide in the contested districts was not by coincidence or happenstance. However, other than those split precincts discussed above, the court fails to identify the location or specific impact of any other split precincts on the districts in question. The record contains little evidence other than maps or general charts with regard to House Districts 71, 89, and 90. Complainants' expert did not analyze these districts individually, and they are referenced in a single chart prepared by the complainants' expert to show that the Democratic party voting percentage is higher than the BVAP in those districts. The evidence adduced by the complainants to meet their initial burden of showing that race was the predominant factor in drawing these districts included testimony by their expert that in each district where African-American boundary precincts adjoined white precincts, the African-American precincts were placed in the majority minority district. This expert also cited three instances of split precincts in these districts that again placed more African Americans in the majority minority district. The complainants' witnesses also testified regarding the barbell, lobster, and foot with toes shapes of the districts which they contended resulted from the General Assembly's stretching districts to include African American precincts. The complainants also argued that the evidence showed that in creating District 69, the General Assembly drew boundaries that crossed the James River to include four precincts that were heavily African American but did not include adjoining white precincts that were also heavily Democratic, supporting the proposition that the district was drawn on the basis of race, not politics. The defendants' evidence included documents and testimony showing that the population in each of these districts was from 5% to 27% below the requisite level. In creating the revised districts, the General Assembly retained the substantial amounts of the districts' cores: 63% in District 69, 70% in District 70, 95% in District 77, and 90% in District 80. Of the three split precincts in these districts, the defendants' expert testified that two of the splits enhanced the compactness rating of the districts involved, Districts 69 and 77. The splitting of the third precinct, the Bellwood precinct, resulted in 18.7% African Americans placed in District 70, and 16.2% African Americans placed in the majority white precinct, a difference which complainants' expert agreed was statistically insignificant and would not support a strong inference of race-based line drawing. In response to the contention that white Democratic precincts were not included in majority minority District 69 while African American precincts were, maps presented by both the defendants and the complainants showed that the white precincts adjoining the four African-American precincts north of the James River in District 69, while voting Democratic, generally reflected a lower level of Democratic voting behavior than the four African-American precincts that were included in House District 69. Finally, with one exception, the BVAP in each district diminished. The BVAP in District 77 grew by a single percentage point, from 55% to 56%. We conclude that this record does not support the trial court's conclusion that being black was the predominant factor in being chosen as part of a population making up the majority-minority districts. As stated above, the use of race as a factor in designing these districts is conceded. This record shows that along with race, accommodations for population equality, incumbency, and political party voting patterns were made by the General Assembly.