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

Heading: Validity of Plaintiffs' Racial Challenge

Text: The litigants agree that race must be a factor in the redistricting because of the mandate of the federal Voting Rights Act. However, race must not be the predominant factor. As the Supreme Court stated in Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U.S. 234, 241-42, 121 S.Ct. 1452, 149 L.Ed.2d 430 (2001): The Court has specified that those who claim that a legislature has improperly used race as a criterion, in order, for example, to create a majority-minority district, must show at a minimum that the `legislature subordinated traditional raceneutral districting principles . . . to racial considerations.' [ Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900, 916, 115 S.Ct. 2475, 132 L.Ed.2d 762 (1995)]. Race must not simply have been `a motivation for the drawing of a majority minority district,' Bush v. Vera, 517 U.S. 952, 959, 116 S.Ct. 1941, 135 L.Ed.2d 248 (1996) (O'CONNOR, J., principal opinion) (emphasis in original), but the predominant factor motivating the legislature's districting decision,' [ Hunt v. ] Cromartie , 526 U.S. [541] at 547, 119 S.Ct. 1545[, 143 L.Ed.2d 731] (quoting Miller, supra, at 916, 115 S.Ct. 2475) (emphasis added). Plaintiffs must show that a facially neutral law `is `unexplainable on grounds other than race.'' [ Cromartie, 526 U.S. at 546, 119 S.Ct. at 1549]. The Supreme Court also made the following observation in Easley v. Cromartie, that is pertinent here: The Court also has made clear that the underlying districting decision is one that ordinarily falls within a legislature's sphere of competence. Miller, 515 U.S. at 915, 115 S.Ct. at 2488. Hence, the legislature `must have discretion to exercise the political judgment necessary to balance competing interests,' ibid., and courts must `exercise extraordinary caution in adjudicating claims that a State has drawn district lines on the basis of race,' id., at 916, 115 S.Ct. at 2488 (emphasis added). Caution is especially appropriate in this case, where the State has articulated a legitimate political explanation for its districting decision, and the voting population is one in which race and political affiliation are highly correlated. See Cromartie, supra, 526 U.S. at 551-[52, 119 S.Ct. 1545] (noting that `evidence that blacks constitute even a supermajority in one congressional district while amounting to less than a plurality in a neighboring district will not, by itself, suffice to prove that a jurisdiction was motivated by race in drawing its district lines when the evidence also shows a high correlation between race and party preference'). Id. at 242, 121 S.Ct. at 1458. Upon application of these principles to this case, I am persuaded that the plaintiffs failed to establish that the General Assembly used race as the predominant factor in the redistricting plan. Simply stated, the plaintiffs failed to prove their case as required by law. The undisputed evidence in the record before this Court is that in Virginia there is a high correlation between race and politics. The plaintiffs, therefore, were required to introduce, in evidence, an alternative plan that showed that the General Assembly could have achieved its political and traditional districting objectives without the specific racial configurations that the General Assembly actually used. The plaintiffs, however, failed to present an alternative plan that complied with the criteria required by Easley v. Cromartie. Without question, this Court has a constitutional duty to invalidate a redistricting plan if the evidence demonstrates that race was the predominant factor in the creation of legislative districts. However, plaintiffs who challenge the redistricting plan have an obligation to prove their case, and in this instance the plaintiffs failed to satisfy that obligation. The failure to satisfy this obligation is amply demonstrated by the testimony of plaintiffs' own expert witness, who testified that he neglected to consider certain basic factors that are highly relevant in any redistricting plan, including the factor of political incumbency. Dr. Allan J. Lichtman testified as follows: Q: If you pick a district to study because it is black and compare it only to bordering districts that are white, wouldn't you expect to find that blacks are more heavily represented inside? A: If you are drawing the district based on race, yes. If you are not drawing the district based on race, not necessarily. It could be that there are all kinds of borders even though the district is less heavily black that they share, that both have heavy concentrations of blacks or heavy concentrations of whites, and you wouldn't find that kind of consistent pattern. So, no, it doesn't follow. Q: Well, let me ask you this: Did you look at the borders that you used to determine whether on the other side there were Republican incumbents or Democratic incumbents? A: No. Q: And you don't think that would make any difference in your analysis? A: I tested the proposition that the lines were drawn on a political basis. I looked at the competitiveness of those districts. I did not look at the identity of the incumbents or what role they may or may not have played. I didn't see anything about that in any of the material presented by the State. The plaintiffs' failure to establish that the General Assembly relied predominantly upon race rather than basic political considerations, such as incumbency, is fatal to the plaintiffs' case. See Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U.S. at 241-42, 121 S.Ct. 1452.