Opinion ID: 760818
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Citizenship in the First Gingles

Text: Requirement 14 The Supreme Court has determined that the right question in vote dilution claims under Section 2 is whether as a result of the challenged practice or structure plaintiffs do not have an equal opportunity to participate in the political processes and to elect candidates of their choice. Gingles, 478 U.S. at 44, 106 S.Ct. 2752 (quoting S.REP. NO. 97-417, at 28 (1982)). As a matter of law, the use of at-large voting can impede the ability of minority voters to elect representatives of their choice only if the plaintiffs demonstrate that the group meets the three Gingles requirements. See Growe, 507 U.S. at 40, 113 S.Ct. 1075; Gingles, 478 U.S. at 50-51, 106 S.Ct. 2752; Campos v. City of Houston, 113 F.3d 544, 547 (5th Cir.1997) (Failure to establish any one of these threshold requirements is fatal.). 15 The first Gingles threshold requires that plaintiffs demonstrate that Hispanics in the PISD are sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district. Gingles, 478 U.S. at 50, 106 S.Ct. 2752. Plaintiffs argue that they have met this requirement because they proposed districts containing an Hispanic voting-age population exceeding fifty percent. We have unequivocally held, however, that courts must consider the citizen voting-age population of the group challenging the electoral practice when determining whether the minority group is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority. Campos, 113 F.3d at 548 (emphasis added). As we reasoned in Campos, such a result is required by the plain language of Section 2. See id.; see also Barnett v. City of Chicago, 141 F.3d 699, 704 (7th Cir.) (We think that citizen voting-age population is the basis for determining equality of voting power that best comports with the policy of [Section 2].), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 2372, 141 L.Ed.2d 740 (1998). The district court therefore correctly required that plaintiffs demonstrate that Hispanics would represent a majority of voting-age citizens in a proposed district.