Court Opinion

ID: 9724720
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:10:37.912564+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:05.221279
License: Public Domain

*1067SMALKIN, District Judge,
dissenting.
Smalkin, District Judge, dissenting as to Part V.(C.). Although I completely agree with all other portions of this Court’s opinion, I cannot agree with the conclusion that the State’s delegate districting plan, as it applies to the Eastern Shore, violates § 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The plaintiffs have not proved, by a preponderance of the evidence, the first Gingles “threshold condition,” viz., that there exists on the State’s Eastern Shore a minority group that is sufficiently “geographically compact” to constitute a majority in a single member district. Gingles, 478 U.S. at 46, 106 S.Ct. at 2764. It is clear from the relevant part of its opinion that the Court has accepted only one of plaintiffs’ five proposed districts as “geographically compact,” i.e., plaintiffs’ proposed District 54-9. In accepting that proposed District’s bizarre shape as geographically compact, the Court has, to my mind, mistaken existing case law in its discussion of compactness, particularly in the context of a district that is located in a relatively rural region. In addition, the Court effectively ignores the effect that the creation of such a district will have on the geographical compactness of the remainder of the delegate districts in Senate District 37.
I. COMPACTNESS OF THE PROPOSED DISTRICT.
I agree with the Court that, although the Supreme Court has held that geographical compactness is a threshold condition necessary to establish a § 2 violation, it has not, unfortunately, clearly articulated the contours of that requirement. A synthesis of the case law discussing the requirement, however, reveals that courts should consider three issues to determine whether a district is sufficiently geographically compact. The court should make a geometrical evaluation of the proposed district to determine whether its shape is “bizarre” or “dramatically irregular.” Next, the court should evaluate whether the shape of the district incorporates traditional redistricting principles such as contiguity and respect for political subdivisions. Finally, a court should evaluate whether the district hinders or facilitates effective political representation.

A. The Shape of a Proposed District.

The Supreme Court has indicated that a court should make what might be called a “geometric” or “eye-ball” evaluation of the district. That Court’s decisions in Shaw1 and Growe clearly suggest that a district is not geographically compact if its shape is “bizarre” or “dramatically irregular.” Shaw, at -, -, -, 113 S.Ct. at 2825, 2827, 2831. In Shaw, the Court recognized that districts that could be compared to a “Rorschach ink-blot test” or a “bug splattered on a windshield” are of questionable compactness. Shaw, at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2821. Likewise, in Growe, Justice Scalia only made the assumption, which he characterized as “dubious,” that a district that “stretch[ed] from South Minneapolis, around the downtown area, and then into the northern part of the city in order to link minority populations” was geographically compact. Growe, — U.S. at -, -, 113 S.Ct. at 1083, 1085. Thus, like the other judges of this Court, I believe that “the Supreme Court has clearly indicated that the concept of compactness is not a hollow one.” See, supra, Majority Opinion at 1052.
The Court has apparently concluded that the shape and appearance of District 54-9 are unobjectionable under Gingles primarily because it is no larger or stranger in shape than at least some of the other delegate districts already in the state’s plan. The Court first attempts to justify the District’s jagged and irregular border2 by demonstrating that several other districts in the state’s *1068plan, which has already been upheld by the Court of Appeals of Maryland, are just as oddly shaped. This is simply not the case, in my view of the evidence. Although it is true that several delegate districts located in the more densely populated urban areas of the State are, perhaps, just as bizarrely shaped, the plaintiffs essentially conceded at the trial that the shape of delegate districts located in and around urban areas is not comparable, for determining compactness, to the shape of districts located in the state’s rural regions.3 Acknowledging that neither the state nor the NAACP has control over the course of a river, a stream, or the Chesapeake Bay, there is no delegate district in any of the State’s rural regions that is shaped as strangely as District 54-9.
Next, the Court rejects the defendants’ argument that District 54-9 improperly utilizes attenuated corridors, at times as narrow as two miles across, to link the predominantly black sections of Cambridge and Salisbury together. The Court concludes that the State’s plan already utilizes such narrow corridors and that “Voting Rights ease law indicates that there is nothing extraordinary about this technique.” Supra, Majority Opinion at 1053. Again, recognizing, as did the plaintiffs, that there is a difference between urban and rural districts, I am unpersuaded that presence of an even narrower corridor in District 18, for example, which is located in Montgomery County just outside of the Washington, D.C., city line, is any indication that the use of very narrow corridors would not affect the compactness of a district located in sparsely populated rural counties.
The Court cites Neal v. Coleburn, 689 F.Supp. at 1435, for the proposition that narrow corridors that are necessary to connect a number of fairly small pockets of black population can satisfy the Gingles compactness requirement. Supra, Majority Opinion at 1053. I differ with the Court’s interpretation of that opinion. Although it is true that the Neal opinion states that there is nothing impermissible about connecting small pockets of black population to create a majority-minority single member district,4 that district must, based on its shape and appearance, still satisfy the Gingles compactness requirement. There are a substantial number of decisions that have found that attempts to connect pockets of black population with attenuated corridors did not satisfy the Gingles compactness requirement. See, e.g., Clark v. Calhoun County, 813 F.Supp. 1189, 1197-98 (N.D.Miss.1993) (extraction of blacks from three separate distinct municipalities, each having diverse interests, did not satisfy compactness requirement); Burton v. Sheheen, 793 F.Supp. at 1366 (rejecting districts that slice and splice towns and counties or run “a thin snaking line back and forth across the county” as not geographically compact); Clark v. Roemer, 777 F.Supp. 445, 455 (M.D.La.1990) (district spread over three parishes not geographically compact).
Simply put, District 54-9, in my opinion, is an “oddly shaped creation.” See Growe, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 1083. It resembles no other rural delegate district in the State’s plan. Its jagged and irregular border connects the black populations of Cambridge and Salisbury, towns with diverse interests, by relatively narrow corridors that cut and splice their way north, south, east and west. In the jargon of the day, it is a “geographically challenged” creation, not a geographically compact one.

B. Traditional Districting Principles.

Although adherence to traditional redistricting principles is, of course, a necessary inquiry to determine whether a district has been drawn solely to segregate voters into separate voting districts because of their race, see Shaw, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2832, considerations such as contiguity and *1069respect for political subdivisions are at least relevant to determine whether a particular district is geographically compact. This proposition is implied in the Supreme Court’s Shaw decision. See, e.g., Shaw, at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2827 (Court was uncomfortable with a “reapportionment plan that includes in one district individuals who ... are otherwise widely separated by geographical and political boundaries, and who may have little in common with one another but the color of their skin....”). Many lower federal courts have expressly considered adherence to traditional districting principles to determine whether a particular district is geographically compact. See, e.g., Clark v. Calhoun County, 813 F.Supp. at 1198 (proposed district that split up three distinct municipalities not geographically compact); Clark v. Roemer, 777 F.Supp. at 455 (district that was not contiguous did not satisfy Gingles compactness requirement).
The Court finds that District 54-9 is contiguous and respects the boundaries of political subdivisions, at least to the same extent that the state plan does. Although I agree that District 54-9 is contiguous, I do not believe that the District can be said to respect the boundaries of political subdivisions when it divides the three largest cities it touches — Salisbury, Cambridge, and Fruit-land. The Court concludes that the District still respects the boundaries of political subdivisions because Salisbury had been divided by the State’s previous plan and, to the extent that the three cities are divided, they have been divided “rather neatly.” Stipra, Majority Opinion at 1055 n. 51. The political boundary of the City of Salisbury, even if breached under the State’s previous plan, is no longer so under the State’s current plan. District 54-9 divides the City of Salisbury. Regardless of whether the District’s breach of Salisbury’s. boundary is “new,” it is a breach that does not respect the boundary of that city. There is no dispute that the cities of Cambridge and Fruitland, which are not divided under the State’s plan,5 are divided by the proposed District. Thus, far from respecting or adhering to the boundaries of political subdivisions, District 54-9 simply ignores those boundaries in order to carve out their predominantly black communities and connect them through narrow rural corridors to other, distinct and distant such communities. .

C. Effective Political Representation.

In determining whether a district is geographically compact, a number of lower federal courts, as well as the Court of Appeals of Maryland, have also considered the degree to which a proposed district will provide effective political representation. See, e.g., Dillard v. Baldwin County Bd. of Educ., 686 F.Supp. at 1466 (focusing on functional approach of effective political representation); Burton v. Sheheen, 793 F.Supp. at 1356 (same); In re Legislative Districting, 299 Md. at 674-81, 684, 475 A.2d at 442 (stating the best standard for compactness was “a close union of territory (conducive to constituent-representative communication)”). A determination of whether a district provides effective political representation should focus on two considerations. A court should consider whether the proposed district provides a practical means for effective representation. For example, as stated in Dillard:
[A] district would not be sufficiently compact if it [is] so spread out that there [is] no sense of community, that is, if its members and its. representatives could not effectively and efficiently stay in touch with each other; or if it was so convoluted that there is no sense of community, that is, if its members and its representatives could not easily tell who actually lived within the district.
686 F.Supp. at 1466. A court should also consider whether the individuals who live in the district share sufficient interests — cultural, economic and political — that they can be effectively represented by a single delegate. See, e.g., Shaw, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2827 (expressing discomfort with a district comprised of individuals with nothing in common but their race); Clark v. Calhoun Coun*1070ty, 813 F.Supp. at 1198 (finding district that connected blacks from “three separate and distinct municipalities, each having diverse interests,” was not geographically compact).
The Court finds that District 54-9 facilitates effective political representation based essentially on a portion of the testimony of Delegate Samuel Q. Johnson, III, who is the District 37’s current Resident Delegate for Wicomico County.6 Delegate Johnson indicated that he was capable of effectively representing his constituents throughout western Wicomico and all of Dorchester County. He also stated that he would run no matter in which district his residence was located and that if he were elected as the Delegate for District 54-9, it would save him a lot of mileage. From that testimony alone, the Court concludes that District 54-9 facilitates effective representation. For several reasons, I disagree with the Court’s conclusion drawn from these parts of his testimony.
Although Delegate Johnson’s testimony does suggest that a delegate elected from District 54-9 might be able to travel easily throughout the district, it does not address the fact that because of the District’s strange and irregular shape, it might be difficult for that delegate, in making his or her rounds, to know which Eastern Shore residents are his or her constituents, without employing a sophisticated navigational system such as GPS, or, at least on clear nights, celestial navigation. More importantly, because of the District’s convoluted shape, it will be even more difficult for many constituents to know by whom they are represented. The District’s irregular border zig-zags its way across the region’s rural areas in a way appearing to be almost random in many places. Although the numerous existing precincts that the District splits could be redrawn at a relatively low cost, this will also cause substantial voter confusion.
The creation of 54-9 would substantially undermine the effective political representation of the Eastern Shore and its individual counties. Delegate Johnson stated that one of the purposes of Maryland’s Resident Delegate statute was to ensure that while all of the delegates of each senate district were in some part responsive to the needs of the entire district, each delegate would be particularly responsive to the interests of the County for which he or she is the resident delegate. This system, Delegate Johnson testified, allows the Eastern Shore delegation, as a whole, to represent the entire region’s shared interests while at the same time ensuring that the particular interests of each county, whether it be seafood industry, agriculture, or heavy industry, are also represented. In addition, the system ensures that the densely populated cities of the region do not dominate the elections to the detriment of the region’s more rural areas. The creation of District 54-9, particularly in light of the effect that it will have on the remaining delegate districts, see post, will substantially undermine the effective political representation of the region’s diverse political and economic interests.
Similarly, it will be extremely difficult for a single delegate to represent effectively the diverse populations that are combined by District 54-9. The District combines the black populations of two distinct and distant municipalities — Salisbury, located in the central portion of the Shore, with its primary economic interests focused on heavy industry, and Cambridge, located on the Choptank River only a few miles inland from the Chesapeake Bay, with its primary economic interests focused on the seafood industry. These urban populations are then combined with rural communities whose primary interest is agriculture. Although it is true that under the State’s current plan, a delegate will be required to represent some conflicting political and economic interests, I believe that the Resident Delegate system provides an effective means for all of those interests to be represented in a way that they cannot be, should District 54-9 become a reality.
II. COMPACTNESS OF THE REMAINDER OF DISTRICT 37.
In determining whether a proposed district is geographically compact, a court must also *1071examine the effect that the creation of the district will have on the geographical compactness of neighboring districts. “[I]f because of the configuration of a district, its neighboring districts so lack compactness that they could not be effectively represented, the [Gingles] standard of compactness has not been met.” Dillard v. Baldwin County Bd. of Educ., 686 F.Supp. at 1466; see also Burton v. Sheheen, 793 F.Supp. at 1356. To the extent that this Court addresses this issue at all, it does so in a footnote, asserting that any effect that the creation of District 54-9 might have on the remainder of the delegate seats in Senate District 37 could be cured by creating a two-member, at-large district or two single member districts nested within Senate District 37. See, supra, Majority Opinion at 1055 n. 48. Because of the irregular shape of District 54-9, however, two geographically compact single member delegate districts, or even one geographically compact two-member, at-large district, simply cannot be created.
District 54-9 effectively divides Senate District 37 in half. The southern boundary of 54-9 starts at an inlet in Cambridge, then slices its way eastward to the western population of the cities of Salisbury and Fruitland, leaving the portion of Dorchester County and the small portion of Wicomico County that lie south of the District detached from the remaining portions of Senate District 37 that he to the northeast and northwest of 54-9. Approximately 5,000 people live in the portion of Senate District 37 that lies to the south of 54-9. Because the ideal population of a delegate district in the State of Maryland is approximately 34,000 residents, this portion of Senate District 37 could obviously not support a single member delegate district while complying with the Constitution’s one person, one vote requirement. Thus, those residents must be combined with other residents of Senate District 37 that are not in-eluded within District 54-9 to make a sufficiently populous district.7

A. The Shape and Appearance of the Remaining Districts.

Aside from the remnant District’s complete lack of contiguity, see supra, both its shape and appearance are truly bizarre. Of course, because the remnant District’s inner border is the border of District 54-9, that border cuts and splices its way through Wi-comico and Dorchester Counties in the same serpentine manner. The District runs north from Cambridge along the Choptank River, then, upon reaching Talbot County, it takes a “U-turn” south. From there, the District heads south until it reaches the “hook” of District 54-9. Within the hook, the remnant District is surrounded completely on three sides, and partially on the forth, by 54r-9. The District surrounds the outer perimeter of the hook, as well. The District then runs westward from a peninsula in the southern portion of Wicomico county, which is surrounded on all sides by either water or District 54-9, twisting and curving its way back to the predominantly black neighborhoods of Cambridge. This remnant District is far stranger in shape and appearance than any other district in the State’s plan — rural or urban. I am unable to imagine how it could seriously be suggested that the shape of this District is anything but bizarre and dramatically irregular.

B. Adherence to Traditional Districting Principles.

It might be said that this remnant District respects the boundaries of political subdivisions because it divides only one City, the City of Cambridge. Of course, other than a few very small towns, that is the only city that the District includes. More importantly, the District is not contiguous.8 District 54-9 cuts off the northern portions of Senate Dis*1072trict 37 from its southern portions. One portion of Wicomico County effectively becomes an island, surrounded on all sides by either water or District 54-9.9 The entire southern portion of Dorchester County is cut off from the northeastern portion of that county and from the entire northern portion of Senate District 37. This is not geographical compactness.

C. Effective Political Representation.

Finally, I believe that the shape of this District would undoubtedly hinder effective political representation because of the voter confusion that it would cause. If District 54-9 is created, residents of the northeastern portion of Dorchester County, which borders the Choptank River, would be combined, not with their immediate neighbors two miles inland, but with residents several miles away in the northeastern portion of the county. Likewise, residents of southern Dorchester or Wicomico Counties would be combined, not with their immediate neighbors, but with residents of the northeastern and northwestern portions of Dorchester County, up to ten miles away, on the other side of District 54-9. In order to meet with one another, or in order for the District’s delegates to meet with their constituents, it will be necessary to traverse miles of District 54-9. As stated in Dillard, a district does not satisfy the Gin-gles compactness requirement if it is “so convoluted that there is no sense of community, that is, if its members and its representatives could not easily tell who actually lived within the district.” Dillard, 686 F.Supp. at 1466. That is exactly the case here.
III. CONCLUSION.
The plaintiffs have not satisfied the first threshold condition of Gingles that there be a “geographically compact” minority. The Court has effectively endorsed one of the plaintiffs’ ñve proposed districts. District 54-9, however, because of its bizarre shape, its failure sufficiently to consider traditional districting principles, and the effect it will have on efficient political representation in its locale, is not geographically compact as that term has been understood in Voting Rights Act case law. This is also true of the delegate districts remaining in Senate District 37 if District 54-9 is drawn. Because the plaintiffs have not met a threshold condition for a § 2 claim, I would find in favor of the defendants.

. Although Shaw involved an equal protection challenge, the geographical compactness of the challenged districts was a clear concern of the Court. See, e.g., Shaw, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2827 (emphasizing geographical compactness as an objective districting criterion).

. At first glance, one would think that the entire border of the District was a river or stream twisting and curving its way through Wicomico and Dorchester Counties. In fact, only a relatively small portion of the District’s border follows a river. The remainder of the District's border cuts its way across the rural countryside of Senate District 37 in a decidedly serpentine manner, connecting the predominantly black sections of both Salisbuiy and Cambridge.

. Thus, the Court of Appeals of Maryland's discussion relating to the compactness of Delegate District 20, located in Montgomery County just outside the District of Columbia city line, that its "shape, while unusual, is no more odd than the rest of the districts ... in the whole State,” does not excuse the irregular shape of District 54-9, located in the rural counties on the Eastern Shore. See Legislative Redistricting, 331 Md. 574, 591-92, 629 A.2d 646, 654-55 (1993).

. In fact, the Court held that the utilization of such corridors in that case did satisfy the Gingles compactness requirement.

. There is no evidence that the City of Cambridge has ever been divided under any previous dis-tricting plan.

. Because of the operation of Maryland's Resident Delegate statute, Delegate Johnson is also the Chairman (and the only member) of the Dor-Chester County Delegation to the Maryland House of Delegates.

. Because this southern portion of Senate District 37 must be combined with other portions of the District that are not included in 54-9, I shall not distinguish in this opinion between a single member district that is divided in half by 54-9 and a two-member, at-large delegate district, the southern portion of which is divided in half by District 54-9.

. The District appears to cross the city of Cambridge from one inlet to another, cutting off the northwest portion of the ciiy from the northeast portion of the city. At the very least, the District is point contiguous. Point contiguity has been expressly discouraged by the Supreme Court. See Shaw, - U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2821.

. A resident of this peninsula will have to travel north nearly 10 miles through District 54-9, or swim across the Nanticoke River, in order to meet with other residents in his or her delegate district. The plaintiffs are correct that there are several islands in the Chesapeake Bay that are included within the existing district. Surely, however, the State cannot be held accountable for the effects of the end of last Ice Age.