Court Opinion

ID: 9467326
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:45:26.78599+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:17.361786
License: Public Domain

JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in much of the thorough and scholarly opinion of my brother Rubin in *1164this case. I agree that Plan 1, without regard to racial considerations, and even with proposed modifications, presented too great a population deviation in a court-ordered plan to satisfy the one person, one vote principle. I agree that religious, ethnic or racial factors can be taken into account so long as the motive is not invidious and the one person, one vote precept is not violated. I agree that the District Court was in error in refusing evidence to show disparity in voter registration and voting age population.
My disagreement arises in the failure of the opinion to hold that Plan 3, as adopted by the Court, did not comport with constitutional requirements.
As the opinion of the Court points out, the constitutional requirements of any redistricting plan “must be substantial equality of population among the various districts, without the dilution of the strength of minority voting groups.” Majority Opinion, supra at 1162. Plan 3 fails on both counts, even though on a percentage basis it falls within the acceptable deviation.
The district judge in so many words opted for Plan 3 in part on the ground that it was designed to insure that there be three rural districts. While it is true that geographical and administrative considerations are not wholly forbidden in defining election districts, the Supreme Court made it quite clear in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 553, 562, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 1381, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964), that “farms or cities” are not to be taken into account in defining election districts.
District courts tempted to step beyond the fundamental one man, one vote and racial dilution inquiries into an explicit balancing of rural-urban interests should heed Justice Stewart’s admonition in Connor v. Finch, 431 U.S. 407, 414-15, 97 S.Ct. 1828, 1833, 52 L.Ed.2d 465 (1977):
[A] state legislature is the institution that is by far the best situated to identify and then reconcile traditional state policies within the constitutionally mandated framework of substantial population equality. The federal courts by contrast possess no distinctive mandate to compromise sometimes conflicting state apportionment policies in the people’s name.... In such circumstances, the court’s task is inevitably an exposed and sensitive one that must be accomplished circumspectly, and in a manner “free from any taint of arbitrariness or discrimination.” Roman v. Sincock, 377 U.S. 695, 710, 84 S.Ct. 1449, 1458, 12 L.Ed.2d 620 (1964).
Even slight deviations from strictly proportional population distribution become questionable in a court-ordered plan when the District Court asserts its view of the appropriate rural-urban balance in an apportionment scheme.
The evidence of voter registration patterns refused by the trial court suggested that under Plan 3, the 48% black voting minority could hope to elect no more than three of the eight members on each local governing body. This disparity, coupled with the inference of discriminatory purpose alluded to in the Court’s opinion, Majority Opinion, supra at 1160, is at least highly suspect. It would be possible to create a series of election districts which contain for all practical purpose zero deviation from population equality and still be highly discriminatory on a racial basis. By arbitrarily drawing election district lines in such a way that all “white” districts had something like, say 60% whites and 40% blacks and all so-called “black” districts had virtually all blacks, the proportion of whites and blacks on an elected body such as the Police Jury or School Board could be maintained as heavily white even though blacks constitute a majority of the voting population and even though each district had exactly the same number of people in it as every other district.
I therefore must conclude that Plan 3 did not comply with the constitutional requirements because of the motive of protecting rural interests as well as for failure to admit evidence of voting population. I agree, however, that the record before us does not support the conclusion that invidious racial discrimination was present in this redistricting.
*1165I concur with the result in this case because I am in full agreement with Judge Rubin’s conclusion that the judgment below should be left undisturbed pending the release of the 1980 official census figures. By ordering that Plan 3 be set aside and a new redistricting order be developed at this time, we might well be compounding disparate voting power. I cannot agree with Judge Rubin that the fact that no elections are scheduled in the immediate future also carries some persuasive force as to the proper remedy. If appellants’ constitutional rights were seriously violated, as it appears they were, the lack of a scheduled election in the immediate future would not deter me from ordering the affirmative relief of the immediate development of a redistricting plan which would pass constitutional muster. But the imminent release of the 1980 census figures calls for the Court to await them. As Judge Rubin concludes, the District Court should be open to the parties to correct disparities based either upon the one person, one vote principle or upon possible racial discrimination once the new census figures create a solid basis for evaluating such claims and for taking appropriate steps to insure that the constitutional rights of all persons involved are protected.