Court Opinion

ID: 9427799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:21:54.396012+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:09.767155
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stevens,
concurring in the judgment.
In 1965, a three-judge District Court was convened in Mississippi to deal with allegations of malapportionment in Mississippi’s State Legislature. By 1975, an acceptable reapportionment plan still had not been formulated; nevertheless, quadrennial elections were held under a court-ordered plan.1 In 1978, the Mississippi Legislature enacted a statutory reapportionment plan, which was submitted to the Attorney General of the United States for preclearance under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 437, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1973 et seq. When the Attorney General objected to the plan, the State brought this action in a three-judge District Court in the District of Columbia, seeking a declaratory judgment that the plan was in compliance with the Act. In 1979, while the Voting Rights Act case was still pending, the three-judge court in Mississippi entered a judgment putting into *1051effect a reapportionment plan agreed to by all parties. Connor v. Finch, 469 F. Supp. 693 (SD Miss.). That plan was essentially a modified version of the statutory plan.
Under the Voting Rights Act the task confronting the District of Columbia court was to determine whether the statutory plan had the purpose or effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color. 42 U. S. C. § 1973c. An impermissible effect is created whenever a reapportionment pian has the effect of diluting existing black voting strength. See Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130, 141. The District of Columbia court compared the statutory reapportionment plan to the 1979 court-ordered plan in order to determine whether any prohibited retrogression had occurred. Concluding that it had not and that there was no purpose to discriminate evident in the statutory plan, the court granted the State a declaratory judgment approving the plan. Both the United States and intervenors (black voters in Mississippi) appealed. The Court today affirms, without opinion.
In my judgment the only significant issue presented on appeal is whether the statutory plan had the impermissible effect of diluting black voting strength. In his dissenting opinion Mr. Justice Marshall presents a persuasive case that there were significant discrepancies between the statutory plan and the 1979 court-ordered plan. Because I believe that the 1979 plan was not the proper benchmark to be used in determining whether there was an impermissible effect, I have no occasion to comment on his conclusion that the differences between the two plans were sufficient to constitute a “dilution” of black voting strength.
As a technical matter, the court-ordered plan was the plan “in effect” at the time the District of Columbia court decided the case.2 Nevertheless, all of the parties to both actions realized that the statutory plan would be used in the 1979 *1052elections if it received court approval in time. See Connor v. Coleman, 440 U. S. 612, 622 (Marshall, J., dissenting). Thus, in practical terms, the court-ordered plan was never more than a backup. To use such a plan as a benchmark for judging the effect of the statutory plan on voting rights seems to me to be logically indefensible. No voting rights in Mississippi were ever affected by the backup plan and thus any “changes” due to the imposition of the statutory plan could hardly have diluted those rights. Moreover, to require a state legislature to predict what court-ordered plans may be entered while a Voting Rights Act suit is pending and then to draw its plan to ensure that no dilution occurs seems to me to be a futile exercise clearly not required by the statute.
Thus, in my view the statutory plan was permissible under the Act so long as it did not have a discriminatory purpose and did not dilute black voting strength as it existed at the time the legislation was passed. The District Court’s findings of fact make it clear that the plan met these conditions.3 I therefore concur in the judgment affirming the decision of the court below.

 The history of that litigation is described at length in MR. Justice Marshall’s dissenting opinion in Connor v. Coleman, 440 U. S. 612, 614.

 The statutory plan could not become effective until it was cleared pursuant to the Voting Rights Act by either the Attorney General or the three-judge court in the District of Columbia. Connor v. Waller, 421 *1052U. S. 656. The judgment entered by the Mississippi court, on the other hand, specifically provided that the court-ordered plan was to be in "full force and effect for the 1979 regular state legislative elections and thereafter unless and until altered according to law.” Connor v. Finch, 469 F. Supp. 693, 694 (SD Miss. 1979). Thus, the court-ordered plan would have remained in effect if the District of Columbia court had not approved the statutory plan.

 The court noted that when compared to the 1975 apportionment plan that had governed the last elections, the statutory plan constituted a “clear enhancement of the position of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise. . . .” App. to Juris. Statement in No. 79-504, p. 32a, n. 6.