Court Opinion

ID: 9690313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 19:04:24.080158+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:55.198896
License: Public Domain

*1160GRADY, District Judge,
dissenting in part and concurring in part.
The analysis in today’s opinion seems to me to illustrate some of the difficulties inherent in any effort to draw district boundaries along racial lines. The distinctions made between districts on the “white” side of the wall which are mostly white and those which are white mixed with Hispanics and Asiatics are, I believe, unsupportable in light of the uncontradicted testimony that the purpose of drawing the line this way was to separate whites from blacks. That other groups, such as Hispanics, may also be separated from blacks in the process, and even mixed in with the whites who prefer them to blacks, seems to me immaterial in terms of the constitutional considerations I believe controlling in this case.1 Aside from this fundamental problem, today’s opinion illustrates the difficulty of deciding which racial lines — which “tracings” as they are called by the majority — are tolerable and which are not. I am unable to discern what principle runs through the analysis of the majority which could guide one to the conclusion that various “results” either do or do not pass muster.2
*1161I continue to disagree with the majority’s view that this case was not tried on a theory of unconstitutional racial segregation. While it is true that the matter was unclear from the pleadings, there can be no doubt that during the trial the question of racial segregation, and the stigma resulting from the wall, was clearly presented. I would allow the motion of the Crosby plaintiffs to amend their complaint to conform with the proof.
I fail to see how the amendment to the Voting Rights Act requires any change in the map the majority approved in its opinion of January 12, 1982, and as long as the majority continues to see this case as one involving no constitutional issue, I believe that a further evidentiary hearing will be essentially unproductive. The “results” of the present map seem to me to have been fully analyzed by the majority in its opinion of January 12, 1982, and found acceptable.3
I do agree with the majority that no further argument is necessary regarding the evidence which has already been taken. Finally, I agree that we should not retain jurisdiction in this ease until the next reapportionment. To that extent I concur in the majority opinion.

. I realize that the majority rejects a constitutional analysis and views the case strictly in terms of the Voting Rights Act as amended. But I do not believe the amendment to the Voting Rights Act authorizes intentional racial segregation. While the effect of the amendment is to eliminate the intent requirement of the Mobile case, the amendment certainly does not legitimize the drawing of lines which have as their express purpose the separation of one race from another. In short, the Voting Rights Act, even as amended, has to be read in light of the Constitution, which, in my view, absolutely prohibits the drawing of district lines for the purpose of racial separation.

. Whether the matter is viewed "as black versus non-black," or "black versus white plus nonwhites other than blacks" (majority opinion, p. 1091), the question presented by viewing this case as simply a “packing" or "dilution” problem is, if one will excuse the expression, where do you draw the line? How much is enough but not too much? The majority again seems to endorse the "65 per cent formula” (see fn. 4, p. 1085, which appears to be the same as fn. 87 of the majority opinion of Jan. 12, 1982, with the exception that, in the final paragraph judicial notice is taken of the fact that 66 per cent was not good enough to elect a black candidate in Senate District 18 in the March 1982 Democratic Primary Election). This, in terms of practical politics, may seem good news for the Crosby plaintiffs; the revised map the majority has in mind may provide even greater majorities of black voters in any revised districts. I believe this would be an unfortunate “victory” for the black plaintiffs. For a recent expression consonant with my own views, see the dissenting opinion of Justice Powell in Rogers v. Herman Lodge, 458 U.S. 613, 628, 102 S.Ct. 3272, 3282, 73 L.Ed.2d 1012 (1982):
This is inherently a political area, where the identification of a seeming violation does not necessarily suggest an enforceable judicial remedy — or at least none short of a system of
quotas or group representation. Any such system, of course, would be antithetical to the principles of our democracy.
See abo Part IV of Justice Stevens’ dissent in the same case, 458 U.S. 650, 102 S.Ct. 3294.
The idea of a 65 per cent quota, guideline, or whatever it might be called, is as unacceptable to me as when I dissented originally, and for the same reasons. The failure of a black to be elected in a 66 per cent district is not, to me, evidence that the percentage should be raised, but, rather, evidence that the idea of a percentage is unworkable in the first place. Whether you are comparing whites versus blacks or whites versus blacks, Hispanics and Asiatics, the result is the same: it just will not work. And the effort to make it work runs counter to the goal of eliminating racial divisions in this country.
I realize, too, that these particular plaintiffs are not solely interested in the segregation question. Beyond that, perhaps even as much as that, they want proportional representation. The majority is no more committed to proportional representation than they were at the time the original opinions in this case were filed. The amendment to the Voting Rights Act makes explicit that, whatever the "totality of circumstances” test may mean, it does not require proportional representation. Thus, the further proceedings the majority contemplates in this case seem to me to be addressed to a virtually de minimb situation as far as the voting rights of blacks are concerned. This is not a case like Mobile, or Rogers v. Herman Lodge, supra, where blacks have been literally closed out of the political process by at-large elections in which they failed to elect a single representative. Here, the difference between what the plaintiffs have in the court-ordered map and what they want is the difference between representation which is not quite proportional and representation which is strictly proportional. If the majority is not bent on granting proportional representation, then I fail to see why there is need for a further hearing in this case.

. The majority frequently refers to "the ‘results test’ of the amended Voting Rights Act.” I do not read the amendment as providing for a "results" test. The phrase used to define the test for determining whether a protected group has “less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice" is "the totality of circumstances." The totality of circumstances would certainly include the “results” of a redistricting, but the results are not coterminous with the test. The test is the totality of circumstances, and it seems to me that the majority has already exhaustively analyzed those circumstances in its opinion of January 12, 1982. While I do not agree with that analysis, my criticism is not that it was cursory.