Court Opinion

ID: 9459929
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:35:42.249977+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:24.004259
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Circuit Judge,
with whom DYER, LEWIS R. MORGAN and RONEY, Circuit Judges, join (dissenting):
The majority bases its reversal of the District Court order now on appeal on two grounds: first, the District Court improperly relied on population statistics alone in evaluating the effect of the plan ordered implemented in diluting the voting strength of black citizens and second, the District Court finding of no dilution was clearly erroneous. With deference, I differ as to both grounds. Of more fundamental importance is my disagreement with Part III of the majority opinion which creates a formula to test multimember district reapportionment plans for dilution of ethnic group voting strength. The tests laid down sweep too broadly and at least they are unnecessary in view of the clear exposition of the law in this field by the Supreme Court. For all of these reasons I respectfully dissent.
I.
-White v. Regester announces the legal standard to be applied in this case as succinctly and cogently as it can be put. Omitting supportive citations, the Court stated:
Plainly, under our cases, multimember districts are not per se unconstitutional, nor are they necessarily unconstitutional when used in combination with single-member districts in other parts of the State.
But we have entertained claims that multimember districts are being used invidiously to cancel out or minimize the voting strength of racial groups. To sustain such claims, it is not enough that the racial group allegedly *1312discriminated against has not had legislative seats in proportion to its voting potential. The plaintiffs’ burden is to produce evidence to support findings that the political processes leading to nomination and election were not equally open to participation by the group in question — that its members had less opportunity than did other residents in the district to participate in the political processes and to elect legislators of their choice.
The Supreme Court concluded that “on the totality of the circumstances” it would not overturn the, findings of the District Court
representing as they do a blend of history and an intensely local appraisal of the design and impact of the Bexar County multi-member district in the light of the past and present reality, political and otherwise.
The majority epitomizes the District Court’s order as one which based its determination of nondilution solely on the fact that the requirement of at-large elections eliminated any population deviation between voting units. However, I read the order to have a broader foundation. At the hearing held to determine the effect of the 1970 census upon the District Court’s previous 1968 order for at-large elections, six plans were submitted to the court by the governmental agencies involved and by the black intervenor. None of these plans provided for single-member districts throughout the parish. Rather, they provided for various combinations of single and multimember districts and for various forms of parish-at-large elections with geographical residency requirements for the candidates for various posts. The evidence adduced during this hearing delved into what dilution would be brought about by the intervenor’s proposed plans as compared with the dilution that would result from a parish-at-large reapportionment plan. Both forms of plans were also compared to the population proportions which existed under the pre-1968 single-member ward system.
The District Court’s decree now on appeal provided in pertinent part:
. the court having considered all plans presented as well as all alternate plans proposed by the parties hereto, it has made the following finding of facts:
1. That according to the 1970 U.S. Census, East Carroll Parish has a total population of 12,884 persons of which number 7,568 are blacks and 5,306 are whites and other nationalities ; that the black population of East Carroll Parish, Louisiana, comprises 58.7 percent of the total population.
2. That the plan of reapportionment offered by East Carroll Parish Police Jury and East Carroll Parish School Board is more satisfactory than other plans presented because it offers a zero deviation while all other plans considered did not.
3. That the plan of reapportionment offered by East Carroll Parish Police Jury and East Carroll Parish School Board does not dilute nor discriminate against the black population as the new voting unit from which officers of the jury and the board are to be elected is comprised of 58.7 percent blacks, or a substantial majority of blacks, while other plans considered diluted the black population of different areas within the parish significantly greater than the plan offered by the jury and school board.
4. That the plan recommended by East Carroll Parish Police Jury and East Carroll Parish School Board has actually been in effect in East Carroll Parish since December 2, 19”68, and the plan has not proved discriminatory against blacks.
5. That the plan represents the wishes of both public bodies, having been endorsed by two of the three black public officials now serving on these public bodies.
6. That the plan of apportionment offered by East Carroll Parish Police *1313Jury and East Carroll Parish School Board is a constitutionally acceptable plan and meets all of the requirements of the “one-man, one-vote” rule of law.
7. That the evidence adduced by intervenor failed to show that the plan offered by the two aforesaid public bodies would discriminate against blacks or in any manner dilute the black population.
I read this order as addressing two separate considerations. The first is compliance with the one-man-one-vote mandate of Reynolds v. Sims. The second is a factual consideration of whether parish-at-large elections, which obviously solve this problem completely, might have the effect of diluting the voting strength of black voters who, while holding a majority position in total population, comprise a slight minority of the registered voters in the entire parish. Findings 3, 4, 5 and 7 are expressly addressed to this second problem, and, when considered in the context of the hearing record in this case which directly dealt with the dilution of voter effectiveness on a racial basis, appear to me to go to the heart of the proper questions that should concern the trier of fact in such a case. Certainly they are not limited to population statistics alone.
There can be no serious quarrel with the abstract legal premise that bare population statistics cannot become a talisman for determining whether dilution of voting strength has occurred. However, this concession is no impediment to an insistence that the District Court and the prior panel opinion of this court were entitled and indeed required to consider the overall size of the population in this small rural parish in approving the apportionment plan involved. It is perfectly valid to compare the effect which an at-large voting plan would have on the strength of an ethnic group in East Carroll Parish with the result of any similar multimember district plan in a populous urban area such as those which have been involved in the previous Supreme Court cases to date. The opportunity for participation in a parish-at-large election among less than 13,000 people is greater than the opportunity to be a meaningful part of the elective process in a single-member district which numbers over 100,000 persons. Judge Dawkins also made a specific oral finding that the proposed plan was not racially motivated and did not have a racially deterrent effect in its operation. With all of these factors which were before the District Court and which obviously formed a part of its decisional process, I cannot agree that the District Court imposed a constitutionally infirm reapportionment plan which watered down voting rights on the basis of population statistics alone.
The almost gossamer distinction between weighing each man’s vote equally and preventing the dilution of the overall voting strength of an identifiable racial element within the electorate can be an elusive concept at best. However, it is not one which in my view escaped either the attention of Judge Dawkins in his original opinion or the panel that initially heard this appeal. With full recognition that White v. Regester and the other precedents cited in footnote 2 of the en banc majority opinion discuss a panoply of factors which may help identify the existence of dilution, I find no rule requiring that every such factor must be tested for and found in every case in which a dilution issue may be raised. The common denominator which all precedents demand be weighed in reaching the required ad hoc fact adjudication is: has the plaintiff met the burden of demonstrating that members of the ethnic group in question have less opportunity than do other residents in the district to participate in the political processes and to elect legislators of their choice? Though not expressed in these terms, this is the rule Judge Dawkins applied in evaluating the design and impact of this plan.
*1314II.
I would be quick to agree that the en banc majority is correct when it states that dilution of voting strength is a question of fact. The difference between us arises because of my view that the record establishes the decision of the trial court in this case was not clearly erroneous. For example, Judge Coleman points out with emphasis in his dissent that the record in this ease fails to reflect the number of eligible black citizens who have chosen not to register. How the majority opinion can conclude on such a record that the plaintiffs have demonstrated that past impediments to black voting still persist in this parish and that the persistence of such impediments is manifested in the disparity between black population and black voter registration is an enigma to me.1 Until eligibility — based on age, residence, and freedom from other disqualifications established under federal law — is compared to nonregistration, this appears to be nothing more than a tenuous assumption. However, it is an assumption which is essential to the en banc court’s fact reversal of the trial court as clearly erroneous.'
The proof adduced in the District Court concerning the operation of the at-large election plan which governed the 1970 elections in this parish disclosed that a black candidate in the primary election for the Police Jury was defeated by only 9 votes. Another black candidate qualified for the second primary in which he ran third, 12 votes behind the second place white candidate. A third black candidate won in his contest against the incumbent president of the Police Jury, polling more votes than any candidate, not just for this post but in the entire election.
In the 1972 election which was held for only three of the nine school board posts, two blacks and one white candidate were elected. If the focus is upon “the design and impact” of at-large elections “in the light of past and present reality, political and otherwise,” it is manifest that here there was no dilution of the black vote. But the majority sets its blinders so that it cannot see the present political reality because the election results were not before the District Court when it rendered its judgment.
While I unqualifiedly endorse the view that we cannot take cognizance of issues not raised or evidence that could have been but was not introduced in the court below, we are confronted with neither of these factors here. The 1972 election was held subsequent to the District Court’s judgment of August 2, 1971. The result of the election is not disputed and was proffered to us on appeal. While the appellate process is going on, we can no more halt the political and electoral processes than we can stop the clock. We should not, however, turn either of them back when they are running properly. I see nothing novel or prejudicial about the consideration of current relevant undisputed matters brought to our attention on an appeal from an injunction decree. Indeed, our failure to do so is to shut our eyes to present political reality in East Carroll Parish and to do violence to the basic legal principle that injunction orders operate in futuro.
Finally, I am unable to agree with the majority that the 1972 election results should not be considered because of the purely speculative possibilities that the election of a black might serve the selfish political purposes of a white candidate, or that it would be better for a white to lose an election than to lose a law suit.
III.
White v. Regester charts a clear course for adjudicating attacks on plans *1315involving multimember districts — which in logic of analysis are merely one form of at-large voting, differing only in the extent of the geographic area involved. I cannot help but conclude that part III of the en banc majority opinion is diametrically at variance with the simple direct rule laid down by the Supreme Court in that case. By today’s decision this court creates a rule which would limit the use of multimember districts to those instances where proof can be adduced which demonstrates that a “greater opportunity for participation” in the political process would be afforded to whichever race may be in the minority than would be possible in single member districts, or for a showing that the use of at-large election districts “enhances the opportunity” for minority participation in the political process. Without regard to the fact that such proof might be well-nigh to impossible to make, the law’s announced preference for single member districts in populous areas does not mean that multimember districts must overcome some stigma to survive. To require that any particular plan be demonstrated to operate so as to afford an advantage to any minority ethnic group at the polling place is not an exercise of color-blind color consciousness but a legal mandate for reverse discrimination. It is not merely a rule out of keeping with the latest law of the Supreme Court, but is a mistake of major dimensions that will place the courts squarely in the center of\the “political thicket.”
The trier of fact in this case did not utilize an erroneous legal principle but rather applied considerations well within the rule just announced in White v. Regester. The record demonstrates ample evidence to indicate that the findings of fact made by the District Court were not clearly erroneous. For these reasons I would affirm the District Court. Most certainly I would refrain from creating any new rule regarding the use of multimember districts which runs counter to the most recent pronouncement of the Supreme Court. Thus, I dissent.

. For example, the 1970 census reflects that 49.6% of the black population of East Carroll Parish is under 18 years of age as compared to only 38.5% of the white population.