Court Opinion

ID: 9492992
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:54:52.136184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:35.184405
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Although I fully concur in the result reached by the majority and in much of its well-reasoned analysis, I write separately to make three points. In concluding that the district court did not err in finding that whites vote as a bloc usually to defeat the preferred candidate of blacks in rural west Tennessee, the majority acknowledges that “the Voting Rights Act’s guarantee of equal opportunity is not met when ‘candi*845dates favored by blacks can win, but only if the candidates are white.’ ” Ante at 840 (quoting Smith v. Clinton, 687 F.Supp. 1310, 1318 (E.D.Ark.1988) (three judge panel)). It is on this presupposition that the majority rests its conclusion that, in this case, black-white elections are more probative of vote dilution than white-white elections. I agree with this holding; however, I think it is necessary to explicate further why it matters under the Voting Rights Act (“VRA”) when a minority group’s only electable candidates of choice are white. I also write separately to note my differences with the district court’s definition of “influence” districts, and the majority’s conclusion that, in certain unspecified circumstances, compliance with § 2 in one area of a state may offset vote dilution in another area.
I.
I am of the view that it is wise to explain more fully the substantive and jurisprudential support animating our holding that equal opportunity in voting is not achieved when a minority group may elect representatives of choice when they are white, but are unsuccessful in electing members of their own group. See id.-, see also Clarke v. City of Cincinnati, 40 F.3d 807, 812 (6th Cir.1994). Based primarily on this predicate, the majority concludes that the district court did not err in granting more weight to elections involving black and white candidates than those involving only white candidates. Ante at 840. The majority is wise to reach these conclusions, because “[wjhen white bloc voting is ‘targeted’ against black candidates, black voters are denied an opportunity enjoyed by white voters, namely, the opportunity to elect a candidate of their own race.” Clarke, 40 F.3d at 812. Certainly, when white voters have the opportunity to elect preferred candidates of all races, yet black voters may only elect white candidates, black voters patently do not enjoy an opportunity to “elect [their] candidate of choice on an equal basis with other voters.” Voinovich v. Quitter, 507 U.S. 146, 153, 113 S.Ct. 1149, 122 L.Ed.2d 500 (1993).
This conclusion does not blur the reality that § 2 is ultimately concerned with ' “whether minority-preferred candidates, whatever their race, usually lose” because of white bloc voting. Cousin v. Sundquist, 145 F.3d 818, 825 (6th Cir.1998). It merely recognizes that when a court has found both that a minority group politically coalesces along racial lines, and that whites politically coalesce along racial lines in elections involving a member of that minority group, it defies logic for a court to attempt to assess equal access in a colorblind fashion. In these circumstances, a court is faced with race-conscious political action among both the white majority and the black minority, and the Voting Rights Act clearly protects the racial minority from the political tyranny of the racial majority. See 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b). If a court, however, fails to apply a race-conscious standard that accounts for acute white bloc voting in black-white elections, it may allow less dramatic polarization in white-white elections to obscure the reality of black political exclusion in black-black elections. It is syllogistic that a court cannot discern color-conscious discrimination through colorblind lenses.
The VRA’s command that we inquire into a candidate’s race when faced with black political cohesion and intense white bloc voting stems from findings pertaining to the empirical realities of race-conscious political action, not racial presumptions that blacks, or whites, will only prefer candidates of their race at the polls. Cf. Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630, 647, 113 S.Ct. 2816, 125 L.Ed.2d 511 (1993) (asserting that intentionally-created majority-minority districts may “reinforce[ ] the perception that members of the same racial group ... think alike, share the same political interests, and will prefer the same candidates at the polls”). In this case, the record shows that 60% of whites vote against the black community’s preferred candidate in white-white elections, yet al*846most 90% of whites vote for the white candidate in black-white elections. The record therefore reveals almost total white bloc voting when a politically cohesive group of blacks attempts to elect a member of their racial group. These facts depict the undisputed racial realities of politics in rural west Tennessee, and we cannot wish away these hard political facts in hopes of achieving a colorblind ideal that, as of yet, does not comport with empirical reality.
Moreover, absent compelling evidence that a white candidate in a white-white election is genuinely the black community’s preferred candidate, courts must assess black-white elections to determine whether a politically cohesive minority group actually has a viable candidate of choice, or merely an opportunity to mitigate the impact of white electoral hegemony. See Cousin, 145 F.3d at 825 (providing that white-white elections are relevant when “one of the candidates [is] strongly preferred by black voters” or “[w]here black voters have a genuine candidate of choice”) (citation omitted); cf. Citizens for a Better Gretna v. Gretna, 834 F.2d 496, 503 (5th Cir.1987) (concluding that a candidate’s race is most relevant when the election “offers voters the choice of supporting a viable minority candidate”).
Recognizing the relevance of a candidate’s race when the record shows minority political cohesion and especially strong white cohesion in elections involving black candidates does not preempt the possibility that a white candidate may be the black community’s genuine and actual candidate of choice. As the Second Circuit rightly concluded, “[n]o legal rule should presuppose the inevitability of electoral ápar-theid — least of all a rule interpreting a statute designed to implement the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution.” NAACP v. City of Niagara Falls, 65 F.3d 1002, 1016 (2d Cir.1995). Indeed, the district court properly evaluated the success of the black community’s preferred candidate in white-white elections because of our refusal to conclude that racial representation per se is the lynchpin of a dilution determination. See Cousin, 145 F.3d at 825. Not only is such an abstracted presumption abhorrent to the colorblind goals of the Equal Protection Clause, see, e.g., Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900, 911-12, 115 S.Ct. 2475, 132 L.Ed.2d 762 (1995), but it directly conflicts with § 2’s dictate that nothing in the Voting Rights Act shall be construed to require proportional representation. See 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b).
By granting greater weight to black-white elections when white bloc voting is targeted against black candidates, we do not disrespect this principle. We merely recognize the established realities of white bloc voting in rural west Tennessee, and conclude uncontroversially that blacks do not enjoy,an equal opportunity “to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice” when they can elect only those candidates sanctioned by the white majority.
II.
I also write separately to express disagreement with both the district court’s definition of “influence” districts for the purposes of the “totality of the circumstances” analysis, and the majority’s implicit recognition that, under certain unspecified circumstances, a state may remedy vote dilution in one area of a state by compliance with § 2 in another.
First, the district court erred in adopting the RWTAAC II court’s bright-line definition of “influence” districts as any district where a minority group comprises between 25% and 55% of the district. Rural West Tennessee African American Affairs Council, Inc. v. Sundquist, 29 F.Supp.2d 448, 461 (W.D.Tenn.1998). While one might expect a political group to wield significant influence in a district in which it comprises at least one-quarter of the voting age population, the realities of white bloc voting command that we apply a more flexible standard in assessing the extent to which purported influence districts provide minorities with an equal op*847portunity to elect representatives of choice. Notwithstanding a minority population that may even approach upwards of 40% in a district, when, as here, 90% of whites coalesce along racial lines to defeat the black community’s preferred candidate of choice, the ability of blacks to “influence” elections in these circumstances is specious. The bright-line 25% rule obscures the realities of white bloc voting, and implies black “influence” that may not in fact exist. Accordingly, I would expressly reject the 25% rule, and adopt a more flexible, case-by-case standard that takes white bloc voting into account.
Second, the majority concludes that “neither over-proportionality in one area of the State nor substantial proportionality in the State as a whole should ordinarily be used to offset a problem of vote dilution in one discrete area of the State.” Ante at 843 (emphasis added). For this conclusion, the majority relies upon the Supreme Court’s holdings in Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U.S. 899, 116 S.Ct. 1894, 135 L.Ed.2d 207 (1996) and Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997, 114 S.Ct. 2647, 129 L.Ed.2d 775 (1994), which collectively provide that a state may not remedy vote dilution in one area of a state by compliance with § 2 in another area. Indeed, as the majority acknowledges, the De Grandy court scathingly critiqued the premise that “the rights of some minority voters under § 2 may be traded off against the rights of other members of the same minority class,” 512 U.S. at 1019, 114 S.Ct. 2647, and the Shaiv court plainly ruled that “the vote-dilution injuries suffered by ... persons [in one area of the State] are not remedied by creating a safe majority-black district somewhere else in the State.” 517 U.S. at 917, 116 S.Ct. 1894. Inexplicably, the majority reads ambiguity into these conclusions, and thereby leaves the door open to the notion that a state may dilute the vote of minority voters in ways that would otherwise violate § 2, as long as it grants equal opportunity to some other set of minority voters. This conclusion is contrary to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of § 2, which clearly provides that a state may not remedy vote dilution in one area by legal compliance in another.