As explained below, that position cannot be squared with the one taken by the majority in this case. There is no support for this distinction in UJO, and no authority in the cases relied on by the Court either. When an assumption that people in a particular minority group (whether they are defined by the political party, religion, ethnic group, or race to which they belong) will vote in a particular way is used to benefit that group, no constitutional violation occurs. Court's determination to depart from our prior decisions by carving out this narrow group of cases for strict scrutiny in place of the review customarily applied in cases dealing with discrimination in electoral districting on the basis of race. Id., at 357 (internal quotation marks omitted). To comply with 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - which prohibits a covered jurisdiction from implementing changes in a "standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting" without federal authorization - North Carolina submitted to the Attorney General a congressional . Accord, Wygant, 476 U. S., at 273 (plurality opinion). Nor was it ever in doubt that "the State deliberately used race in a purposeful manner." In the lower court record, the district was said to resemble a Rorschach ink-blot test, and theWall Street Journalclaimed the district looked like a "bug splattered on a windshield." See 364 U. S., at 341, 346. a. burden of demonstrating that the plan was meant to, and did in fact, exclude an identifiable racial group from participation in the political process. We have made clear, however, that equal protection analysis "is not dependent. The food stamps cannot be used to buy wine. H. Lefler & A. Newsom, The History of a Southern State: North Carolina 18-22 (3d ed. Why did four justices in this case dissent from majority opinion? of Elections, 393 U. S. 544, 569 (1969) (emphasis added). Nothing in the decision precludes white voters (or voters of any other race) from bringing the analytically distinct claim that a reapportionment plan rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to segregate citizens into separate voting districts on the basis of race without sufficient justification. But it soon became apparent that guaranteeing equal access to the polls would not suffice to root out other racially discriminatory voting practices. Analogous Case. claim in UJO was that the State had "violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments by deliberately revising its reapportionment plan along racial lines." The district lines may be drawn, for example, to provide for compact districts of contiguous territory, or to maintain the integrity of political subdivisions. The Court held that members of a racial minority group claiming 2 vote dilution through the use of multimember districts must prove three threshold conditions: that the minority group "is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district," that the minority group is "politically cohesive," and that "the white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate." More generally, we remarked: "The mere fact that one interest group or another concerned with the outcome of [the district's] elections has found itself outvoted and without legislative seats of its. 430 U. S., at 167-168 (opinion of WHITE, J., joined by STEVENS and REHNQUIST, JJ.). by Herbert Wachtell, William H. Brown III, Thomas J. Henderson, Frank R. Parker, Brenda Wright, Nicholas DeB. The logic of its theory appears to be that race-conscious redistricting that "segregates" by drawing odd-shaped lines is qualitatively different from race-conscious redistricting that affects groups in some other way. Cf. The plaintiffs alleged that the statute excluded nonwhites from one district and concentrated them in the other three. Moreover, it seems clear to us that proof sometimes will not be difficult at all. Here, the Attorney General objected to the State's plan on the ground that it failed to draw a second majority-minority district for what appeared to be pretextual reasons. The Court offers them no explanation of this paradox. The Attorney General objected to the plan on the ground that a second district could have been created to give effect to minority voting strength in the State's south-central to southeastern region. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 279-280 (1986) (plurality opinion of Powell, J.) Explain New York free trade zone class codes. tutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Wygant v. Jackson Bd. Id., at 313. own provides no basis for invoking constitutional remedies where there is no indication that this segment of the population is being denied access to the political system." Until today, the Court has analyzed equal protection claims involving race in electoral districting differently from equal protection claims involving other forms of governmental conduct, and before turning to the different regimes of analysis it will be useful to set out the relevant respects in which such districting differs from the characteristic circumstances in which a State might otherwise consciously consider race. No analogous purpose or effect has been alleged in this case. For these reasons, we conclude that a plaintiff challenging a reapportionment statute under the Equal Protection Clause may state a claim by alleging that the legislation, though race neutral on its face, rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to separate voters into different districts on the basis of race, and that the separation lacks sufficient justification. It may therefore be that few electoral districting cases are ever likely to employ the strict scrutiny the Court holds to be applicable on remand if appellants' allegations are "not contradicted." A. Croson Co., supra, at 493; see also Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 484 (1980) (opinion of Burger, C. United States Supreme Court. The Court reasoned: "If these allegations upon a trial remained uncontradicted or unqualified, the conclusion would be irresistible, tantamount for all practical purposes to a mathematical demonstration, that the legislation is solely concerned with segregating white and colored voters by fencing Negro citizens out of town so as to deprive them of their pre-existing municipal vote." See, e. g., Holland v. Illinois, 493 U. S. 474, 484, n. 2 (1990) ("[A] prosecutor's assumption that a black juror may be presumed to be partial simply because he is black violates the Equal Protection. If it is permissible to draw boundaries to provide adequate representation for rural voters, for union members, for Hasidic Jews, for Polish Americans, or for Republicans, it necessarily follows that it is permissible to do the same thing for members of the very minority group whose history in the United States gave birth to the Equal Protection Clause. A covered jurisdiction's interest in creating majority-minority districts in order to comply with the nonretrogression rule under 5 of the Voting Rights Act does not give it carte blanche to engage in racial gerrymandering. Since I do not agree that appellants alleged an equal protection violation and because the Court of Appeals faithfully followed the Court's prior cases, I dissent and would affirm the judgment below. wide, the majority concluded that appellants had failed to state an equal protection claim. The purposes of favoring minority voters and complying with the Voting Rights Act are not discriminatory in the constitutional sense, the court reasoned, and majority-minority districts have an impermissibly discriminatory effect only when they unfairly dilute or cancel out white voting strength. The North Carolina Republican Party and individual voters brought suit in Federal District Court, alleging that the plan constituted an unconstitutional political gerrymander under Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S. 109 (1986). Suppose a person who buys only wine and cheese is The principle of equality is at war with the notion that District A must be represented by a Negro, as it is with the notion that District B must be represented by a Caucasian, District C by a Jew, District D by a Catholic, and so on. That system, by whatever name it is called, is a divisive force in a community, emphasizing differences between candidates and voters that are irrelevant in the constitutional sense. "When racial or religious lines are drawn by the State, the multiracial, multireligious communities that our Constitution seeks to weld together as one become separatist; antagonisms that relate to race or to religion rather than to political issues are generated; communities seek not the best representative but the best racial or religious partisan. The District Court in Pope dismissed appellants' claim, reasoning in part that "plaintiffs do not allege, nor can they, that the state's redistricting plan has caused them to be 'shut out of the political process.''' Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130, 141 (1976). 91-2038, p. 43a (Complaint in Pope v. Blue, No. With respect to this incident, one writer has observed that "understanding why the configurations are shaped as they are requires us to know at least as much about the interests of incumbent Democratic politicians, as it does knowledge of the Voting Rights Act." Pleading such an element, the Court holds, suffices without a further allegation of harm, to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under the Fourteenth Amendment. Appellants, five North Carolina residents, filed this action against appellee state and federal officials, claiming that the State had created an unconstitutional racial gerrymander in violation of, among other things, the Fourteenth Amendment. This problem continues the Draper Consulting situation from previous problems. As for representative democracy, I have difficulty seeing how it is threatened (indeed why it is not, rather, enhanced) by districts that are not even alleged to dilute anyone's vote. Location North Carolina General Assembly. At issue in Wright were four districts contained in a New York apportionment statute. 6 In this regard, I agree with JUSTICE WHITE'S assessment of the difficulty the white plaintiffs would have here in showing that their opportunity to participate equally in North Carolina's electoral process has been unconstitutionally diminished. of Gal. Although I disagree with the holding that appellants' claim is cognizable, the Court's discussion of the level of scrutiny it requires warrants a few comments. Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U. S. 725, 755 (1983) (STEVENS, J., concurring) ("One need not use Justice Stewart's classic definition of obscenity-'I know it when I see it' -as an ultimate standard for judging the constitutionality of a gerrymander to recognize that dramatically irregular shapes may have sufficient probative force to call for an explanation" (footnotes omitted)). Supreme Court rulings in the Shaw v. Reno (1995) and the Shelby County vs. Holder (2013) cases relied heavily on the reasoning behind the passage of the Voting Rights Act (1965). of Gal. Thus, state legislation that expressly distinguishes among citizens on account of race-whether it contains an explicit distinction or is "unexplainable on grounds other than race," Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 266-must be narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest. Nor, because of the distinctions between the two categories, is there any risk that Fourteenth Amendment districting law as such will be taken to imply anything for purposes of general Fourteenth Amendment scrutiny about "benign" racial discrimination, or about group entitlement as distinct from individual protection, or about the appropriateness of strict or other heightened scrutiny.7. Supp., at 466-467; id., at 474 (Voorhees, C. J., concurring. JOHN H. MERRILL, ALABAMA SECRETARY OF STATE, ET AL. Fast Facts: Baker v. Carr Two others concluded that the statute did not minimize or cancel out a minority group's voting strength and that the State's intent to comply with the Voting Rights Act, as interpreted by the Department of Justice, "foreclose[d] any finding that [the State] acted with the invidious purpose of discriminating against white voters." 2. 92-357. See 808 F. H. Jefferson Powell argued the cause for state appellees. In my view there is no justification for the. Nor is it a particularly accurate description of what has occurred. Justia makes no guarantees or warranties that the annotations are accurate or reflect the current state of law, and no annotation is intended to be, nor should it be construed as, legal advice. 392 (WDNC), and this Court summarily affirmed, 506 U. S. 801 (1992). 92-357. Contacting Justia or any attorney through this site, via web form, email, or otherwise, does not create an attorney-client relationship. 9 As has been remarked, "[d]ragons, bacon strips, dumbbells and other strained shapes are not always reliable signs that partisan (or racial or ethnic or factional) interests are being served, while the most regularly drawn district may turn out to have been skillfully constructed with an intent to aid one party." "As long as members of racial groups have [a] commonality of interest" and "racial bloc voting takes place," he argues, "legislators will have to take race into account" in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act. of Oral Arg. Blumstein, Defining and Proving Race Discrimination: Perspectives on the Purpose V s. Results Approach from the Voting Rights Act, 69 Va. L. Rev. See, e. g., ante, at 639-641.4 A contrary conclusion could only be described as perverse. 3. Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 340 (1960). It is particularly ironic that the case in which today's majority chooses to abandon settled law and to recognize for the first time this "analytically distinct" constitutional claim, ante, at 652, is a challenge by white voters to the plan under which North Carolina has sent black representatives to Congress for the first time since Reconstruction. ); id., at 518 (KENNEDY, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Wygant, 476 U. S., at 280282 (plurality opinion); id., at 286 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Yet, under the State's plan, they still constitute a voting majority in 10 (or 83%) of the 12 congressional districts. Significant changes in the area of redistricting and gerrymandering, 1. Redistricting legislation that is alleged to be so bizarre on its face that it is unexplainable on grounds other than race demands the same close scrutiny, regardless of the motivations underlying its adoption. Although the Court concluded that the redistricting scheme at issue in Beer was nonretrogressive, it did not hold that the plan, for that reason, was immune from constitutional challenge. Id., at 53-54. The group claimed that the districts were racial gerrymanders that violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. After the General Assembly passed legislation creating the second district, a group of white voters in North Carolina, led by Ruth O. Shaw, sued on the grounds that the district was an unconstitutional gerrymander . The majority resolved the case under the Fifteenth Amendment. Indeed, because most of the nonwhite voters lived together in one area, it would have been difficult to construct voting districts without concentrations of nonwhite voters. v. Bakke, supra, at 305 (opinion of Powell, J.). Bush administration rejected this plan on the grounds that it gave blacks insufficient congressional representation. Equal Protection Clause. Cf. Moreover, a group's power to affect the political process does not automatically dissipate by virtue of an electoral loss. One state legislator has remarked that" '[i]f you drove down the interstate with both car doors open, you'd kill most of the people in the district.'" As a majority of the Justices construed the complaint, the UJO plaintiffs made a different claim: that the New York plan impermissibly "diluted" their voting strength. Id., at 53-54. shape of the district lines could "be explained only in racial terms." Cf. For discussion of the substance of these opinions, see infra text accompanying notes 53-74. North Carolina's decision to create a majority-minority district can be explained as an attempt to meet this objection. These lawmakers are quite aware that the districts they create will have a white or a black majority; and with each new district comes the unavoidable choice as to the racial composition of the district." No.1, 458 U. S. 457, 485 (1982). They also stated: "'Our argument is that the history of the area demonstrates that there could be-and in fact was-no reason other than race to divide the community at this time.'" tion. Constitutional Issue/Question (Shaw v. Reno). See Karcher, supra, at 776 (WHITE, J., dissenting); Wells v. Rockefeller, 394 U. S. 542, 554 (1969) (WHITE, J., dissenting). In the present case, the facts could sustain no such allegation. A. Thernstrom, Whose Votes Count? Cf. You can explore additional available newsletters here. Unlike other contexts in which we have addressed the State's conscious use of race, see, e.g.,Richmond v. J.A. Harry A. Blackmun Blackmun. v. RENO, ATTORNEY GENERAL, ET AL. The central explanation has to do with the nature of the redistricting process. It is unnecessary for us to decide whether or how a reapportionment plan that, on its face, can be explained in nonracial terms successfully could be challenged. Such districting might have both the intent and effect of "packing" members of the group so as to deprive them of any influence in other districts. Following is the case brief for Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993) Case Summary of Shaw v. Reno: The State of North Carolina, in response to the U.S. Attorney General's objection that it had only one majority-black congressional district, created a second majority-black district. T(t)=37.29+0.46cos[12(t16.37)]. The Justices disagreed only as to whether the plaintiffs had carried their burden of proof at trial. The dissenters thought the unusual. Journalize the entry to record and establish the allowance using the percentage method for January credit sales. Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights 44 (1987). Ante, at 658. In our view, the District Court properly dismissed appellants' claims against the federal appellees. 5-4 decision for Shaw majority opinion by Sandra Day O'Connor. Such evidence will always be useful in cases that lack other evidence of invidious intent. Racial gerrymandering, even for remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing racial factions; it threatens to carry us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters-a goal that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments embody, and to which the Nation continues to aspire. They alleged that the General Assembly deliberately "create[d] two Congressional Districts in which a majority of black voters was concentrated arbitrarily--without regard to any other considerations, such as compactness, contiguousness, geographical boundaries, or political subdivisions" with the purpose "to create Congressional Districts along racial lines" and to assure the election of two black representatives to Congress. "The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is of the essence of a democratic society."Reynolds v. Sims[1964]. Our focus is on appellants' claim that the State engaged in unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. Because the holding is limited to such anomalous circumstances, ante, at 649, it perhaps will not substantially hamper a State's legitimate efforts to redistrict in favor of racial minorities. See, e. g., White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755, 765-766 (1973); Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124, 153-155 (1971). Appellants contend that redistricting legislation that is so bizarre on its face that it is "unexplainable on grounds other than race," Arlington Heights, supra, at 266, demands the same close scrutiny that we give other state laws that classify citizens by race. 634 SHAW v. RENO Opinion of the Court tutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Nonetheless, the notion that North Carolina's plan, under which whites remain a voting majority in a disproportionate number of congressional districts, and pursuant to which the State has sent its first black representatives since Reconstruction to the United States Congress, might have violated appellants' constitutional rights is both a fiction and a departure from settled equal protection principles. See Palmer v. Thompson, 403 U. S. 217, 225 (1971); United States v. O'Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 385 (1968). Indeed, racial classifications receive close scrutiny even when they may be said to burden or benefit the races equally. Under the General Assembly's plan, two will vote for congressional representatives in District 12 and three will vote in neighboring District 2. 15, 1. The ruling was significant in the area of redistricting and racial gerrymandering.
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