Washington v. Davis(1976). It is shortsighted as well, for a regularly shaped district can just as effectively effectuate racially discriminatory gerrymandering as an odd-shaped one.9 By focusing on looks rather than impact, the majority "immediately casts attention in the wrong direction-toward superficialities of shape and size, rather than toward the political realities of district composition." See Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25, 40-41 (1993) ("Unless these points are established, there neither has been a wrong nor can be a remedy"). Shortly after the complaint in Pope v. Blue was filed, appellants instituted the present action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights 44 (1987). JOHN H. MERRILL, ALABAMA SECRETARY OF STATE, ET AL. Shaw. Analogous Case. Appellants are five residents of Dur-. As long as members of racial groups have the commonality of interest implicit in our ability to talk about concepts like <"minority voting strength," and "dilution of minority votes," cf.Thornburg v. Gingles(1986), and as long as racial bloc voting takes place, legislators will have to take race into account in order to avoid dilution of minority voting strength in the districting plans they adopt. The food stamps cannot be used to buy wine. e., an intent to aggravate "the unequal distribution of electoral power." Equal Protection Clause. Proc. Not very long ago, of course, it was argued that minority groups defined by race were the only groups the Equal Protection Clause protected in this context. In this case, however, we know what the legislators' purpose was: The North Carolina Legislature drew District 12 to include a majority of African-American voters. Contacting Justia or any attorney through this site, via web form, email, or otherwise, does not create an attorney-client relationship. The distinction is without foundation. Constitution prohibits using race as the basis for how to draw districts, 1. The Court appears to accept this, and it does not purport to disturb the law of vote dilution in any way. 1994), probable jurisdiction noted 115 . The company raises all equity from outside financing. This new plant is expected to generate aftertax cash flows of$9.4 million in perpetuity. Ante, at 646 (emphasis in original). Dissenting Opinion. Id., at 179 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment). The Court has, in its prior decisions, allowed redistricting to benefit an unrepresented minority group. A reapportionment plan that includes in one district individuals who belong to the same race, but who are otherwise widely separated by geographical and political boundaries, and who may have little in common with one another but the color of their skin, bears an uncomfortable resemblance to political apartheid. Constitution prohibits using race as the basis for how to draw districts 2. It is currently at its target debtequity ratio of .60. UJO, supra, at 151-152. Gaffney v. Cummings, 412. Allen v. State Bd. Photochronograph Corporation (PC) manufactures time series photographic equipment. Because appellants here stated such a claim, the District Court erred in dismissing their complaint. 2 It should be noted that 2 of the Voting Rights Act forbids any State to impose specified devices or procedures that result in a denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color. See, e. g., Croson, supra, at 509 (plurality opinion). Although the boundary lines were somewhat irregular, the majority reasoned, they were not so bizarre as to permit of no other conclusion. McCain v. Lybrand, 465 U. S. 236, 245 (1984) (quoting South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 334, 335 (1966)).5 Like New York, North Carolina failed to prove to, 5 In Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 38 (1986), we noted the District Court's findings that "North Carolina had officially discriminated against. SHAW et al. 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." Shaw v Hunt. 657-658. But just because there frequently will be a constitutionally permissible use of race in electoral districting, as exemplified by the consideration of race to comply with the Voting Rights Act (quite apart from the consideration of race to remedy a violation of the Act or the Consti-. Subsequent decisions of this Court have similarly interpreted Gomillion as turning on the unconstitutional effect of the legislation. App. One need look no further than the Voting Rights Act to understand that this may be required, and we have held that race may constitutionally be taken into account in order to comply with that Act. A second distinction between districting and most other governmental decisions in which race has figured is that those other decisions using racial criteria characteristically occur in circumstances in which the use of race to the advantage of one person is necessarily at the obvious expense of a member of a different race. v. Feeney, 442 U. S. 256, 272 (1979). UJO, 430 U. S., at 162165 (opinion of WHITE, J. There is thus no theoretical inconsistency in having two distinct approaches to equal protection analysis, one for cases of electoral districting and one for most other types of state governmental decisions. of Ed., supra, at 282-283 (plurality opinion). 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. Clause" (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 630-631 (1991) ("If our society is to continue to progress as a multiracial democracy, it must recognize that the automatic invocation of race stereotypes retards that progress and causes continued hurt and injury"). They reinforce the belief, held by too many for too much of our history, that individuals should be judged by the color of their skin. A second distinction between districting and most other governmental decisions in which race has figured is that those other decisions using racial criteria characteristically occur in circumstances in which the use of race to the advantage of one person is necessarily at the obvious expense of a member of a different race. SHAW ET AL. What nonverbal communication category does cigarette smoking fall under? Put differently, we believe that reapportionment is one area in which appearances do matter. When a district obviously is created solely to effectuate the perceived common interests of one racial group, elected officials are more likely to believe that their primary obligation is to represent only the members of that group, rather than their constituency as a whole. In particular, they have no bearing on whether the plan ultimately is found to violate the Constitution. I dissent. taker's concurrence appears to be premised on the notion that black citizens were being "fenc[ed] out" of municipal benefits. Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 266 (1977). But their loose and imprecise use by today's majority has, I fear, led it astray. In addition, nothing in the Court's decisions compels the conclusion that racial and political gerrymanders are subject to the same constitutional scrutiny; in fact, this country's long and persistent history of racial discrimination in voting and the Court's Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence would seem to compel the opposite conclusion. Hence, I see no need. Fast Facts: Shaw v. Reno Case Argued: April 20, 1993 Decision Issued: June 28, 1993 Byron R. White White. North Carolina's decision to create a majority-minority district can be explained as an attempt to meet this objection. Supp., at 466-467; id., at 474 (Voorhees, C. J., concurring. It deemed appellants' claim under the Fifteenth Amendment essentially subsumed within their related claim under the Equal Protection Clause. The Court extended the reasoning of Gomillion to congressional districting in Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U. S. 52 (1964). Three Justices approved the New York statute, in part, precisely because it adhered to traditional districting principles: "[WJe think it permissible for a State, employing sound districting principles such as compactness and population equality, to attempt to prevent racial minorities from being repeatedly outvoted by creating districts that will afford fair representation to the members of those racial groups who are sufficiently numerous and whose residential patterns afford the opportunity of creating districts in which they will be in the majority.". Our different approaches to equal protection in electoral districting and nondistricting cases reflect these differences. 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. Classifying citizens by race, as we have said, threatens spe-. *Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Jewish Congress by Marc D. Stern and Lois C. Waldman; for the Republican National Committee by Benjamin L. Ginsberg and Michael A. Hess; and for the Washington Legal Foundation et al. No inquiry into legislative purpose is necessary when the racial classification appears on the face of the statute. This is altogether antithetical to our system of representative democracy. Katzenbach, Michael R. Cole, Alan E. Kraus, Laughlin McDonald, Kathy Wilde, E. Richard Larson, and Dennis Courtland Hayes; for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., by Elaine R. Jones, Charles Stephen Ralston, and Dayna L. Cunningham; and for Bolley Johnson et al. In an opinion which explored the nature of "political questions" and the appropriateness of Court action in them, the Court held that there were no such questions to be answered in this case and that legislative apportionment was a justiciable issue. given $1,000\$1,000$1,000 in food stamps to supplement his $1,000\$1,000$1,000 See, e. g., Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613 (1982) (at-large system); Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55 (1980) (same); White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755 (1973) (multimember districts); Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124 (1971) (same); see also supra, at 640-641. ); post, at 684, and n. 6 (opinion of SOUTER, J. v. Bakke, supra, at 305 (opinion of Powell, J.). The State's revised plan contained a second majority-black district in the north-central region. They reinforce the belief, held by too many for too much of our history, that individuals should be judged by the color of their skin. 3 Although Davis involved political groups, the principles were expressly drawn from the Court's racial gerrymandering cases. to Juris. The new district stretches approximately 160 miles along Interstate 85 and, for much of its length, is no wider than the 1-85 corridor. If not, it does not. 808 F. 808 F. Summary: Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case argued on April 20, 1993. zarre shape of District 12 demonstrates, and that there is no evidence of black political cohesion. The First District was somewhat hook-shaped, beginning in the northeastern part of the state and tapering down with fingerlike extensions almost to the South Carolina border. The consideration of race in "segregation" cases is no different than in other race-conscious districting; from the standpoint of the affected groups, moreover, the line-drawings all act in similar fashion.8 A plan that "segregates" being functionally indistinguishable from any of the other varieties of gerrymandering, we should be consistent in what we require from a claimant: proof of discriminatory purpose and effect. Appellants contended that the General Assembly's revised reapportionment plan violated several provisions of the United States Constitution, including the Fourteenth Amendment. Laws that explicitly distinguish between individuals on racial grounds fall within the core of that prohibition. Classifications of citizens on the basis of race "are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality." The first involves direct and outright deprivation of the right to vote, for example by means of a poll tax or literacy test. Id., at 342-348. Appellants allege that the revised plan, which contains district boundary lines of dramatically irregular shape, consti-. The majority attempts to distinguish UJO by imagining a heretofore unknown type of constitutional claim. We also do not decide whether appellants' complaint stated a claim under constitutional provisions other than the Fourteenth Amendment. Limited by its own terms to cases involving unusually shaped districts, the Court's approach nonetheless will unnecessarily hinder to some extent a State's voluntary effort to ensure a modicum of minority representation. 3:92CV71-P (WDNC)). Wright is relevant only to the extent that it illustrates a proposition with which I have no problem: that a complaint stating that a plan has carved out districts on the basis of race can, under certain circumstances, state a claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. by Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., Scott A. Sinder, Kevin X. Crowley, and James A. Peters. United States Supreme Court. 4 The majority's use of "segregation" to describe the effect of districting here may suggest that it carries effects comparable to school segregation making it subject to like scrutiny. Putting that to one side, it seems utterly implausible to me to presume, as the Court does, that North Carolina's creation of this strangely shaped majority-minority district "generates" within the white plaintiffs here anything comparable to "a feeling of inferi-. 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." US attorney general rejected a North Carolina congressional reappointment plan because the plan created only one black majority district, 1. The distinction is untenable. 9 The Court says its new cause of action is justified by what I understand to be some ingredients of stigmatic harm, see ante, at 647-648, and by a "threa[t] to our system of representative democracy," ante, at 650, both caused by the mere adoption of a districting plan with the elements I have described in the text, supra, at 685. See Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339. John Paul . Croson, 488 U. S., at 494 (plurality opinion); see also id., at 520 (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment). Accordingly, the Court held that such schemes violate the Fourteenth Amendment when they are adopted with a discriminatory purpose and have the effect of diluting minority voting strength. In my view there is no justification for the. Redistricting advantage for blacks faces more scrutiny than an advantage for a non-minority. The U.S. Supreme Court and the federal government should encourage states to find ways to comply with the act, even if compliance results in oddly shaped districts, the attorney argued. understood as anything other than an effort to "segregat[e] voters" on the basis of race. They did not even claim to be white. Once the Attorney General has found that a proposed redistricting change violates 5's nonretrogression principle in that it will abridge a racial minority's right to vote, does "narrow tailoring" mean that the most the State can do is preserve the status quo? 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." Moreover, redistricting differs from other kinds of state decisionmaking in that the legislature always is aware of race when it draws district lines, just as it is aware of age, economic status, religious and political persuasion, and a variety of other demographic factors. Connor v. Finch, 431 U. S. 407, 422 (1977); the "stacking" of "a large minority population concentration with a larger white population," Parker, Racial Gerrymandering and Legislative Reapportionment, in Minority Vote Dilution 85, 92 (C. Davidson ed. 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. White v. Regester, supra, at 766. 1984); and, finally, the "concentration of [minority voters] into districts where they constitute an excessive majority," Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 46, n. 11 (1986), also called "packing," Voinovich, supra, at 153. In the 1870's, for example, opponents of Reconstruction in Mississippi "concentrated the bulk of the black population in a 'shoestring' Congressional district running the length of the Mississippi River, leaving five others with white majorities." Explained as an attempt to meet this objection June 28, 1993 Byron R. White White, at (! 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