Complete Home & Office Legal Guide/Complete Home and Office Legal Guide (Chestnut) (1993).ISO/stat/ussct/ohiore.asc

Text File | 1993-08-01 | 36KB | 644 lines

/* This case, regarding the legality of the reapportionment plan
of Ohio, which included the establishment of "forced" districts
in which minorities would be guaranteed that they controlled the
most votes within the district is lawful; this opinion is also
instructive in allowing unequal sizes for districts to allow for
the preservation of county lines in districts. */

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be
released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the
time the opinion is issued.  The syllabus constitutes no part of
the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of
Decisions for the convenience of the reader.  See United States
v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

VOINOVICH, GOVERNOR OF OHIO, et al. v.  QUILTER, SPEAKER PRO
TEMPORE OF OHIO HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, et al.
appeal from the united states district court for
the northern district of ohio
No. 91-1618.  Argued December 8, 1992-Decided March 2, 1993

Pursuant to the Ohio Constitution's requirement that electoral
districts for the state legislature be reapportioned every 10
years, appellant James Tilling drafted and the state
apportionment board adopted in 1991 an apportionment plan that
created several districts in which a majority of the population
is a member of a specific minority group.  Appellees, Democratic
board members who voted against the plan and others, filed suit
in the District Court, asking that the plan be invalidated on the
grounds that it violated 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and
the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.  A three-judge district
court ordered the board to reconsider the plan, holding that 2 of
the Voting Rights Act prohibits the wholesale creation of
majority-minority districts unless necessary to remedy a 2
violation; the board, it held, had failed to show such a
violation.  The District Court reaffirmed that holding when it
reviewed the board's revised 1992 plan, rejecting appellants'
argument that it should not have invalidated the 1991 plan
without finding that, under the totality of the circumstances,
the plan diluted minority voting strength.  In addition, the
court held that the board had violated the Fifteenth Amendment by
applying the remedy of creating majority-minority districts
intentionally and for the purpose of political advantage.  It
further held that the plan violated the Fourteenth Amendment by
departing from the requirement that all districts be of nearly
equal population.

Held:

 1. The plan does not violate 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Pp. 5-11.
 (a) Appellees raise an ``influence-dilution'' claim.

They contend that, by packing black voters in a few districts
with a disproportionately large black voter population, the plan
deprived them of a larger number of districts in which they would
have been an influential minority capable of electing their
candidates of choice with the help of cross-over votes from white
voters.  While this Court has not decided whether such a claim is
viable under 2, the Court assumes for the purpose of resolving
this case that appellees have stated a cognizable 2 claim.  Pp.
5-7.

 (b) Plaintiffs can prevail on a 2 dilution claim only if
they show that, under the totality of the circumstances, the
State's apportionment scheme has the effect of diminishing or
abridging the voting strength of the protected class.  The
District Court erred in holding that 2 prohibits the creation of
majority-minority districts unless such districts are necessary
to remedy a statutory violation, since 2 contains no per se
prohibitions against any particular type of district.  Instead,
it focuses exclusively on the consequences of apportionment.  The
court also mistakenly placed the burden of justifying
apportionment on Ohio by requiring appellants to justify the
creation of majority-minority districts.  Section 2(b) places at
least the initial burden of proving an apportionment's invalidity
on the plaintiff's shoulders.  Although the federal courts may
not order the creation of majority-minority districts unless
necessary to remedy a violation of federal law, that prohibition
does not extend to the States.  The federal courts are barred
from intervening in state apportionment in the absence of such a
violation precisely because it is the domain of the States and
not the federal courts to conduct apportionment in the first
place.  Pp. 8-10.

 (c) The District Court, had it applied the three-part
vote-dilution test of Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 50-51,
would have rejected appellees' 2 claim on the ground that
appellees failed to demonstrate Gingles' third
precondition-sufficient white majority bloc voting to frustrate
the election of the minority group's candidate of choice.  The
court specifically found, and appellees agree, that Ohio does not
suffer from racially polarized voting.  Pp. 10-11.

 2. The District Court's holding that the board violated
the Fifteenth Amendment by intentionally diluting minority voting
strength for political reasons is clearly erroneous.  Tilling's
preference for federal over state law when he believed the two in
conflict does not raise an inference of intentional
discrimination; it demonstrates obedience to the Supremacy
Clause.  Nor does the fact that Tilling, a Republican, possessed
Democratic documents speculating about possible discriminatory
strategies Tilling might use demonstrate that Tilling in fact had
such a discriminatory strategy.  Nothing in the record indicates
that Tilling relied on those documents in preparing the plan.
Indeed, the record indicates that Tilling and the board relied on
sources, such as the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, Ohio Conference of Branches, that were wholly
unlikely to engage in or tolerate intentional discrimination
against black voters.  This Court expresses no view on the
relationship between the Fifteenth Amendment and race- conscious
redistricting; it concludes only that the finding of intentional
discrimination was clear error.  Pp. 11-13.

 3. The District Court erred in holding that the plan
violated the Fourteenth Amendment requirement that electoral
districts be of nearly equal population.  When the court found
that the maximum total deviation from ideal district size
exceeded 10%, appellees established a prima facie case of
discrimination and appellants were required to justify the
deviation.  They attempted to do so, arguing that the deviation
resulted from Ohio's constitutional policy in favor of preserving
county boundaries.  However, the District Court mistakenly held
that total deviations in excess of 10% cannot be justified by a
policy of preserving political subdivision boundaries.  On
remand, the court should consider whether the deviations from
ideal district size are justified using the analysis employed in
Brown v. Thomson, 462 U. S. 835, 843-846, and Mahan v. Howell,
410 U. S.  315, 325-330, which requires the court to determine
whether the plan could reasonably be said to advance the State's
policy, and, if it could, whether the resulting population
disparities exceed constitutional limits.  Pp. 13-14.

Reversed and remanded.

O'Connor, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Justice O'Connor delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is yet another dispute arising out of legislative
redistricting and reapportionment.  See, e.g., Growe v.  Emison,
507 U. S. --- (1993).  Today we consider whether Ohio's creation
of several legislative districts dominated by minority voters
violated 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 437, as
amended, 42 U. S. C. 1973.

I

 Under the Ohio Constitution, the state apportionment
board must reapportion electoral districts for the state
legislature every 10 years.  Ohio Const., Art. XI, 1.  In 1991,
the board selected James Tilling to draf