finding that district court erred in “ignoring the sustained success [of] black voters” in electing candidates of choice, page ad in the weekly paper. He went to several meetings that were arranged by the Democratic party, and he was also able to arrange for introductions to groups that he perhaps didn’t know. 27 where the plaintiffs “failed utterly . . . to offer any explanation for the success of black candidates”
How later courts described this case
- finding that district court erred in “ignoring the sustained success [of] black voters” in electing candidates of choice, page ad in the weekly paper. He went to several meetings that were arranged by the Democratic party, and he was also able to arrange for introductions to groups that he perhaps didn’t know. 27 where the plaintiffs “failed utterly . . . to offer any explanation for the success of black candidates”
- explaining that the 1982 amendments to § 2 of the VRA were a rejection of the position of the plurality in Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 100 S.Ct. 1490, 64 L.Ed.2d 47 (1980), which “required proof that the contested electoral practice or mechanism was adopted or maintained with the intent to discriminate against minority voters”
- concluding that "the District Court's approach, which tested data derived from three election years in each district, and which revealed that blacks strongly supported black candidates, while, to the black candidates' usual detriment, whites rarely did, satisfactorily addresses each facet of the legal standard"
- recognizing that “[mjultimember districts and at-large election schemes ... are not per se violative of minority voters’ rights,” but affirming the district court’s conclusion that the multimember electoral structure at issue did violate § 2 because it resulted in racially discriminatory vote dilution
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Marc Veasey v. Greg Abbott, 830 F.3d 216 (2016)
The State argues that the Gingles factors are inapposite in this context, and that we should apply the two-part test as it was applied in the Seventh Circuit in Frank v. Walker, 768 F.3d 744, 754-55 (7th Cir. 2014), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 135 S.Ct. 1551, 191 L.Ed.2d 638 (2015).
Distinguished by Thompson v. Glades County Board of County Commissioners, 493 F.3d 1253 (2007)
The Supreme Court’s recent analysis in Perry that a district with a bare Latino majority failed to satisfy Gingles is inapplicable because the Supreme Court's conclusion that many of the Latinos were not citizens eligible to vote is different from the district court’s conclusion here that eligible voters might not turn out.
Distinguished by Parker v. Ohio, 263 F. Supp. 2d 1100 (2003)
The plaintiffs cite to Footnote 2 of Uno v. City of Holyoke, 72 F.3d 973, 979 (1st Cir.1995) (parallel citations omitted), as support for their argument that the first Gingles precondition is inapplicable to influence claims:
The opinion
Justice White,
concurring.
I join Parts I, II, III-A, III-B, IV-A, and V of the Court’s opinion and agree with Justice Brennan’s opinion as to Part IV-B. I disagree with Part III-C of Justice Brennan’s opinion.
*83 Justice Brennan states in Part III-C that the crucial factor in identifying polarized voting is the race of the voter and that the race of the candidate is irrelevant. Under this test, there is polarized voting if the majority of white voters vote for different candidates than the majority of the blacks, regardless of the race of the candidates. I do not agree. Suppose an eight-member multimember district that is 60% white and 40% black, the blacks being geographically located so that two safe black single-member districts could be drawn. Suppose further that there are six white and two black Democrats running against six white and two black Republicans. Under Justice Brennan’s test, there would be polarized voting and a likely § 2 violation if all the Republicans, including the two blacks, are elected, and 80% of the blacks in the predominantly black areas vote Democratic. I take it that there would also be a violation in a single-member district that is 60% black, but enough of the blacks vote with the whites to elect a black candidate who is not the choice of the majority of black voters. This is interest-group politics rather than a rule hedging against racial discrimination. I doubt that this is what Congress had in mind in amending § 2 as it did, and it seems quite at odds with the discussion in Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124, 149-160 (1971). Furthermore, on the facts of this case, there is no need to draw the voter/candidate distinction. The District Court did not and reached the correct result except, in my view, with respect to District 23.