Amicus Curiae Brief — Louisiana, Appellant v. Phillip Callais, et al.

Nos. 24-109, 24-110

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

________________________

STATE OF LOUISIANA, et al.,

Appellants,

v.

PHILLIP CALLAIS, et al.,

Appellees.

_____________

PRESS ROBINSON, et al.,

Appellants,

v.

PHILLIP CALLAIS, et al.,

Appellees.

_____________

On Appeal from the United States

District Court for the Western District of Louisiana

_______________________

BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE

THE BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE AT

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW

IN SUPPORT OF PRESS ROBINSON, ET AL., APPELLANTS

________________________

MICHAEL C. LI

BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE

120 Broadway, Suite 1750

New York, New York 10271

(646) 292-8310

KAREEM U. CRAYTON

Counsel of Record

MAURA EILEEN O’CONNOR

BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE

1140 Connecticut Ave., NW,

Suite 1150

Washington, D.C. 20036

(202) 249-7190

craytonk@brennan.law.nyu.edu

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ....................................... ii

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE ............................. 1

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT ............................ 2

ARGUMENT ................................................................ 6

I.

The Gingles Framework Has Helped Root Out

Racial Discrimination in Local Government

Elections. ........................................................... 6

II.

The Gingles Framework Requires a Remedy

Only in Extreme Cases Where Racially

Polarized Voting Interacts with Local

Conditions to Severely Disadvantage Minority

Voters............................................................... 11

A.

Ferguson-Florissant School District ...13

B.

City of Farmers Branch, Texas ...........14

C.

East Ramapo Central School

District ..................................................16

III.

The Self-Enforcing Limits Built into the

Gingles Framework Are Sufficient to Address

Concerns About the Constitutionality of

Section 2 Remedies. ........................................ 19

IV.

The Broad Flexibility That Jurisdictions Have

in How They Remedy Vote Dilution Further

Addresses Constitutional Concerns. .............. 22

CONCLUSION .......................................................... 27

ii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Abrams v. Johnson,

521 U.S. 74 (1997) ................................................21

Ala. Legis. Black Caucus v. Alabama,

575 U.S. 254 (2015) ................................................2

Ala. State Conf. of NAACP v. City of Pleasant Grove,

No. 2:18-cv-2056, 2019 WL 5172371

(N.D. Ala. Oct. 11, 2019) ......................................24

Bartlett v. Strickland,

556 U.S. 1 (2009) ..................................................24

Brnovich v. Democratic Nat’l Comm.,

141 S. Ct. 2321 (2021) ............................................1

Bush v. Vera,

517 U.S. 952 (1996) ..............................................23

Clark v. Calhoun Cnty., Miss.,

88 F.3d 1393 (5th Cir. 1996) ................................23

Cooper v. Harris,

581 U.S. 285 (2017) ................................................2

Dillard v. Crenshaw Cnty.,

640 F. Supp. 1347 (M.D. Ala. 1986) ......................9

Fabela v. City of Farmers Branch,

No. 3:10-cv-1425-D, 2012 WL 3135545

(N.D. Tex Aug. 2, 2012) ............................14, 15, 16

iii

Growe v. Emison,

507 U.S. 25 (1993) ................................................20

Johnson v. De Grandy,

512 U.S. 997 (1994) ..............................5, 12, 19, 22

Kumar v. Frisco Ind. Sch. Dist.,

476 F. Supp. 3d 439 (E.D. Tex. 2020) ..................21

League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry,

548 U.S. 399 (2005) ................................................2

Luna v. Cnty. of Kern, 291 F. Supp. 3d 1088

(E.D. Cal. 2018) ....................................................20

McConchie v. Scholz, 577 F. Supp. 3d 842

(N.D. Ill. 2021) ......................................................21

Mo. State Conf. of NAACP v. Ferguson-Florissant

Sch. Dist.,

201 F. Supp. 3d 1006 (E.D. Mo. 2016) .....13, 14, 24

N.C. State Bd. of Educ. v. Swann,

402 U.S. 43 (1971) ................................................23

NAACP Spring Valley Branch v. E. Ramapo Cent.

Sch. Dist.,

462 F. Supp. 3d 368 (S.D.N.Y. 2020) .......16, 17, 18

Nw. Austin Mun. Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder,

557 U.S. 193 (2009) ................................................2

Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist.

No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007) ...................................23

Patino v. City of Pasadena,

230 F. Supp. 3d 667 (S.D. Tex. 2017) ....................4

iv

Rodriguez v. Harris Cnty., Texas,

964 F. Supp. 2d 686 (S.D. Tex. 2013) ............20, 21

Shelby Cnty. v. Holder,

570 U.S. 529 (2013) ............................................2, 4

Singleton v. Allen,

No. 2:21-cv-1530, 2023 WL 6567895 (N.D. Ala.

Oct. 5, 2023) ..........................................................24

South Carolina v. Katzenbach,

383 U.S. 301 (1966) ................................................3

Thornburg v. Gingles,

478 U.S. 30 (1986) ......................4, 5, 10, 14, 19, 20

United States v. Euclid Cnty. Sch. Bd.,

632 F. Supp. 2d 740 (N.D. Ohio 2009) .................25

United States v. Paradise,

480 U.S. 149 (1987) ..............................................23

United States v. Vill. of Port Chester,

704 F. Supp. 2d 411 (S.D.N.Y. 2010) ...................25

Uno v. City of Holyoke,

72 F.3d 973 (1st Cir. 1995)...................................12

Villas at Parkside Partners v. City of Farmers

Branch, 675 F.3d 802 (5th Cir. 2012) ............14, 15

Voinovich v. Quilter,

507 U.S. 146 (1993) ..............................................19

Walters v. Boston City Council,

676 F. Supp. 3d 26 (D. Mass. 2023) .....................21

v

Wright v. Sumter Cnty. Bd. of Elections and

Regristration,

979 F.3d 1282 (11th Cir. 2020) ............................19

Statutes and Legislative History

52 U.S.C. § 10301.......................................................22

H.R. Rep. No. 109-478 (2006) ....................................12

S. Rep. No. 97-417 (1982) ....................................12, 20

Other Authorities

Analysis of School District and Board Member

Characteristics, 2022,

Ballotpedia (Aug. 24, 2022),

https://ballotpedia.org/Analysis_of_school_district

_and_board_member_characteristics,_2022

[https://perma.cc/CT3L-TJ9F] ............................... 7

Bernard L. Fraga,

Candidates or Districts? Reevaluating the Role of

Race in Voter Turnout, 60 Am. J. Pol. Sci. 97

(2016) ......................................................................3

Carolyn Abott and Asya Magazinnik,

At-Large Elections and Minority Representation

in Local Government, 64 Am. J. Pol. Sci. 717

(2020) ......................................................................7

Chandler Davidson and Bernard Grofman (eds.),

Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the

Voting Rights Act, 1965-1990 (1994) ...........8, 9, 10

vi

Jerome Gray and James U. Blacksher,

The Dillard Cases and Grassroots Black Political

Power, 46 Cumb. L. Rev. 311 (2015) ...............9, 10

Kevin Morris and Coryn Grange,

Growing Racial Disparities in Voter Turnout,

2008-2022, Brennan Center for Justice (2024),

https://www.brennancenter.org/media/12347/dow

nload/2024_02_Growing%20Racial_Disparities_in

_Voter%20Turnout_Report.pdf

[https://perma.cc/4USL-S5BV]............................... 4

Lauren Silverman,

First Hispanic Council Member In Farmers

Branch Elected, KERA (May 12, 2013),

https://www.keranews.org/texas-news/2013-0512/first-hispanic-council-member-in-farmersbranch-elected [https://perma.cc/FVY9-ALFH] ..16

Peter Miller & Arlyss Herzig,

Voting Rights Act Enforcement Increases Turnout,

Brennan Center for Justice (Apr. 25, 2025),

https://www.brennancenter.org/ourwork/research-reports/voting-rights-actenforcement-increases-turnout

[https://perma.cc/E3GL-GZ3L] .............................. 3

Private Privilege, Public Pain: The Rise of 21st

Century Jim Crow Education in East Ramapo

Schools, New York Civil Liberties Union (Aug. 25,

2021),

https://www.nyclu.org/uploads/2021/09/20210914_

nyclu_eramapo_report.pdf

[https://perma.cc/Z99H-QC9L] .............................18

vii

Thomas C. Zambito,

Vote Count Begins in East Ramapo School Board

Election, Nine Open Seats To Be Decided,

Westchester Journal News (Feb. 10, 2021),

https://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/

2021/02/10/vote-count-begins-east-ramapo-schoolboard-election/4456623001/

[https://perma.cc/6CNS-4KNP] ............................18

1

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE1

Named for the late Associate Justice William J.

Brennan, Jr., the Brennan Center for Justice at New

York University School of Law 2 is a not-for-profit,

nonpartisan think tank and public-interest law institute that seeks to improve systems of democracy and

justice. The Democracy Program at the Brennan Center works to bring the idea of accountable representative government closer to reality, including by advocating for fair and non-discriminatory redistricting

practices and for the protection of the right of all

Americans to vote on a free and equal basis.

Since its founding in 1995, the Brennan Center’s

work has focused extensively on redistricting and protecting the right to vote using empirical, quantitative,

historical, and legal research. It has participated in

numerous redistricting, voting rights, and election

law cases around the country, both as counsel and as

amicus curiae. Some of the friend of the court briefs

submitted by the Brennan Center before this Court in

cases involving redistricting and/or the Voting Rights

Act include briefs in Brnovich v. Democratic National

Committee, 141 S. Ct. 2321 (2021); Cooper v. Harris,

1 Pursuant to Rule 37.6, counsel for amicus curiae states that

they authored this brief in whole and that no party’s counsel authored, in whole or in part, this brief. No person or entity other

than amicus and its counsel contributed monetarily to preparing

or submitting this brief.

2 This brief does not purport to convey the position of New York

University School of Law.

2

581 U.S. 285 (2017); Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama, 575 U.S. 254 (2015); Shelby County.

v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013); Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. One v. Holder, 557 U.S. 193

(2009); and League of United Latin American Citizens

v. Perry, 548 U.S. 399 (2005).

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT

The case before the Court involves a congressional

map, but, throughout its history, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has been used far more often to challenge discriminatory systems used to elect local government bodies, particularly at-large elections.

Indeed, since the 1980s, Section 2 of the Voting

Rights Act has played an indispensable role in improving representation on city councils, school boards,

county commissions, and other local government bodies across the country. Its impact has been especially

transformational in the South. In southern states, the

widespread use of at-large elections for local government elections—a practice often dating to the post-Reconstruction era—frequently interacted with high

rates of entrenched racially polarized voting, and hostility from white voters to the concerns and input of

minority communities, to lock minority voters out of

any realistic chance to elect candidates representing

their interests. These lockouts occurred not only in

partisan elections but also in the non-partisan contests that typically characterize local elections.

Congress appropriately identified the opportunity to elect candidates as a key component of the

3

enjoyment of the franchise, a core protection in the

Fifteenth Amendment, and, with the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act, devised a legal claim

that would allow voters to ensure that was the case.

See South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 324,

327 (1966) (“Congress may use any rational means to

effectuate the constitutional prohibition of racial discrimination in voting,” including “fashioning specific

remedies.”).

Using the tools in Section 2 made available by the

1982 amendments, minority voters have been able to

challenge discriminatory at-large electoral systems in

hundreds of local governmental bodies, large and

small, across the nation. Where successful, these efforts saw replacement of at-large systems with alternatives that created an equal opportunity for minority

communities to elect candidates who, for the first

time, represented them on vital local issues like school

funding, transportation, and public safety. Changing

electoral systems in this manner also has produced

other benefits. Research suggests that gaining a realistic chance at electoral success improves minority engagement and participation in the political process.

Peter Miller & Arlyss Herzig, Voting Rights Act Enforcement Increases Turnout, Brennan Center for Justice

(Apr.

25,

2025),

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-rightsact-enforcement-increases-turnout

[https://perma.cc/E3GL-GZ3L]; Bernard L. Fraga,

Candidates or Districts? Reevaluating the Role of Race

in Voter Turnout, 60 Am. J. Pol. Sci. 97, 98 (2016)

(finding that turnout of Black and Latino voters is

higher “when each group makes up a larger portion of

the electorate” regardless of the race of the candidate).

4

If this Court were to retreat from the sensitively

calibrated vote-dilution framework it established

nearly four decades ago in Thornburg v. Gingles, 478

U.S. 30 (1986), the danger is two-fold. Not only would

the possibility of further progress toward an equal opportunity for minority voters to participate in the electoral process be cut off, but many jurisdictions could

interpret the Court’s decision as an invitation to return to the racially discriminatory systems that previously entrenched the power of white voters at the

expense of minority communities.

These concerns are not idle. Shortly after this

Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S.

529 (2013), the City of Pasadena, Texas, rushed

through changes to the single-member district system

for city council elections that it had used since 1992.

Patino v. City of Pasadena, 230 F. Supp. 3d 667, 673,

681 (S.D. Tex. 2017). These changes replaced two single-member districts with at-large seats and, as a district court found, diluted the influence of the city’s

large and growing Latino community. Id. at 730

(holding that creation of at-large districts violated the

Voting Rights Act and was intended to dilute the electoral power of Latino voters). The district court reversed the change but only after four years of litigation. Id.; see also Kevin Morris and Coryn Grange,

Growing Racial Disparities in Voter Turnout, 20082022, Brennan Center for Justice, at 3 (March 2024),

https://www.brennancenter.org/media/12347/download/2024_02_Growing%20Racial_Disparities_in_Voter%20Turnout_Report.pdf

[https://perma.cc/4USL-S5BV] (finding that the turnout gap between white and non-white voters “grew

5

almost twice as quickly in formerly covered jurisdictions as in other parts of the country with similar demographic and socioeconomic profiles” after this

Court’s decision in Shelby County). Voting Rights Act

enforcement matters. It is vital that the check and deterrent provided by Section 2 remain in place.

However, as powerful as the enforcement tool created by Congress has been, Section 2’s reach is also

carefully circumscribed by the Court’s Gingles framework.3 Far from mandating wholesale changes to electoral systems everywhere, the Gingles framework provides for a remedy only where plaintiffs show the

usual “pull, haul, and trade” of politics is impossible

because of entrenched racial discrimination. See

Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997, 1020 (1994)

(“[M]inority voters are not immune from the obligation to pull, haul, and trade to find common political

ground.”). While hundreds of city councils, school

boards, and county governments across the country,

3 Under the Gingles framework, plaintiffs must establish the ex-

istence of three preconditions. Gingles, 478 U.S. at 48–51. First,

they must prove that the minority group is “sufficiently large and

geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district.” Id. at 50. Second, they must establish that the minority community is politically cohesive. Id. at 51. Third, they

must show that white voters in the region vote as a bloc and that

this bloc voting typically enables the candidate preferred by

white voters to defeat the candidate preferred by the politically

cohesive minority community. Id. If and only if these three preconditions are met, the court then examines the “totality of circumstances” to determine whether a particular electoral practice

(e.g., the use of at-large elections) “interacts with social and historical conditions . . . to minimize or cancel out the voting

strength of racial minorities in the voting population.” Id. at 46–

48.

6

and especially in the South, have moved away from

at-large systems since 1980 as a result of Section 2 litigation or settlements, at-large elections continue to

be used in the overwhelming majority of the country’s

over 3,000 counties and its tens of thousands of school

districts, cities, towns, and municipalities. Absent the

rigorous evidentiary showing that the Gingles framework requires, jurisdictions remain free to continue

organizing their elections as they see fit.

The Brennan Center submits this amicus brief to

provide the Court with illustrations both of the ways

that (1) applying the Gingles framework has demonstrably improved electoral opportunities for minority

voters at the local government level since 1982 and (2)

the framework’s careful design—with its insistence on

methodical proof of racially polarized voting and racial discrimination in a community—appropriately

limits the places where Section 2 will be applied.

Far from creating permanent “racial entitlements,” the Court’s demanding and nuanced Gingles

framework responds on a case-by-case basis to localized circumstances and, by design, sunsets liability

under Section 2 as conditions evolve and improve.

ARGUMENT

I.

The Gingles Framework Has Helped Root

Out Racial Discrimination in Local Government Elections.

In the United States, local government elections

take place in significant part using at-large electoral

7

systems. For example, a 2012 survey found that 64

percent of American cities, towns, and municipalities

used at-large systems to elect all members of their city

councils, while another 21 percent used a combination

of at-large elections and single-member districts. Carolyn Abott and Asya Magazinnik, At-Large Elections

and Minority Representation in Local Government, 64

Am. J. Pol. Sci. 717, 717–718 (2020). A recent study

found a similarly high 71 percent of local school

boards members in the United States are elected atlarge. Analysis of School District and Board Member

Characteristics, 2022, Ballotpedia (Aug. 24, 2022),

https://ballotpedia.org/Analysis_of_school_district_and_board_member_characteristics,_2022

[https://perma.cc/CT3L-TJ9F].

In most cases, these electoral systems work generally as intended, allowing coalition building and robust debate over issues to take place across different

cross-sections of a community. Importantly, this exchange of ideas and robust give-and-take politics is

not limited to demographically homogeneous communities. It happens routinely in a wide variety of communities across the country.

However, as Congress recognized, the conditions

for “pull, haul, and trade” politics do not exist everywhere. Successful Section 2 cases vividly show that

there are some situations where vigorous, conventional politics is impossible because persistent racially

polarized voting—rooted in longstanding societal racial divides and sometimes open racial hostility—

works in tandem with local conditions to lock minority

voters out of the political process before it even begins,

both in partisan and non-partisan elections. For these

8

instances, Congress has appropriately used its power

under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to

devise a legal claim that affected voters can use to

challenge discriminatory methods of election and seek

changes allowing them to participate on a more equal

footing.

With the tools provided by Section 2, minority voters, especially in the South, were at last able to pry

open doors previously blocked by societal racial divisions and the effects of past discriminatory state practices. For example, in just the first decade after Congress’s adoption of the 1982 amendments, Black

representation on city councils governing white-majority cities in eight southern states soared when atlarge districts gave way to single member districts.

Chandler Davidson and Bernard Grofman (eds.),

Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965-1990, at 306–307 (1994) (examining the impact of the Voting Rights Act in local elections in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi,

North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia).

In cities with a population that was 10–29.9 percent

Black that switched from at-large to single member

districts, Black representation increased by an average of 23 percentage points; similarly, in cities with a

population that was 30–49.9 percent Black that made

the same change, Black representation increased by

an average of 34 percentage points. Id. By contrast, in

cities that retained at-large elections, the gains in

Black representation were an average of 6 percentage

points for cities with a Black population of 10–29.9

percent and an average of 14 percentage points for cities with a Black population of 30–49.9 percent. Id.

Similarly large gains also occurred at the county level

9

when white-majority counties switched from at-large

elections to single-member districts. Id. at 312.

Alabama offers a striking, but hardly unique, case

study of the impact of Section 2. From the post-Reconstruction era until the 1970s, most Alabama cities of

all sizes used at-large elections, and well into the decade, only two white-majority cities using at-large elections – Auburn and Birmingham – had ever elected a

Black candidate to their city councils. Id. at 54–55.

This pattern slowly changed over the next two decades, but, as late as 1987, 27 of 42 white-majority cities in Alabama with total populations of 6,000 or more

and Black populations of 10 percent or more still

elected their city councils at-large and, with rare exception, continued to have only “only minimal black

representation.” Id. at 55.

Then, using Section 2, Black voters spurred a dramatic change. Through a series of cases that have

come to be known collectively as the Dillard cases,

they challenged the use of discriminatory at-large

elections by 19 counties, 30 school districts, and 148

cities and towns. Jerome Gray and James U. Blacksher, The Dillard Cases and Grassroots Black Political Power, 46 Cumb. L. Rev. 311, 321–322 (2016); see

Dillard v. Crenshaw Cnty., 640 F. Supp. 1347, 1356–

1360 (M.D. Ala. 1986) (finding that Alabama’s postReconstruction era legislature had intentionally

switched from ward elections to at-large elections for

county commissions to prevent Black voters from being able to elect their candidates of choice). Of the jurisdictions challenged in the Dillard cases, 180 eventually changed their methods of election due to court

order. Gray & Blacksher, supra, at 322.

10

The changes in the wake of the Dillard cases were

rapid and profound at all levels of local government.

By 1989, 39 of 42 white-majority cities in Alabama

with a population of 6,000 or more and a Black population of at least 10 percent4 had switched to singlemember districts or mixed plans. Davidson &

Grofman, supra, at 55. As a result, Black representation “increased from zero in 1970 to slightly better

than proportional representation in 1989.” Id.

Whereas in 1985, there had only been 38 Black members of county commissions, 47 Black school board

members, and 179 Black members of city councils

across the state, those numbers doubled following the

Dillard decision, and, by 2000, had improved further

still. Gray & Blacksher, supra, at 312.5

The major transformation that Section 2 brought

about to local representation in Alabama is not an aberration. Indeed, while Section 2 has been used to

4 An additional six cities with a population over 6,000 were ma-

jority-Black including three that used at-large elections. Davidson & Grofman, supra, at 55.

5 The election of a large number of Black candidates after the

remedies implemented in the Dillard cases suggests that Black

voters of the time in Alabama strongly preferred Black candidates in local elections. See Gingles, 478 U.S. at 68. The Gingles

framework, of course, would apply equally if minority voters

preferred candidates of other races and their opportunity to

elect those candidates were being similarly stymied by racially

polarized voting and local conditions. Id. (“[I]t is the status of

the candidate as the chosen representative of a particular racial

group, not the race of the candidate, that is important.”) (emphasis in original). Likewise, there would be no Section 2 liability if minority voters were not, in fact, politically cohesive and

thus did not have preferred candidates. See infra. at 19–22.

11

challenge congressional and legislative districting

plans, including in the case before the Court, it has

been used far more widely throughout its history at

the local-government level. According to a study of reported Section 2 decisions by researchers at the University of Michigan School of Law, nearly half of all

vote-dilution claims brought between 1982 and 2021

involved challenges to the use of at-large elections by

counties, municipalities, school boards, or other local

government bodies. Ellen D. Katz, Brian Remlinger,

Andrew Dziedzic, Brooke Simone, and Jordan

Schuler, To Participate and Elect: Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act at 40, Univ. Mich. L. Sch. Voting Rights

Initiative, 3 (2022), https://voting.law.umich.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2022/02/VRI-Findings-and-Appendix.pdf [https://perma.cc/YRZ4-5URF].

II. The Gingles Framework Requires a Remedy

Only in Extreme Cases Where Racially Polarized Voting Interacts with Local Conditions to Severely Disadvantage Minority

Voters.

As dramatic and important as the impact of Section 2 has been for local-level representation, it is not,

and has never been, an open invitation for race-based

districting. Under the Gingles framework, district

courts must engage in a rigorous, locality-specific, and

highly fact-intensive inquiry before finding liability.

Each of the Gingles factors is carefully calibrated to

identify circumstances in which “racial politics [so]

dominate the electoral process” that an otherwise

race-neutral election method, when combined with polarized voting and other factors, could effectively

12

deprive minority voters of the ability to compete for

political power through the ordinary push and pull of

the democratic process. S. Rep. No. 97-417, at 33

(1982); see H.R. Rep. No. 109-478, at 34 (2006) (“Racially polarized voting occurs when voting blocs within

the minority and white communities cast ballots along

racial lines and is the clearest and strongest evidence

the Committee has before it of the continued resistance within covered jurisdictions to fully accept

minority citizens and their preferred candidates into

the electoral process.”).

Moreover, satisfying the three Gingles preconditions is only the start. Even if Section 2 plaintiffs carry

their burden and prove the existence of these three

preconditions, Gingles directs the trier of fact to then

conduct a searching totality-of-the-circumstances inquiry to determine if a challenged electoral system or

districting plan truly denies minority voters an equal

opportunity to participate in the electoral process. De

Grandy, 512 U.S. at 1011–1012 (“[T]he ultimate conclusions about equality or inequality of opportunity

were intended by Congress to be judgments resting on

comprehensive, not limited, canvassing of relevant

facts.”); Uno v. City of Holyoke, 72 F.3d 973, 983–984

(1st Cir. 1995) (“[P]laintiffs . . . must prove that . . .

racial politics . . . significantly diminished opportunities for minority participation in elective government.”). In short, Section 2 cases are, by design, hard.

Recent successful Section 2 cases illustrate the

types of extreme situations where liability is appropriate, and wholly consistent with the Fourteenth and

Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, because

13

the “pull, haul, and trade” of politics has irretrievably

broken down for minority voters in the face of racial

discrimination:

A.

Ferguson-Florissant School District

By the early 2010s, Black residents in the Ferguson-Florissant School District in suburban St. Louis

had come to make up just over half of the district’s

voting age population and 77 percent of the district’s

students. Mo. State Conf. of NAACP v. Ferguson-Florissant Sch. Dist., 201 F. Supp. 3d 1006, 1019, 1024

(E.D. Mo. 2016).

Yet, despite the fact that Black voters constituted

more than half the district’s voting age population, the

district court found that they were almost always,

with the rarest of exceptions, unsuccessful in at-large

elections for the district’s non-partisan school board.

Id. at 1043.

The reasons for this severe disadvantage were

multifold. The most significant factor was sharply racially polarized voting. Id. at 1064. The district court

found that the differences in candidate preferences in

at-large school board elections manifested strikingly

along racial lines. Id. These racially aligned preferences were often reinforced, moreover, by subtle racially coded appeals to white voters on issues such as

school discipline and inter-district school transfers.

Id. at 1078. The court also found that Black voters’

electoral effectiveness was further undermined by the

fact that they participated in school board elections at

a far lower rate than white voters, in part due to the

cumulative “effects of discrimination in such areas as

14

education, employment, and health . . . which hinder

their ability to participate in the political process.” Id.

at 1071–1072 (quoting Gingles). The combined effect

of these factors was that while white candidates won

69.6 percent of the time, Black candidates won only

10.5 percent of the time. Id. at 1064.

After a fact-intensive trial, the district court found

that the “electoral process in FFSD Board election is

not equally open to African Americans” both because

of “stark levels of racially polarized voting” and because of the “ongoing effects of racial discrimination

that have long plagued the region, and the District in

particular.” Id. at 1082.

B.

City of Farmers Branch, Texas

Located just outside Dallas, the City of Farmers

Branch by the early 2000s had developed a large and

growing Latino community, with Latinos constituting

just under a quarter of the city’s citizen voting age

population by 2010. Fabela v. City of Farmers Branch,

No. 3:10-cv-1425-D, 2012 WL 3135545, at *1 (N.D. Tex

Aug. 2, 2012).

The city’s quickly changing demographics created

significant ethnic tensions in the formerly white-majority city, fueled by the belief among white residents

and elected officials that city’s rapidly expanding Latino population consisted largely of undocumented immigrants who were “lower income” and presented “obstacles for [the] redevelopment” envisioned by city

leaders. Villas at Parkside Partners v. City of Farmers

Branch, 675 F.3d 802, 805 (5th Cir. 2012).

15

This led to the city council’s passage or consideration of various anti-immigrant measures, including an

ordinance declaring English as the city’s official language and proposals to remove non-English language

materials from the city’s public library system. Fabela, 2012 WL 3135545, at *14. The culmination came

in 2008 when the city council unanimously passed a

housing ordinance, later struck down by courts, requiring any renter seeking property in the city to show

proof of citizenship or legal residency status and to obtain a residential occupancy permit from the City

Building Inspector. Villas at Parkside Partners, 675

F.3d at 804.

Like many smaller Texas municipalities, Farmer

Branch’s five-member city council was elected on a

non-partisan basis using staggered at-large elections.

Fabela, 2012 WL 3135545, at *14. After a trial on Section 2 claims, the district court found that Latino candidates had run for the council in the last four elections and had received overwhelming and consistently

cohesive support from Latino voters ranging from

“54.1% to 88.1%,” but none had ever won. Id. at *13.

Nor, the district court found, would they ever be likely

to because stark rates of bloc voting meant that in the

same elections Latino-preferred candidates had only

won between “2.0% to 42.1%” of non-Latino votes and

because an atmosphere of considerable ethnic hostility toward the city’s Latino community pervaded city

politics. Id. at *12–14. Faced with these circumstances, the district court found that some Latino voters had simply given up, with one witness cited by the

district court recounting how he had stopped voting

since, “the people [he] voted for were never elected”

and “there was nobody there representing the

16

community, the Hispanic community.” Id. at *14 (internal quotations omitted).

This would change, however, after successful Section 2 litigation. The city switched to single-member

districts and saw the election of its first Latina member in 2013. Lauren Silverman, First Hispanic Council Member In Farmers Branch Elected, KERA (May

12,

2013),

https://www.keranews.org/texasnews/2013-05-12/first-hispanic-council-member-infarmers-branch-elected

[https://perma.cc/FVY9ALFH].

C.

East Ramapo Central School District

The East Ramapo Central School District is a

“highly segregated” school district located in diversifying Rockland County, New York. NAACP Spring

Valley Branch v. E. Ramapo Cent. Sch. Dist., 462 F.

Supp. 3d 368, 374 (S.D.N.Y. 2020).

Although the district’s overall population is

around two-thirds white and 30 percent Black and Latino, rates of residential segregation in the district

were, and continue to be, extreme. Id. at 374-375. As

found by the district court, 7 in 10 white residents live

in census block groups that are at least 80 percent

white, and more than half of minority residents live in

block groups that are “83.6% to 98.2% minority.” Id.

Schools within the district’s boundaries are similarly segregated due to the decision of most white parents to send their children to private schools: While 92

percent of public-school students were Black or

17

Latino, the area’s private schools were and are 98 percent white. Id. at 375.

As established in Section 2 litigation, elections for

the district’s non-partisan school board were also

starkly divided by race. Id. at 380–392. This was due,

in part, to an elaborate, closed-door slating process

within the white community. As found by the district

court: “Influential members of the white, private

school community in the District participate in a slating process by which they select, endorse, promote,

and secure the election of their preferred candidates,

and minorities have no input into this process.” Id. at

402. While minority candidates on very rare occasion

won, they were “elected with the support of the white

community, [having] been chosen by the white slating

mechanism, … they are often not minority-preferred,”

and frequently did not even bother to campaign in minority communities “because they knew they would

win by virtue of the white slating organization’s support.” Id. at 406, 409.

The district court’s Section 2 assessment also

found that these racially divided politics produced a

school board that was persistently unresponsive to

concerns and issues raised by Black and Latino parents. This unresponsiveness went as far as a decision

by the board to “mov[e] the public comment period to

the end of its meetings” and then hold “such long executive sessions beforehand that public comments began after 10 or 11 p.m., when most members of the

public already had to leave.” Id. at 413. Unresponsiveness to the concerns of minority parents also manifested itself in district policies. Between 2009 and

2014, “budgets were cut dramatically, and the Board

18

eliminated hundreds of public school teaching, staff,

and administrative positions,” closed two schools over

minority community opposition, and attempted to sell

one of them to a private school at a “sweetheart price.”

Id. at 414–415.

The district court found that the impact on Black

and Latino students was significant as “[g]raduation

rates and test scores sank.” Id. at 415. In 2019, only

28 percent of students in grades 3-8 were proficient in

English and 24 percent proficient in math, well below

statewide figures. Private Privilege, Public Pain: The

Rise of 21st Century Jim Crow Education in East

Ramapo Schools, New York Civil Liberties Union, 7

(Aug.

25,

2021),

https://www.nyclu.org/uploads/2021/09/20210914_nyclu_eramapo_report.pdf

[https://perma.cc/Z99H-QC9L].

Successful litigation under Section 2 led to the district to change from at-large elections to single-member districts starting in 2021. Thomas C. Zambito,

Vote Count Begins in East Ramapo School Board Election, Nine Open Seats to Be Decided, Westchester

Journal News (Feb. 10, 2021), https://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/2021/02/10/votecount-begins-east-ramapo-school-board-election/4456623001/ [https://perma.cc/6CNS-4KNP].

19

III. The Self-Enforcing Limits Built into the Gingles Framework Are Sufficient to Address

Concerns About the Constitutionality of

Section 2 Remedies.

The wisdom of the carefully tailored Gingles

framework is evident not only in where it applies, but

also where it does not.

If plaintiffs fail to prove the existence of any one

of the three Gingles preconditions with the exacting,

locality-specific evidence demanded by this Court,

Section 2 liability will not exist. See Voinovich v.

Quilter, 507 U.S. 146, 158 (1993) (rejecting a Section

2 claim in the absence of evidence that the white majority voted as a bloc); Wright v. Sumter Cnty. Bd. of

Elections and Regristration, 979 F.3d 1282, 1308

(11th Cir. 2020) (“We do not suggest . . . that Section

2 allows a protected group to bring a vote dilution

claim in perpetuity and irrespective of its numerical

advantage.”). In the same way, Section 2 liability will

cease to exist if circumstances in the locality change

for the better—for example, if communities no longer

have legally significant racially polarized voting or if

broader social, economic, and political disparities

rooted in racism ease.

The requirement, for instance, in the second Gingles precondition that a minority group be “politically

cohesive” limits Section 2 liability to circumstances in

which that minority group, in fact, has a consistently

strong shared communal preference for candidates.

Gingles, 478 U.S. at 51, 56; see also De Grandy, 512

U.S. at 1020. This limitation ensures that Section 2

does not compel lumping voters together into a district

20

based on stereotyped assumptions that voters who

share a race or ethnicity automatically vote alike or

share the same concerns or interests. Growe v.

Emison, 507 U.S. 25, 42 (1993) (“Section 2 does not

assume the existence of racial bloc voting; plaintiffs

must prove it.”) (quoting Gingles, 478 U.S. at 46)); Rodriguez v. Harris Cnty., Texas, 964 F. Supp. 2d 686,

756 (S.D. Tex. 2013) (The second factor “contemplates

that a specified group of voters shares common beliefs,

ideals, principles, agendas, concerns, and the like

such that it generally unites behind . . . particular candidates and issues.”); see also Luna v. Cnty. of Kern,

291 F. Supp. 3d 1088, 1117 (E.D. Cal. 2018) (“If the

minority group does not have a preferred candidate, it

cannot be said that the jurisdiction’s electoral scheme

thwarts the minority group’s interest.”) (citing Gingles, 478 U.S. at 51).

In the same way, the requirement in the third

Gingles precondition that the “white majority [also]

vote[] sufficiently as a bloc” further limits Section 2

liability to those circumstances in which a minority’s

“submergence in a white [majority] district impedes

its ability to elect its chosen representatives.” Gingles,

478 U.S. at 51. Courts have made clear, moreover,

that this bloc voting by white voters must be the usual

state of affairs, not just an occasional occurrence. Id.

at 56, 76.

The second and third Gingles preconditions operate in tandem to make a demanding inquiry of plaintiffs, requiring them to show that “racial politics [so]

dominate the electoral process” that an unreceptive

white majority’s electoral success is nearly inevitable.

S. Rep. No. 97-417, at 33; Gingles, 478 U.S. at 51; see

21

Abrams v. Johnson, 521 U.S. 74, 92-93 (1997) (finding

no Section 2 liability where there was a significant degree of cross-over voting and so, no need for a Section

2 remedy); Rodriguez, 964 F. Supp. 2d at 757 (noting

that the correct test is whether, “as a practical matter,” bloc voting effectively minimizes or cancels “minority voters’ ability to elect representatives of their

choice”).

As directed by this Court, courts around the country have consistently applied the second and third

Gingles factors rigorously, focusing on the specific local circumstances in a jurisdiction. For example, in

Boston, a district court recently rejected a Section 2

claim after concluding that there was insufficient evidence to establish bloc voting by white voters in city

council races and finding, in fact, that Black-preferred

candidates frequently won with crossover support.

Walters v. Boston City Council, 676 F. Supp. 3d 26, 4546 (D. Mass. 2023). Likewise, a district court in Illinois rejected a challenge by Latino voters to the legislative map drawn after the 2020 census after finding

“significant crossover voting by non-Latino voters . . .

ranging from more than twenty-five to seventy percent.” McConchie v. Scholz, 577 F. Supp. 3d 842, 859

(N.D. Ill. 2021). A court in Texas, similarly, rejected a

Section 2 challenge to at-large school board elections

in a suburban Dallas district after finding that minority voters in the district split along a “conservative/liberal line” and “splinter[ed] over tax/public education

issues,” among other things, and thus were not politically cohesive. Kumar v. Frisco Ind. Sch. Dist., 476 F.

Supp. 3d 439, 510–513 (E.D. Tex. 2020).

22

In sum, the Gingles framework does not demand

racial balkanization or mandate the blind creation of

race-based districts. Far from it: As interpreted and

applied by this Court in Gingles and its progeny, Section 2 provides a critical remedy for a limited and very

specific subset of electoral conditions where the political process has broken down for minority voters because a facially neutral election system or a jurisdiction’s map-drawing choices interacts with local

conditions, including the effects of racial discrimination, to make it impossible for minority voters to engage in the “pull, haul, and trade” of politics. De

Grandy, 512 U.S. at 1020.

Rather than creating a universal and permanent

mandate to draw a majority-minority district whenever a minority group is numerically large enough,

Section 2 provides a targeted remedy carefully tied to

racially polarized voting and geared to local conditions. See 52 U.S.C. § 10301(b) (“Provided, That nothing in this section establishes a right to have members

of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their

proportion in the population.”)

IV. The Broad Flexibility That Jurisdictions

Have in How They Remedy Vote Dilution

Further Addresses Constitutional Concerns.

The Gingles framework does not automatically require map drawers to create majority-minority districts as a remedy, nor does it compel a body to draw

districts that prioritize race to the exclusion of other

considerations.

23

While jurisdictions must consider the existence

and severity of racially polarized voting when remedying vote dilution, they have flexibility to find a solution that addresses vote dilution while also maximizing the jurisdiction’s other legitimate policy

objectives.6 See Clark v. Calhoun Cnty., Miss., 88 F.3d

1393, 1408 (5th Cir. 1996) (“Redistricting to remedy

found violations of § 2 of the Voting Rights Act by definition employs race. . . . The limit is that the remedy

must use race at the expense of traditional political

concerns no more than is reasonably necessary to remedy the found wrong.” (citing Bush v. Vera, 517 U.S.

952, 993–994 (1996) (O’Connor, J., concurring)).

For example, a jurisdiction with Section 2 liability

could choose to remedy that liability by drawing a district that is less than majority-minority if doing so

would remedy vote dilution while, at the same time,

better meet the jurisdiction’s other legitimate goals,

such as avoiding splitting counties or towns or

6 The requirement that a jurisdiction consider race at the reme-

dial phase is entirely consistent with this Court’s equal protection jurisprudence. See, e.g., N.C. State Bd. of Educ. v. Swann,

402 U.S. 43, 45–46 (1971) (permitting consideration of race when

drawing school district boundaries and assigning students to

particular schools in light of persistent segregation in public education and a history of discrimination); United States v. Paradise, 480 U.S. 149, 166 (1987) (“It is now well established that

government bodies, including courts, may constitutionally employ racial classifications essential to remedy unlawful treatment of racial or ethnic groups subject to discrimination.”); cf.

Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 551

U.S. 701, 720–721 (2007) (holding that a race-conscious remedy

was improper where there was no indication of constitutionallyoffensive discrimination).

24

important communities of interest, having a district

cross a mountain range or body of water, or pairing

incumbents. 7 In Alabama, for instance, a district

court approved a new remedial congressional district

that was less than 50 percent Black (though a district

with a higher Black population percentage was possible) after concluding that the district fully remedied

the vote dilution found by the court while at the same

time, adhering completely with state limitations on

county splits and “better respect[ing] municipal

boundaries and the communities of interest that the

Legislature identified.” Singleton v. Allen, No. 2:21-cv1530, 2023 WL 6567895, at *14–16 (N.D. Ala. Oct. 5,

2023) (three-judge panel).

Likewise, other jurisdictions have addressed Section 2 liability by adopting alternatives to districted

elections, such as cumulative voting and limited voting. See, e.g., Mo. State Conf. of NAACP, 219 F. Supp.

3d at 951 (adopting cumulative voting election system); Ala. State Conf. of NAACP v. City of Pleasant

Grove, No. 2:18-cv-2056, 2019 WL 5172371, at *1–2

(N.D. Ala. Oct. 11, 2019) (approving city’s adoption of

cumulative voting as part of settlement with plaintiffs, finding that cumulative voting was a “well-established means of election that, under appropriate circumstances, empowers minority voters and remedies

7 While a plurality in this Court’s decision in Bartlett v. Strick-

land, 556 U.S. 1, 19–20 (2009), stated that Section 2 requires

that plaintiffs show the possibility of creating a majority-minority district in order to establish liability, this Court has never

held that the remedy for vote dilution must be a majority-minority district. Instead, courts around the country have approved a

variety of remedies.

25

vote dilution); United States v. Vill. of Port Chester,

704 F. Supp. 2d 411, 447, 449–453 (S.D.N.Y. 2010)

(finding that a system of cumulative voting, where

each voter would be allocated “the same number of

votes as there are seats up for election and would be

free to allocate them however he or she chooses,” was

an appropriate remedy under Section 2); United

States v. Euclid Cnty. Sch. Bd., 632 F. Supp. 2d 740,

755–757, 770–771 (N.D. Ohio 2009) (finding that a

system of limited voting, where “each voter would be

able to vote for a single candidate in [a given] election[], even though multiple seats would be vacant”

was an appropriate remedy under Section 2).

This flexibility in adopting a remedy also guards

against unconstitutional application of Section 2. The

only constraint Section 2 imposes is to prevent a jurisdiction from using a method of election that deprives

a minority group of an equal opportunity to elect candidates when there are feasible alternatives that

would not have this discriminatory effect.

As the examples described in this brief amply illustrate, Section 2 continues to be a powerful and effective tool for enforcing the guarantees of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the United

States Constitution. Its impact has been especially

profound in local jurisdictions, including those with

non-partisan elections. Where plaintiffs have satisfied

the rigorous evidentiary burdens in Gingles, court-ordered remedies have improved their opportunity to

participate on an equal basis in the electoral process

by undoing the lockout that occurs when sustained racially polarized voting interacts adversely with local

conditions,

26

If this Court retreats from or abandons the framework it established in Gingles, four decades of significant progress toward equal enjoyment of the franchise

will be put at great risk. Moreover, minority communities, who have already lost other critical tools under

the Voting Rights Act, most notably with this Court’s

decision in Shelby County, would lose one of few remaining checks against unresponsive electoral systems.

27

CONCLUSION

This Court should confirm the continued constitutionality of the vote-dilution framework established

by the Court in Thornberg v. Gingles, and for reasons

argued here and by Appellants Press Robinson, et al.,

reverse the judgment of the District Court below.

Respectfully submitted,

KAREEM U. CRAYTON

MAURA EILEEN O’CONNOR

BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE

1140 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 1150

Washington, D.C. 20036

(202) 249-7190

craytonk@brennan.law.nyu.edu

MICHAEL C. LI

BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE

120 Broadway, Suite 1750

New York, New York 10271

(646) 292-8310

Counsel for Amicus Curiae

September 3, 2025