[T]he submitted plan minimizes the electoral potential of large concentrations of black population in several areas of the state. Specifically, we note that alternatives, including one adopted by the Senate, included a large number of black voters from Screven, Effingham and Chatham Counties in the 11th Congressional district. However, due to unyielding efforts on behalf of House members, this configuration was abandoned and no legitimate reason has been suggested to explain the exclusion of the second largest concentration of blacks in the state from a majority black Congressional District.
The reason the General Assembly chose not to adopt a configuration for the 2nd District which would have altered the 11th District in this fashion is two-fold. First, if the 11th District extends from the Atlanta area in DeKalb County into the metropolitan areas of Richmond, Bibb, and Chatham Counties, a candidate to be successful will have to run in four major media markets in Georgia. This would likely present a significant problem for any minority candidate in the 11th District, as recognized even by the proponents of the “Brooks–McKinney” [max-black] plan.... Second, it is clear that even if the population percentage is increased several more points in the 2nd District ... the 2nd District will still be no more than an influence district for minority voters. Black voter registration in this area has been historically low.... In addition, the extension of the 2nd District into Bibb County and the corresponding extension of the 11th District into Chatham County, with all of the necessary attendant changes, violate all reasonable standards of compactness and contiguity.
[I]t's very difficult, it seems, to get them to realize that maybe there's a little bit more to reapportionment than black and white or minority areas; that there should be some alignment between the areas so they can work together for the next ten years.
Justice Souter [in dissent] apparently believes that racial gerrymandering is harmless unless it dilutes a racial group's voting strength.... As we have explained, however, reapportionment legislation that cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to classify and separate voters by race injures voters in other ways. It reinforces racial stereotypes and threatens to undermine our system of representative democracy by signalling to elected officials that they represent a particular racial group rather than their constituency as a whole.... Justice Souter does not adequately explain why these harms are not cognizable under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Davis does not require a plaintiff to prove that the challenged action rested solely on racially discriminatory purposes. Rarely can it be said that a legislature or administrative body operating under a broad mandate made a decision motivated solely by a single concern, or even that a particular purpose was the “dominant” or “primary” one.... When there is a proof that a discriminatory purpose has been a motivating factor in the decision, ... judicial deference is no longer justified.
take a ... map of the State of Georgia shaded for race, shaded by minority concentration, and overlay the districts that were drawn by the State of Georgia and see how well those lines adequately reflect[ ] black voting strength.
The State would not have added those portions of Effingham and Chatham Counties that are now in the present Eleventh Congressional District but for the need to include additional black population in that district to offset the loss of black population caused by the shift of predominantly black portions of Bibb County in the Second Congressional District which occurred in response to the Department of Justice's March 20th, 1992, objection letter.
To the extent that precincts in the Eleventh Congressional District are split, a substantial reason for their being split was the objective of increasing the black population of that district.
What we did is we went into counties and precincts and picked up pockets of African–Americans to make a strong district with voting age black population so that it would guarantee a black would be elected from there.
[I]f and when a decisionmaker embarks on a policy of benign racial sorting, he must weigh the concerns that I have discussed against the need for effective social policies promoting racial justice in a society beset by deep-rooted racial inequities. But I believe that Congress here adequately struck that balance in enacting the carefully conceived remedial scheme embodied in the Voting Rights Act.
We think it clear that a state has a “compelling” interest in engaging in race-based redistricting to give effect to minority voting strength whenever it has a “strong basis in evidence” for concluding that such action is “necessary” to prevent its electoral districting scheme from violating the Voting Rights Act.
Operating under the constraints of a statutory regime in which proportionality has some relevance, States might consider it lawful and proper to act with the explicit goal of creating a proportional number of majority-minority districts in an effort to avoid section 2 litigation.... The Department of Justice might require (in effect) the same as a condition of granting preclearance, under section 5 of the Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c, to a State's proposed legislative redistricting. Those governmental actions, in my view, tend to entrench the very practices and stereotypes the Equal Protection Clause is set against.
[B]ased on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) of this section in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.
Far more pernicious has been the Court's willingness to accept the one underlying premise that must inform every minority vote dilution claim: the assumption that the group asserting dilution is not merely a racial or ethnic group, but a group having distinct political interests as well.
under our constitutional system, this Court is not a centralized politburo appointed for life to dictate to the provinces the “correct” theories of democratic representation, the “best” electoral systems for securing truly “representative” government, the “fairest” proportions of minority political influence, or ... the “proper” sizes for local governing bodies.
District | Black Pop | Black VAP | ||||
% of Total | % of Total | |||||
2 | 39.47 | 35.37 | ||||
5 | 62.13 | 57.84 | ||||
11 | 60.63 | 56.61 |
District | Black Pop | Black VAP | ||||
% of Total | % of Total | |||||
2 | 49.15 | 45.01 | ||||
5 | 62.27 | 57.47 | ||||
11 | 61.86 | 57.97 |
District | Black Pop | Black VAP | ||||
% of Total | % of Total | |||||
2 | 56.63 | 52.33 | ||||
5 | 62.27 | 57.47 | ||||
11 | 64.07 | 60.36 |
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