The Supreme Court has identified a panoply of factors, any number of which may contribute to the existence of dilution. Clearly, it is not enough to prove a mere disparity between the number of minority residents and the number of minority representatives. Where it is apparent that a minority is afforded the opportunity to participate in the slating of candidates to represent its area, that the representatives slated and elected provide representation responsive to minority's needs, and that the use of a multi-member districting scheme is rooted in a strong state policy divorced from the maintenance of racial discrimination, Whitcomb v. Chavis (1971, 403 U.S. 124, 91 S.Ct. 1858, 29 L.Ed.2d 363), would require a holding of no dilution. (Chavis ) would not be controlling, however, where the state policy favoring multi-member or at-large districting schemes is rooted in racial discrimination. . . . (W)here a minority can demonstate a lack of access to the process of slating candidates, the unresponsiveness of legislators to their particularized interests, a tenuous state policy underlying the preference for multi-member or at-large districting, or that existence of past discrimination in general precludes the effective participation (of the complaining group) in the election system, a strong case is made. Such proof is enhanced by a showing of the existence of large districts, majority vote requirements, anti-single shot voting provisions and the lack of provision for at-large candidates running from particular geographical subdistricts. The fact of dilution is established upon proof of the existence of an aggregate of these factors. The Supreme Court's . . . pronouncement in White v. Regester (1973, 412 U.S. 755, 93 S.Ct. 2332, 37 L.Ed.2d 314), demonstrates, however, that all these factors need not be proved in order to obtain relief.
FIRST PLAN | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Deviation | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
from | ||||
Mean | Proportion | |||
Council | Total | Average | of District Population | |
District | Population | of 1,310 | White | Black |
A | 1,249 | -4.6% | 99% | 1% |
B | 1,318 | +0.1% | 7% | 93% |
C | 1,341 | +2.1% | 0% | 100% |
D | 1,331 | +1.7% | 64% | 36% |
At-large | 5,239 | -- | 42% | 58% |
SECOND PLAN | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Deviation | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
from | ||||
Mean | Proportion | |||
Council | Total | Average | of District Population | |
District | Population | of 1,048 | White | Black |
A | 1,072 | +3.0% | 99% | 1% |
B | 1,045 | -0.4% | 98% | 2% |
C | 1,035 | -1.3% | 2% | 98% |
D | 1,049 | 0.0% | 0% | 100% |
E | 1,045 | -0.4% | 2% | 98% |
had less opportunity than did other (citizens) to participate in the political processes and to elect legislators of their choice. We have discovered nothing in the record . . . indicating that (blacks) were not allowed to register or vote, to choose the political party they desired to support, to participate in its affairs or to be equally represented on those occasions when legislative candidates were chosen. Nor did the evidence . . . show . . . that (blacks) were regularly excluded from the slates of both major parties, thus denying them the chance of occupying legislative seats.
The voting power of (blacks) may have been ‘cancelled out’ as the District Court held, but this seems a mere euphemism for political defeat at the polls . . . The mere fact that one interest group or another . . . has found itself outvoted and without legislative seats of its own provides no basis for invoking constitutional remedies where . . . there is no indication that this segment of the population is being denied access to the political system.
it is not enough that the . . . group . . . has not had legislative seats in proportion to its voting potential. The plaintiffs' burden is to produce evidence to support findings that the political processes leading to nomination and election were not equally open to participation by the group in question that its members had less opportunity than did other residents in the district to participate in the political processes and to elect legislators of their choice.
on the record before us, we are not inclined to overturn (the finding of the district court that the multi-member system in San Antonio effectively negated the votes of local Mexican-Americans), representing as (it does) a blend of history and an intensely local appraisal of the design and impact of the (San Antonio) multimember district in the light of past and present reality, political and otherwise.
Historically, there has never been any nexus whatever in Louisiana between the (use of particular electoral devices) and the denial of access of blacks to (public office). In this century, until this Court compelled parish registrars of voters to register blacks and until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted and enforced, blacks could not be elected to (public office) to be blunt because there were no black voters. It is as simple as that. Since adoption of the Louisiana Constitution of 1898 and until recently, the legislature disfranchised blacks overtly; it was never necessary for the legislature to resort to covert disenfranchisement of blacks by manipulating (apparently neutral electoral devices).
It appears to us that the (private attorney general rule) would make major inroads on a policy matter that Congress has reserved for itself. Since the approach taken by Congress . . . has been to carve out specific exceptions to (the) general rule . . ., (federal courts) are not free to fashion drastic new rules with respect to the allowance of attorneys' fees to the prevailing party in federal litigation or to pick and choose among plaintiffs and the statutes under which they sue and to award fees in some cases but not in others, depending upon the courts' assessment of the importance of the public policies involved in particular cases . . .
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