We are quite unconvinced that the reapportionment plan offered by the three-member Board violated the Fourteenth Amendment because it attempted to reflect the relative strength of the parties in locating and defining election districts. It would be idle, we think, to contend that any political consideration taken into account in fashioning a reapportionment plan is sufficient to invalidate it. Our cases indicate quite the contrary .... The very essence of districting is to produce a different—a more “politically fair”—result than would be *1103 reached with elections at large, in which the winning party would take 100% of the legislative seats. Politics and political considerations are inseparable from districting and apportionment.... The reality is that districting inevitably has and is intended to have substantial political consequences.
What is done in so arranging for election, or to achieve political ends or allocate political power, is not wholly exempt from judicial scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment. As we have indicated, for example, multimember districts may be vulnerable, if racial or political groups have been fenced out of the political process and their voting strength invidiously minimized. Beyond this, we have not ventured far or attempted the impossible task of extirpating politics from what are the essentially political processes of the sovereign States.
(1) the historical background of the action, particularly if a series of actions have been taken for invidious purposes; (2) the specific sequence of events leading up to the challenged action; (3) any procedural departures from the normal procedural sequence; (4) any substantive departure from normal procedure, i.e., whether factors normally considered important by the decision-maker strongly favor a decision contrary to the one reached; and (5) the legislative history, especially where contemporary statements by members of the decisionmaking body exist.
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. In fact, it is because legislators and administrators are properly concerned with balancing numerous competing considerations that courts refrain from reviewing the merits of their decisions, absent a showing of arbitrariness or irrationality. But racial discrimination is not just another competing consideration. When there is a proof that a discriminatory purpose has been a motivating factor in the decision, this judicial deference is no longer justified.
Proof that the decision by the Village was motivated in part by a racially discriminatory purpose would not necessarily have required invalidation of the challenged decision. Such proof would, however, have shifted to the Village the burden of establishing that the same decision would have resulted even had the impermissible purpose not been considered. If this were established, the complaining party in a case of this kind no longer fairly could attribute the injury complained of to improper consideration of a discriminatory purpose. In such circumstances, there would be no justification for judicial interference with the challenged decision. But in this case respondents failed to make the required threshold showing. See Mt. Healthy City Board of Education v. Doyle, post, [429 U.S.] p. 274 [97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471].
Contrary to petitioners' first argument, neither the Fourteenth nor the Fifteenth Amendment mandates any per se rule against using racial factors in districting and apportionment. Nor is petitioners' second argument valid. The permissible use of racial criteria is not confined to eliminating the effects of past discriminatory districting or apportionment.
It is true that New York deliberately increased the nonwhite majorities in certain districts in order to enhance the opportunity for election of nonwhite representatives from those districts. Nevertheless, there was no fencing out of the white population from participation in the political processes of the county, and the plan did not minimize or unfairly cancel out white voting strength.
[T]he District Court and the Court of Appeals supported their conclusion by drawing upon the substantial history of official racial discrimination in Alabama. But past discrimination cannot, in the manner of original sin, condemn governmental action that is not in itself unlawful. The ultimate question remains whether a discriminatory intent has been proved in a given case. More distant instances of official discrimination in other cases are of limited help in resolving that question.
*1122 since Reconstruction days, there had been only two Negroes in the Dallas County delegation to the Texas House of Representatives and that these two were the only two Negroes ever slated by the Dallas Committee for Responsible Government (DCRG), a white-dominated organization that is in effective control of Democratic Party candidate slating in Dallas County.
We think it would be foolish to “draw our own map” or have a third party draw a map for us when we are able, by instructing the Commission, to eliminate the unconstitutional (and therefore unacceptable) features of the Commission plan.
At this time, we read the decisions of the Supreme Court as admonishing lower federal courts to act cautiously in reapportionments and to leave racially proportional representation to legislative bodies, at least in the absence of some impelling reason to take it into account, for example, where the correction of historic racial discrimination and not merely proper representation is involved.
The judge must analyze the plan and determine that the probable results are such that minority strength is not diluted. But this legitimate concern with the outcome cannot justify a strict proportionality brought about by manipulation of district lines .... The boundaries should be drawn with an eye to compactness, contiguousness, and the preservation of natural, political and traditional boundaries; not racially balanced representation. We are not legislatures.
*1139 We think it was reasonable for the Attorney General to conclude in this case that a substantial non-white population majority—in the vicinity of 65 per cent—would be required to achieve a non-white majority of eligible voters. (Emphasis in original).
Furthermore, even preferential treatment may act to stigmatize its recipient groups, for although intended to correct systematic or institutional inequities, such a policy may imply to some the recipient's inferiority and especial need for protection.
Area | 1970 | 1980 | % Change |
---|---|---|---|
Chicago | 3,369,357 | 3,005,072 | - 10.8 |
Cook County | 5,493,766 | 5,253,190 | - 4.4 |
Collar Counties | 1,483,845 | 1,849,138 | +24.6 |
Chicago | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Race | 1970 | % | 1980 | % |
White | 1,959,910 | 58.2% | 1,287,077 | 42.8% |
Black | 1,102,630 | 32.7% | 1,188,221 | 39.5% |
Cook County (including Chicago) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
White | 3,954,014 | 72.0% | 3,217,021 | 62.3% |
Black | 1,183,475 | 21.5% | 1,308,763 | 24.9% |
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