We are unable to reach the same conclusion with regard to the Senate redistricting plan. With regard to the Hillsborough County area, the state has chosen to draw its senatorial districts such that there are no districts in which minority persons constitute a majority of the voting age population. To accomplish this result, the state chose to divide the politically cohesive minority populations in the Tampa and St. Petersburg areas. Alternative plans were presented to the legislature uniting the Tampa and St. Petersburg minority populations in order to provide minority voters an effective opportunity to elect their preferred candidate to the State Senate.... [T]he information before us, including the economic and other ties between Tampa and St. Petersburg, as well as the political cohesiveness of minority voters in those two cities, demonstrates that the two areas do share a commonality of interest. Finally, we have examined evidence, including evidence in the legislative record, which suggests that the state's approach to senatorial redistricting in the Hillsborough area was undertaken with an intent to protect incumbents. Such a rationale, of course, cannot justify the treatment of minority voters in this area by the State Senate plan.
Because this Court's review in the present proceeding is limited in scope to DOJ's section 5 preclearance inquiry, I concur in the majority opinion. I believe the present revision in the plan meets the objection evinced in DOJ's admittedly restricted review. I write to note, however, that I still conclude that the overall plan, including the present revision, fails under Section 2 of the Act because it does not provide an equal opportunity for minorities to elect representatives of their choice to the Florida legislature, as noted in my earlier dissent.
the plaintiffs have shown a fourth Hispanic district can be drawn in accordance with the [Thornburg v. ] Gingles [478 U.S. 30, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 92 L.Ed.2d 25] standard, but the plaintiffs15 have failed to prove that a fourth Hispanic district can be drawn without creating a regressive effect upon Afro–American voters in Dade County and South Florida.... Consequently, under Supreme Court precedent, this court must give deference to the state policy as expressed in the Florida plan as validated by the Florida Supreme Court.
[W]hile many or all of the factors listed in the Senate Report may be relevant to a claim of vote dilution through submergence in multimember districts, unless there is a conjunction of the following circumstances, the use of multimember districts generally will not impede the ability of minority voters to elect representatives of their choice.
(a) there are typically more aliens among minority (especially Hispanic) populations; (b) the voting age population is typically a lower proportion of the total population among minorities; (c) registration rates are often lower among minorities; and (d) turnout rates are often lower among minorities.
Legend has it that the rule came about because someone in the Justice Department took 50 percent and simply added 5 percent to compensate for the higher proportion of Hispanic noncitizens, 5 percent for lower Hispanic voting age population (VAP) and 5 percent for lower Hispanic registration and turnout.
[The 65 percent rule] is derived from the 50 percent total population, adding five percent for each of the three factors that are voting age population, because minorities tend to have a lower voting age population, lower registration patterns and a lower turnout pattern.
The 65% figure is a general guideline which has been used by the DOJ reapportionment experts and the courts as a measure of the minority population in a district needed for minority voters to have a meaningful opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice. The 65% guideline, which the Supreme Court characterized as “reasonable” in [Carey], takes into account the younger median population age and the lower voter registration and turnout of minority citizens.
[T]he general 65% guideline for remedial districts is not a required minimum which the plaintiffs must meet before they can be awarded any relief under § 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Rather, the 65% standard is a flexible and practical guideline to consider in fashioning relief for a § 2 violation.
[B]ecause minority communities are now better organized and minority citizens more likely to register and vote than was true in an earlier era [,i]t is not always necessary to have a 60% [African–American VAP district] to assure blacks the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. Although a 60% black VAP is probably still a good goal, 55% black VAP is almost always enough for black citizens to have an opportunity to participate in the political process and elect candidates of their choice.
For example, we note that the Rev. Jesse Jackson's 1984 presidential candidacy has apparently stimulated black registration and turnout nationally. More specific to Chicago, we understand that the November 1982 gubernatorial election in Illinois and the 1983 Chicago mayoral election indicated a marked increase in black registration and turnout. If these and other elections should demonstrate a significant and consistent change in voting behavior in Chicago applicable to aldermanic elections, there would have to be a corresponding change in redistricting practices and legal standards[.]
Once the Hispanic concentration reaches a certain point, then all those districts seem to elect Hispanics, but below that given point, none of the districts seem to elect Hispanics.... [N]o candidate of choice of the Hispanic ... has been elected in districts below a 59 percent Hispanic level, and in districts at 59 percent and above, those districts have in every instance elected Hispanic candidates
One would certainly want a somewhat higher black VAP for Congressional districts than for the state legislature because of the greater organization and financing necessary to conduct a campaign at that level.
Compactness does not refer to geometric shapes but to the ability of citizens to relate to each other and their representatives and to the ability of representatives to relate effectively to their constituency.
There is a union between Cuban–Americans, Nicaraguans and other Central Americans in basic philosophy, first to form policy because ... they are basically political and not economic migrations, unlike other Hispanic sectors of the United States; they generally have a very conservative, very anti-communist political philosophy on the foreign affairs.
Black voters in Florida generally vote as a cohesive racial block for the black candidate when there is a black versus white choice on the ballot for a given office.
The results reported in Table 1 [exhibit to government exhibit 46] show a clear pattern of racially polarized voting, Hispanic cohesion, and white bloc voting. It also shows that black voters united with white voters in opposition to Hispanic candidates for Senate and House positions40.... The results reported in Table 1 likewise show a pattern of strong bloc voting by whites for non-Hispanic candidates [ ... and] indicate that blacks joined with whites in opposing Hispanic Senate and House candidates.... These findings of Hispanic cohesion and white bloc voting are supported by the analyses of additional local elections in Dade County.
The high degree of racially polarized voting documented for legislative elections in Dade County indicates that Hispanic voters would have an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice only in Districts with Hispanic voting-age majorities. Otherwise white bloc voting would usually be sufficient to defeat the candidate of choice of Hispanic voters.
First, [there] are races featuring a Hispanic candidate versus a White candidate with Black[s] supporting the White candidate; Second, a Black candidate versus a White candidate with Hispanic voters supporting the White candidate; third, a Black candidate versus a Hispanic candidate with White voters holding the balance of power, and finally the[re] are races between two candidates of the same ethnic group in which voters from the other two group[s] support the least ethnic of the two candidates.
What is sometimes referred to as an access or influence seat begins in the Pompano Beach area north of Ft. Lauderdale, proceeds up to West Palm Beach and then across the Everglades into—the Everglades agricultural area—into Ft. Myers and northward through St. Lucie County, Ft. Pierce into Vero Beach and Indian River County.
Because this large concentration population in downtown Ft. Lauderdale is not available for a further access seat or majority society north of Dade County, what Plan 180 has to do in order to accomplish that end is string a district as we discussed earlier, District 28, going from Pompano Beach north to Vero Beach and Indian River County, and west of Ft. Myers on the Gulf Coast.
based upon that analysis of turnout, the same kind of analysis I did for the Hispanic districts, that those districts are designed—and I'm sorry to use these words, and they may be offensive to some people in the courtroom, but they are designed to waste African–American votes.... They are packed, and there are more African–Americans than are necessary to provide a realistic opportunity for African–Americans to elect candidates of choice.
Reapportionment is primarily a matter for legislative consideration and determination ... state legislatures have ‘primary jurisdiction’ over legislative reapportionment.... A federal district court, in the context of legislative reapportionment, should follow the policies and preferences of the state, as expressed in statutory and constitutional provisions, or in the reapportionment plans proposed by the state legislative, whenever adherence to state policy does not detract from the requirements of the federal Constitution.
The Joint Resolution as adopted by the Supreme Court better represents the black community not only in Dade County, but in south Florida. And the reasons for that are very simple: first of all, the seat that's in south Dade, which is only a thirty-some-odd-percent voting age population seat, also includes non-Cuban Republican Hispanics, that which are the Mexican community, which have proven over a period of time that they support not only Democratic candidates, but they are willing to support black candidates. And that was an example in the Daryl Jones House seat that also was testified at the south Dade hearing by the American–Mexican community, that they prefer to be in the district that would be represented by a black versus being in a district that would was being Republican.
Federal courts have recognized that these political questions do exist and that the best means to resolve them is in the process of give-and-take between citizens and their elected officials. Political questions necessarily require that policy choices be made before they can be resolved. This is not a task federal courts are equipped to handle. They have recognized their shortcomings in this area, and will, whenever possible, defer to legislative policy choices, even if the choice is perceived to be unwise or is simply not the optimum choice.
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