Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama Notes

Syllabus Note

• A syllabus is released alongside the court's opinion for reader convenience, not part of the court's official opinion. Reference: United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

Case Background

• Case: Alabama Legislative Black Caucus et al. v. Alabama et al., No. 13–895, argued November 12, 2014, decided March 25, 2015.
• Context: In 2012, Alabama redrew the boundaries for its 105 House districts and 35 Senate districts.
• Objectives: Alabama prioritized:
  • Minimizing population deviation among districts (less than 1% deviation from the ideal).
  • Avoiding retrogression regarding racial minorities' ability to elect preferred candidates under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ($52 \text{ U. S. C. } \S 10304(b)$).

Legal Challenge

• Appellants: Alabama Legislative Black Caucus, Alabama Democratic Conference, and others.
• Claim: The new district boundaries constitute a racial gerrymander, violating the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
• District Court Ruling: The three-judge District Court ruled in favor of the State (2 to 1).

District Court's Reasoning

• Electoral districting violates the Equal Protection Clause when race is the “predominant” factor in deciding district boundaries (Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900, 913, 916), and the use of race is not “narrowly tailored” to serve a compelling state interest (Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U. S. 899, 902 (Shaw II)).
• The court made four critical determinations:
  1. Both appellants argued that the Acts as a whole constitute racial gerrymanders. The Conference also argued racial gerrymandering in Senate Districts 7, 11, 22, and 26.
  2. The Conference lacked standing to make its racial gerrymandering claims.
  3. Race was not the predominant motivating factor in the redistricting decisions.
  4. If there was a predominant use of race, it was narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest in avoiding retrogression under Section 5.

Supreme Court Holding

1. The District Court’s analysis of the racial gerrymandering claim as referring to the State “as a whole,” rather than district-by-district, was legally erroneous. Pp. 5–12.
   • This Court has consistently described a claim of racial gerrymandering as a claim that race was improperly used in the drawing of the boundaries of one or more specific electoral districts, see, e.g., Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630, 649 (Shaw I), and has described the plaintiff’s evidentiary burden similarly, see Miller, supra, at 916. The Court’s district-specific language makes sense in light of the personal nature of the harms that underlie a racial gerrymandering claim, see Bush v. Vera, 517 U. S. 952, 957; Shaw I, supra, at 648. Pp. 5–6.
   • The District Court found the fact that racial criteria had not predominated in the drawing of some Alabama districts sufficient to defeat a claim of racial gerrymandering with respect to the State as an undifferentiated whole. But a showing that race-based criteria did not significantly affect the drawing of some Alabama districts would have done little to defeat a claim that race-based criteria predominantly affected the drawing of other Alabama districts. Thus, the District Court’s undifferentiated statewide analysis is insufficient, and the District Court must on remand consider racial gerrymandering with respect to the individual districts challenged by appellants. Pp. 7–8.
   • The Caucus and the Conference did not waive the right to further consideration of a district-by-district analysis. The record indicates that plaintiffs’ evidence and arguments embody the claim that individual majority-minority districts were racially gerrymandered, and those are the districts that the District Court must reconsider. Although plaintiffs relied heavily upon statewide evidence to prove that race predominated in the drawing of individual district lines, neither the use of statewide evidence nor the effort to show widespread effect can transform a racial gerrymandering claim about a set of individual districts into a separate, general claim that the legislature racially gerrymandered the State “as” an undifferentiated “whole.” Pp. 8–12.
2. The District Court also erred in deciding, sua sponte, that the Conference lacked standing. It believed that the “record” did “not clearly identify the districts in which the individual members of the [Conference] reside.” But the Conference’s post-trial brief and the testimony of a Conference representative support an inference that the organization has members in all of the majority-minority districts, which is sufficient to meet the Conference’s burden of establishing standing. At the very least, the Conference reasonably believed that, in the absence of a state challenge or a court request for more detailed information, it need not provide additional information such as a specific membership list. While the District Court had an independent obligation to confirm its jurisdiction, in these circumstances elementary principles of procedural fairness required the District Court, rather than acting sua sponte, to give the Conference an opportunity to provide evidence of member residence. On remand, the District Court should permit the Conference to file its member- ship list and the State to respond, as appropriate. Pp. 12–15.
3. The District Court also did not properly calculate “predominance” in its alternative holding that “[r]ace was not the predominant motivating factor” in the creation of any of the challenged districts. It reached its conclusion in part because it placed in the balance, among other nonracial factors, legislative efforts to create districts of approximately equal population. An equal population goal, however, is not one of the “traditional” factors to be weighed against the use of race to determine whether race “predominates,” see Miller, supra, at 916. Rather, it is part of the redistricting background, taken as a given, when determining whether race, or other factors, predominate in a legislator’s determination as to how equal population objectives will be met. Had the District Court not taken a contrary view of the law, its “predominance” conclusions, including those concerning the four districts that the Conference specifically challenged, might well have been different. For example, there is strong, perhaps over- whelming, evidence that race did predominate as a factor when the legislature drew the boundaries of Senate District 26. Pp. 15–19.
4. The District Court’s final alternative holding—that “the [chal- lenged] Districts would satisfy strict scrutiny”—rests upon a misper- ception of the law. Section 5 does not require a covered jurisdiction to maintain a particular numerical minority percentage. It requires the jurisdiction to maintain a minority’s ability to elect a preferred can- didate of choice. Pp. 19–23.
   • The statute’s language, 52 U. S. C. §§10304(b), (d), and De- partment of Justice Guidelines make clear that §5 is satisfied if mi- Cite as: 575 U. S. ____ (2015) 3
   • nority voters retain the ability to elect their preferred candidates. The history of §5 further supports this view, as Congress adopted the language in §5 to reject this Court’s decision in Georgia v. Ashcroft, 539 U. S. 461, and to accept the views of Justice Souter’s dissent— that, in a §5 retrogression case, courts should ask whether a new vot- ing provision would likely deprive minority voters of their ability to elect a candidate of their choice, and that courts should not mechani- cally rely upon numerical percentages but should take account of all significant circumstances, id., at 493, 498, 505, 509. Here, both the District Court and the legislature relied heavily upon a mechanically numerical view as to what counts as forbidden retrogression. Pp. 19– 22.
   • In saying this, this Court does not insist that a state legisla- ture, when redistricting, determine precisely what percent minority population §5 demands. A court’s analysis of the narrow tailoring re- quirement insists only that the legislature have a “strong basis in ev- idence” in support of the (race-based) choice that it has made. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 29. Here, however, the District Court and the legislature both asked the wrong question with respect to narrow tailoring. They asked how to maintain the present minori- ty percentages in majority-minority districts, instead of asking the extent to which they must preserve existing minority percentages in order to maintain the minority’s present ability to elect the candidate of its choice. Because asking the wrong question may well have led to the wrong answer, the Court cannot accept the District Court’s con- clusion. Pp. 22–23.

Disposition:

• 989 F. Supp. 2d 1227, vacated and remanded.

Geographical Focus of Racial Gerrymandering Claims

• Racial gerrymandering claims apply to individual districts, not the state as a whole.
• The District Court erred in finding the absence of racial predominance in some districts sufficient to dismiss claims regarding the state as a whole.
• The Court remands for consideration of racial gerrymandering in individual districts.

Standing of the Alabama Democratic Conference

• The District Court erred in denying the Conference standing, as evidence suggests the organization has members in all majority-minority districts.
• The District Court should allow the Conference to provide a membership list and the State to respond.

Calculation of