NAACP v. Fordice, 99-60505
| Decision Date | 17 May 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 99-60505,99-60505 |
| Citation | 252 F.3d 361 |
| Parties | (5th Cir. 2001) NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE, Etc; ET AL, Plaintiffs, ELIJAH WILSON; ROBERT LEFLORE,Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. KIRK FORDICE, Etc; ET AL, Defendants, KIRK FORDICE, Governor of the State of Mississippi, In His Official Capacity and as Member of the State of Mississippi State Board of Election Commissioners; MIKE MOORE, Attorney General of the State of Mississippi, In His Official Capacity and as Member of the State of Mississippi State Board of Election Commissioners; DICK MOLPUS, Secretary of State of the State of Mississippi, In His Official Capacity and as Member of the State of Mississippi State Board of Election Commissioners; THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI STATE BOARD OF ELECTION COMMISSIONERS; MISSISSIPPI DEMOCRATIC PARTY EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, Defendants-Appellees |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.
Before GARWOOD, HIGGINBOTHAM, and STEWART, Circuit Judges.
The issues before us today are whether the district court erred in finding that the Plaintiffs-Appellants met their burden of proof under the first necessary precondition of a Section 2 Voting Rights claim, and whether the district court erred in ultimately denying their claim under its totality of the circumstances inquiry. For the following reasons, we affirm the district court's decision.
The Central, Northern, and Southern voting districts into which Mississippi is currently divided were drawn in approximately 1840 to organize the election of supreme court justices. In 1886 and 1930, respectively, the state began to elect its three public service commissioners and three transportation commissioners from these districts as well. Since their inception, the configuration of these districts has remained relatively unchanged.
As they presently exist, each of the three districts has an east to west configuration and consists of white voting age population majorities. Plaintiffs-Appellants, Elijah Wilson and Robert Leflore ("Wilson"), claim that maintaining the districts with these white voting age population majorities violates Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. See 42 U.S.C. § 1973 (2000). Accordingly, Wilson filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi against Defendants-Appellees, Kirk Fordice, Mike Moore, Dick Molpus, the State of Mississippi State Board of Election Commissioners, and the Mississippi Democratic Party Executive Committee ("Fordice"), charging that the use of these districts to elect public service and transportation commissioners impermissibly dilutes the voting strength of Mississippi's African-American citizens.
Reasoning that Wilson's claim was barred by res judicata, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of Fordice. On appeal, this court vacated and remanded. NAACP v. Fordice, No. 95-60293 (5th Cir. Dec. 23, 1996). Wilson then sought an order directing reconfiguration of the districts to create a majority African-American voting age population district along the western side of Mississippi. After a bench trial, the district court found that Wilson had failed to prove that the state's three voting districts, as currently configured, violate Section 2 and dismissed his complaint. Wilson now appeals.
We review de novo the legal standards a court applies to determine whether Section 2 has been violated. Perez v. Pasadena Indep. Sch. Dist., 165 F.3d 368, 372 (5th Cir. 1999). However, the district court's findings in any Section 2 vote dilution dispute are determinations "peculiarly dependent upon the facts of each case" that require "an intensely local appraisal of the design and impact of the contested electoral mechanisms." Thornburg v. Gingles, 479 U.S. 30, 79, 106 S. Ct 2752, 92 L. Ed. 2d 25 (1986). Therefore, we review the district court's findings on the Gingles threshold requirements and its ultimate findings on vote dilution for clear error. Perez, 165 F.3d at 372. We thereby "preserve[]the benefit of the trial court's particular familiarity with the indigenous political reality without endangering the rule of law." Gingles, 479 U.S. at 79.
In Anderson v. City of Bessemer, 470 U.S. 564, 105 S. Ct. 1504, 84 L. Ed. 2d 518 (1985), the Supreme Court articulated general principles that govern the exercise of an appellate court's power to overturn factual findings under the clearly erroneous standard. First, "a finding is clearly erroneous when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed." Id. at 573. Appellate courts must, however, carefully heed any such "firm conviction."
In particular, despite an appellate court's conviction that it would have weighed the evidence differently had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it may not reverse a district court's findings when they are based on a plausible account of the evidence considered against the entirety of the record. Id. In other words, when "two permissible views of the evidence exist, the fact finder's choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous." Id. Applying the aforementioned principles to findings under the respective Gingles threshold and totality of the circumstances vote dilution inquiries, this court has stated that if a district court uses the correct legal standards, its findings will not be reversed unless its account was implausible based upon the entirety of the record or the reviewing court is left with the "'definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.'" Magnolia Bar Ass'n, Inc. v. Lee, 994 F.2d 1143, 1147 (5th Cir. 1993)(quoting Anderson, 470 U.S. at 573).
The legal standard governing a voting rights claim is found in Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Section 2 states that:
(a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any state or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 4(f)(2), as provided in subsection (b).
(b) A violation of subsection (a) is established if, based on the totality of the circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivisions are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) 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.
Analysis of a Section 2 claim in this court requires a two-part framework. Magnolia Bar, 994 F.2d at 1146. First, a class of minority voters must satisfy the three threshold preconditions announced in Gingles. Id. Second, the minority voters must offer evidence of the circumstances of the local political landscape. Id. Taken together, the Gingles threshold and "totality of the circumstances" inquiries are the means by which courts determine whether a challenged election practice or procedure has resulted in an abridgement or denial of the right to vote based on color or race in violation of Section 2. Id.
To meet the threshold Gingles inquiry, a minority group challenging an electoral mechanism must prove three elements by a preponderance of the evidence. Id. First, it must demonstrate that it is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a voting age majority in a district. Second, the minority group must show that it is politically cohesive. Third, the minority group must demonstrate that the majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it, in the absence of special circumstances, usually to defeat the minority group's preferred candidate. Gingles, 478 U.S. at 50-51; Growe v. Emison, 507 U.S. 25, 40, 113 S. Ct. 1075, 122 L. Ed. 2d 388 (1993)( the three Gingles prerequisites applicable to vote dilution claims in single-member districts).
Wilson relies on 1990 decennial census data in configuring three proposed African-American majority voting age population districts. Each of these plans creates a new westernmost district along the Mississippi River with 50.66%, 52.66%, and 50.12% African-American voting age populations respectively. The district court found that these proposed districts satisfy Wilson's burden under the first Gingles precondition. See Westwego Citizens for Better Gov't v. City of Westwego, 946 F.2d 1109, 1117 & n.9 (5th Cir. 1991). Fordice, however, takes issue with this finding and avers that the proposed districts, which were drafted using 1990 census data, have population deviations in excess of the de minimis limits placed on judicial redistricting plans. Based on data from the 1997 and 1998 census estimates, Fordice alternatively asserts that, at the time of trial, Wilson's proffered districts contained excessive population deviations in violation of the constitutional one person, one vote requirement.
These arguments reflect the perplexing issues the district court faced regarding the standard of deviation applicable to satisfy the Constitution's one person, one vote mandate when a voting rights plaintiff submits proposed redistricting plans as well as whether census estimates are adequate to clearly and convincingly rebut the presumptive correctness of decennial census data. We need not, however, resolve these intricate questions on this record. Even assuming arguendo that Wilson...
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... ... Id. ; see also NAACP v. Fordice , 252 F.3d 361, 367 (5th Cir. 2001) (quoting Magnolia Bar Ass'n, Inc. v. Lee , 994 ... ...