City of Mobile, Alabama v. Bolden

Decision Date19 March 1979
Docket NumberNo. 77-1844,77-1844
PartiesCITY OF MOBILE, ALABAMA, et al., Appellants, v. Wiley L. BOLDEN et al
CourtU.S. Supreme Court
Syllabus

Mobile, Ala., is governed by a Commission consisting of three members elected at large who jointly exercise all legislative, executive, and administrative power in the city. Appellees brought a class action in Federal District Court against the city and the incumbent Commissioners on behalf of all Negro citizens of the city, alleging, inter alia, that the practice of electing the City Commissioners at large unfairly diluted the voting strength of Negroes in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Although finding that Negroes in Mobile "register and vote without hindrance," the District Court nevertheless held that the at-large electoral system violated the Fifteenth Amendment and invidiously discriminated against Negroes in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and ordered that the Commission be disestablished and replaced by a Mayor and a Council elected from single-member districts. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

Held : The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded. Pp. 61-80 (opinion of STEWART, J.); Pp. 80-83 (opinion of BLACKMUN, J.); Pp. 83-94 (opinion of STEVENS, J.).

5th Cir., 571 F.2d 238, reversed and remanded.

Mr. Justice STEWART, joined by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, Mr. Justice POWELL, and Mr. Justice REHNQUIST, concluded:

1. Mobile's at-large electoral system does not violate the rights of the city's Negro voters in contravention of the Fifteenth Amendment. Racially discriminatory motivation is a necessary ingredient of a Fifteenth Amendment violation. The Amendment does not entail the right to have Negro candidates elected but prohibits only purposefully discriminatory denial or abridgment by government of the freedom to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Here, having found that Negroes in Mobile register and vote without hindrance, the courts below erred in believing that appellants invaded the protection of the Fifteenth Amendment. Pp. 61-65.

2. Nor does Mobile's at-large electoral system violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 65-80.

(a) Only if there is purposeful discrimination can there be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. And this principle applies to claims of racial discrimination affecting voting just as it does to other claims of racial discrimination. Pp. 66-68.

(b) Disproportionate effects alone are insufficient to establish a claim of unconstitutional racial vote dilution. Where the character of a law is readily explainable on grounds apart from race, as would nearly always be true where, as here, an entire system of local governance is brought into question, disproportionate impact alone cannot be decisive, and courts must look to other evidence to support a finding of discriminatory purpose. Pp. 68-70.

(c) Even assuming that an at-large municipal electoral system such as Mobile's is constitutionally indistinguishable from the election of a few members of a state legislature in multimember districts, it is clear that the evidence in this case fell far short of showing that appellants "conceived or operated [a] purposeful devic[e] to further racial . . . discrimination," Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U.S. 124, 149, 91 S.Ct. 1858, 1872, 29 L.Ed.2d 363. Pp. 70-74.

(d) The Equal Protection Clause does not require proportional representation as an imperative of political organization. While the Clause confers a substantive right to participate in elections on an equal basis with other qualified voters, this right does not protect any "political group," however defined, from electoral defeat. Since Mobile is a unitary electoral district and the Commission elections are conducted at large, there can be no claim that the "one person, one vote" principle has been violated, and therefore nobody's vote has been "diluted" in the sense in which that word was used in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506. Pp. 75-80.

Mr. Justice BLACKMUN concluded that the relief afforded appellees by the District Court was not commensurate with the sound exercise of judicial discretion. The court at least should have considered alternative remedial orders to converting Mobile's government to a mayor-council system, and in failing to do so the court appears to have been overly concerned with eliminating at-large elections per se, rather than with structuring an electoral system that provided an opportunity for black voters to participate in the city's government on an equal footing with whites. Pp. 80-83.

Mr. Justice STEVENS concluded that the proper standard for adjudging the constitutionality of a political structure, such as Mobile's, that treats all individuals as equals but adversely affects the political strength of an identifiable minority group, is the same whether the minority is identified by a racial, ethnic, religious, or economic characteristic; that Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 81 S.Ct. 125, 5 L.Ed.2d 110, suggests that the standard asks (1) whether the political structure is manifestly not the product of a routine or traditional decision, (2) whether it has a significant adverse impact on a minority group, and (3) whether it is unsupported by any neutral justification and thus was either totally irrational or entirely motivated by a desire to curtail the political strength of the minority; and that the standard focuses on the objective effects of the political decision rather than the subjective motivation of the decisionmaker. Under this standard the choice to retain Mobile's commission form of government must be accepted as constitutionally permissible even though the choice may well be the product of mixed motivation, some of which is invidious. Pp. 83-94.

Charles S. Rhyne, Washington, D. C., for appellants.

James U. Blacksher, Mobile, Ala., for appellees.

James P. Turner, Washington, D. C., for the United States, as amicus curiae, in support of appellees.

Mr. Justice STEWART announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE, Mr. Justice POWELL, and Mr. Justice REHNQUIST joined.

The city of Mobile, Ala., has since 1911 been governed by a City Commission consisting of three members elected by the voters of the city at large. The question in this case is whether this at-large system of municipal elections violates the rights of Mobile's Negro voters in contravention of federal statutory or constitutional law.

The appellees brought this suit in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Alabama as a class action on behalf of all Negro citizens of Mobile.1 Named as defendants were the city and its three incumbent Commissioners, who are the appellants before this Court. The complaint alleged that the practice of electing the City Commissioners at large unfairly diluted the voting strength of Negroes in violation of § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, and of the Fifteenth Amendment. Following a bench trial, the District Court found that the constitutional rights of the appellees had been violated, entered a judgment in their favor, and ordered that the City Commission be disestablished and replaced by a municipal government consisting of a Mayor and a City Council with members elected from single-member districts. 423 F.Supp. 384.3 The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in its entirety, 5th Cir., 571 F.2d 238, agreeing that Mobile's at-large elections operated to discriminate against Negroes in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, id., at 245, and finding that the remedy formulated by the District Court was appropriate. An appeal was taken to this Court, and we noted probable jurisdiction, 439 U.S. 815, 99 S.Ct. 75, 58 L.Ed.2d 106. The case was originally argued in the 1978 Term, and was reargued in the present Term.

I

In Alabama, the form of municipal government a city may adopt is governed by state law. Until 1911, cities not covered by specific legislation were limited to governing themselves through a mayor and city council.4 In that year, the Alabama Legislature authorized every large municipality to adopt a commission form of government.5 Mobile established its City Commission in the same year, and has maintained that basic system of municipal government ever since.

The three Commissioners jointly exercise all legislative, executive and administrative power in the municipality. They are required after election to designate one of their number as Mayor, a largely ceremonial office, but no formal provision is made for allocating specific executive or administrative duties among the three.6 As required by the state law enacted in 1911, each candidate for the Mobile City Commission runs for election in the city at large for a term of four years in one of three numbered posts, and may be elected only by a majority of the total vote. This is the same basic electoral system that is followed by literally thousands of municipalities and other local governmental units throughout the Nation.7

II

Although required by general principles of judicial administration to do so, Spector Motor Service, Inc. v. McLaughlin, 323 U.S. 101, 105, 65 S.Ct. 152, 154, 89 L.Ed. 101; Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288, 347, 56 S.Ct. 466, 483, 80 L.Ed. 688 (Brandeis, J., concurring), neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals addressed the complaint's statutory claim—that the Mobile electoral system violates § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Even a cursory examination of that claim, however, clearly discloses that it adds nothing to the appellees' complaint.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act provides:

"No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political ...

To continue reading

Request your trial
608 cases
  • Brown v. BOARD OF SCH. COM'RS OF MOBILE CTY., ALA., Civ. A. No. 75-298-P.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of Alabama
    • 15 Abril 1982
    ...court of appeals and remanded the case "to that court for further proceedings in light of the decision ... in City of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55 100 S.Ct. 1490, 64 L.Ed.2d 47 ...." Williams v. Brown, 446 U.S. 236, 100 S.Ct. 1519, 64 L.Ed.2d 181 (1980) . On remand, hearings were held in ......
  • Terrazas v. Clements
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas
    • 24 Marzo 1982
    ...to this litigation. This Court cannot mandate racial or political proportional representation. See City of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 78, 100 S.Ct. 1490, 1506, 64 L.Ed.2d 47 (1980); United Jewish Organizations v. Carey, 430 U.S. 144, 166-67, 97 S.Ct. 996, 1010-11, 51 L.Ed.2d 229 (1977);......
  • Parker v. Ohio
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of Ohio
    • 23 Mayo 2003
    ...redress under the Act. The 1982 amendments to Section 2 of the Act responded to the Supreme Court's decision, Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 100 S.Ct. 1490, 64 L.Ed.2d 47 (1980), a decision that required plaintiffs to show discriminatory intent to prove a vote-dilution claim on either const......
  • Canaan v. Abdelnour
    • United States
    • California Supreme Court
    • 30 Diciembre 1985
    ...to be purposeful, the scheme also violates the 14th and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution. (See Mobile v. Bolden (1980) 446 U.S. 55, 100 S.Ct. 1490, 64 L.Ed.2d 47; Velasquez v. City of Abilene, Tex. (5th Cir.1984) 725 F.2d 1017, 1021.)At-large city council elections have bee......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
1 firm's commentaries
63 books & journal articles
  • Reviving the Prophylactic VRA: Section 3, Purcell, and the New Vote Denial.
    • United States
    • Yale Law Journal Vol. 132 No. 5, March 2023
    • 1 Marzo 2023
    ...3 applies when states violate the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments. 52 U.S.C. [section] 10302(c) (2018). In City of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 67-68 (1980), the Supreme Court held that the Fifteenth Amendment only bars intentionally discriminatory voting restrictions. And in Washingto......
  • Felon disenfranchisement: law, history, policy, and politics.
    • United States
    • Fordham Urban Law Journal Vol. 32 No. 5, September 2005
    • 1 Septiembre 2005
    ...Coombe, 366 F.3d 102, 120 (2d Cir. 2004). (146.) Boerne, 521 U.S. at 520. (147.) Id. at 511. (148.) Price, supra note 70, at 385. (149.) 446 U.S. 55, 58 (150.) Id. at 60-61. (151.) Id. at 61-62; see also Exparte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651 (1884); Neal v. Del. 103 U.S. 370 (1880); United States......
  • The Ideology of Supreme Court Opinions and Citations
    • United States
    • Iowa Law Review No. 97-3, March 2012
    • 1 Marzo 2012
    ...443 U.S. 368 (1979) Columbus Bd. of Educ. v. Penick, 443 U.S. 449 (1979) Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980) City of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55 (1980) Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291 (1980) Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980) Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448 (1980) Richmond ......
  • Reconnecting doctrine and purpose: a comprehensive approach to strict scrutiny after Adarand and Shaw.
    • United States
    • University of Pennsylvania Law Review Vol. 149 No. 1, November 2000
    • 1 Noviembre 2000
    ...(describing the way in which White failed to articulate the nature of the "minority vote dilution" the Court sought to remedy). (218) 446 U.S. 55, 66-70 (1980) (plurality opinion). Justice White's separate opinion in City of Mobile essentially argues only that purposeful discrimination coul......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT