African American Voting Rights Legal Defense Fund, Inc. v. Villa, 92-3826

• Citation: 54 F.3d 1345
• Decision Date: 12 May 1995
• Docket Number: No. 92-3826,92-3826
• Parties: AFRICAN AMERICAN VOTING RIGHTS LEGAL DEFENSE FUND, INC.; Charles Q. Troupe; Angela D. Walton, Plaintiffs, Freeman Bosley, Jr.; Bertha Mitchell, Appellants, Ida Ford; Charles Parker; Albert Banks; Carol Page; Luretta Hawkins; Elmer Otey; Jacqueline McGill, Plaintiffs, Sharon Tyus, Appellant, Laura Gordon; Alexis Johnson, Plaintiffs, Irving Clay; Claude Taylor, Appellants, v. Thomas A. VILLA, in his capacity as President, Board of Aldermen, City of St. Louis, Missouri; Vincent C. Schoemehl, in his capacity as Mayor, City of St. Louis, Missouri; Board of Aldermen, City of St. Louis, Missouri; City of St. Louis, Appellees. American Civil Liberties Union; United States of America, Amicus Curiae.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

Page 1345

54 F.3d 1345

AFRICAN AMERICAN VOTING RIGHTS LEGAL DEFENSE FUND, INC. Charles Q. Troupe; Angela D. Walton, Plaintiffs Freeman Bosley, Jr.; Bertha Mitchell, Appellants Ida Ford; Charles Parker; Albert Banks; Carol Page Luretta Hawkins; Elmer Otey; Jacqueline McGill, Plaintiffs, Sharon Tyus, Appellant, Laura Gordon; Alexis Johnson, Plaintiffs, Irving Clay; Claude Taylor, Appellants, v. Thomas A. VILLA, in his capacity as President, Board of Aldermen, City of St. Louis, Missouri; Vincent C. Schoemehl, in his capacity as Mayor, City of St. Louis, Missouri; Board of Aldermen, City of St. Louis, Missouri; City of St. Louis, Appellees. American Civil Liberties Union; United States of America, Amicus Curiae.

No. 92-3826.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted April 12, 1995.

Decided May 12, 1995.

Judson Minor, Chicago, IL, argued, for appellant.

Julian Bush, St. Louis, MO, argued (Tyrone A. Taborn, Edward Hanlon and Michael A. Garvin, on the brief), for appellee.

Before BOWMAN, Circuit Judge, HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge, and MAGILL, Circuit Judge.

MAGILL, Circuit Judge.

This case is before us for a second time as a result of a remand by the Supreme Court. Freeman Bosley, Jr., and four other individual plaintiffs (collectively, "the Bosley plaintiffs") appealed the district court's ¹ grant of summary judgment to the City of St. Louis and various officials (collectively, "the St. Louis defendants") in this Voting Rights Act Sec. 2 challenge to a 1991 reapportionment plan. Because we find that the materials submitted to the district court fail to demonstrate the existence of a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the 1991 reapportionment plan violates Sec. 2, we affirm. ²

I. BACKGROUND

The city of St. Louis is governed by a Board of Aldermen consisting of twenty-eight aldermen elected from twenty-eight single member wards. Article I, section 3 of the St. Louis City Charter requires the St. Louis Board of Aldermen to redraw the boundaries of the aldermanic wards in accordance with federal decennial census figures. App. at 70.

These census figures reveal the changing composition of the city of St. Louis and the effects of this change upon the composition of the aldermanic wards. According to the 1970 census, used for the 1971 districting scheme, the St. Louis population looked like this:

                       % of Total  % of Voting Age      % of Aldermen
                       Population    Population     Under 1971 Plan 3
                Black     40.9          35.0                35.7
                White     58.7          64.5                64.3
                Other      0.5           0.5                 0.0
                

App. at 33-34, 60, 64-67. This population changed over the ensuing ten years, and by 1980 the census figures which were the basis for the 1981 reapportionment painted a different picture:

                       % of Total  % of Voting Age   % of Aldermen
                       Population    Population     Under 1981 Plan
                Black     45.6          40.3             39.3
                White     53.5          58.9             60.7
                Other      0.9           0.9              0.0
                

App. at 32-33, 58, 64-67. The present dispute arose when the Board attempted to follow the mandate to reapportion aldermanic wards in 1991. According to the 1990 census figures, the population of the city of St. Louis breaks down as follows:

                       % of Total  % of Voting Age     % of Safe Wards
                       Population    Population     Under 1991 Plan 4
                Black     47.5          42.7                42.9
                White     50.9          55.8                57.1
                Other      1.6           1.5                 0.0
                

App. at 32, 45, 56.

The population of St. Louis is remarkably segregated. Over 90% of the white population is concentrated in the south and northeastern portions of the city, while the black population is concentrated in the northern and northwestern portions of the city. With the exception of a "corridor" through the central portion of the city, and another corridor along the Mississippi River in the northeast part of the city, at least 75% of the population of almost every St. Louis neighborhood is a single race. Because of the combined effects of geography and segregation, the 1991 aldermanic wards may be drawn to create anywhere from eleven to seventeen safe black wards.

At the time the 1991 redistricting process began, the Board of Aldermen consisted of seventeen white incumbents and eleven black incumbents. After rejecting a plan proposed by Ward 3 Alderman Freeman Bosley, the Board approved a plan which provided for twelve safe black wards. App. at 31-32.

The Bosley plaintiffs, dissatisfied with a failure to obtain fourteen safe black wards, filed a complaint seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that the St. Louis defendants manipulated ward boundaries by "packing" ⁵ and "cracking" ⁶ black voters for the purpose and with the effect of minimizing the electoral potential of black voters in St. Louis, in violation of Sec. 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the First, Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. In February, the St. Louis defendants moved for summary judgment on the grounds that the plan's maximum deviation from the ideal ward ⁷ was + 3.98% and - 4.32%, for a total range of 8.27% and a standard deviation of 2.83%. App. at 50. The St. Louis defendants maintained that the wards had been drawn in such a way as to provide substantial proportionality ⁸ for black voters, and that the districting plans had resulted in such proportionality since 1971.

Four affidavits were attached to the St. Louis defendants' motion. Fred Steffen, Clerk of the Board of Aldermen of the City of St. Louis, provided information concerning the identity and race of aldermen who represented each ward for 1971-1992. App. at 63-67. Pelham J. Robinson, Registrar of the City of St. Louis, provided relevant sections of the St. Louis City Charter and a copy of Ordinance 62476, which established the ward boundaries under the 1991 reapportionment plan. App. at 68-83. Stephen Umsheid stated that in a few cases ward boundaries were drawn "through" census blocks, and he explained the method used in such cases. These three affidavits provided the legal and factual background for the statistical analysis contained in the affidavit of Donald L. Davison, the defendants' expert. Davison conducted extensive statistical analyses of the population of St. Louis. Davison analyzed the total population, the voting age population and the Board of Aldermen in terms of racial composition and compared the percentages of each population to the number of aldermen and safe wards. These comparisons led Davison to conclude that the percentage of safe black wards (or black aldermen) was substantially proportional to the percentage of blacks in the voting age population.

The Bosley plaintiffs opposed the motion by filing an affidavit from their own expert, Dr. Charlene Jones. Jones did not take issue with Davison's analysis of proportionality if voting age population is used as the relevant population. Rather, Jones took issue with Davison's choice to use voting age population rather than total population in his analysis of proportionality. Jones stated that blacks have historically been underrepresented in terms of total population, and therefore no proportionality existed. Jones noted the continued effects of past discrimination, a factor under White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 93 S.Ct. 2332, 37 L.Ed.2d 314 (1973), and stated that black voting power had not been maximized. Jones also objected to the Umsheid affidavit, claiming that Umsheid used a flawed methodology and improperly adjusted census figures. Jones further objected to the drawing of ward boundaries so that census blocks were split among two wards.

On May 28, the Bosley plaintiffs moved for leave to file a memorandum and additional affidavits in opposition to the St. Louis defendants' motion for summary judgment. The district court denied the motion for leave to file additional materials and granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on all plaintiffs' claims. The Bosley plaintiffs filed a Rule 59(e) motion to alter or amend the judgment that again sought to introduce additional factual materials. This motion was denied and the plaintiffs appealed the dismissal of their Voting Rights Act claims, arguing that the district court (1) abused its discretion in denying the motion for leave to file a memorandum in opposition; and (2) erred in granting summary judgment on the Voting Rights Act Sec. 2 claims. On August 4, 1993, we affirmed the district court's summary judgment pursuant to 8th Circuit Rule 47B. African Am. Voting Rights Legal Defense Fund v. Villa, 999 F.2d 1301 (8th Cir.1993) (AAVR ). We denied a petition for rehearing en banc over a dissent by Judge McMillian. Id. at 1302.

On June 30, 1994, the Supreme Court decided Johnson v. De Grandy, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 2647, 129 L.Ed.2d 775 (1994). On the same day, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in AAVR, vacated the panel opinion, and remanded the case for further consideration in light of Johnson. Tyus v. Bosley, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 2776, 129 L.Ed.2d 888 (1994). We have carefully considered the Supreme Court's decision in Johnson and have concluded that the district court's grant of summary judgment was consistent with the principles enunciated in Johnson. Accordingly, we affirm.

II. DISCUSSION

The Bosley plaintiffs argue that the district court erred in three respects when it granted summary judgment to the St. Louis defendants. The plaintiffs use Johnson to raise three specific challenges to the district court's analysis of proportionality. First, the Bosley plaintiffs argue that the district court improperly used voting age population rather than total population to define the "relevant population" for assessing proportionality. Second, they claim that the district court erred by including the entire city of St. Louis, rather than only the allegedly challenged areas, when determining the number of...